How to enhance the well-being of healthcare service providers and their patients? A mindfulness proposal

Abstract

The notion of mindfulness is key to developing ideas that can address how healthcare service providers (e.g., clinicians) can effectively enhance their own well-being in the workplace, and by doing so, increase the well-being of their patients. The seminal definition of mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4). Linehan (1993) argued that mindfulness involves six skills: three skills involve what the person is doing (observing, describing, and participating) and three skills relate to how the person is doing (non-judgmentally, focused attention, and performance quality). Another way to illustrate mindfulness is to make reference to its opposite: lack of awareness about current experience and a preoccupation with the past (rumination) or the future (worry). Therefore, mindfulness is both a skill and a way of being that can be cultivated through mindful meditation practices—formal practices such as sitting meditation or yoga, and informal practices such as eating, walking, and driving meditation.