How to bridge Treatment and Prevention with the Wisdom of Ayurveda
In this Changemaker Challenge episode, Carly Banks sits down with yoga health coaches with backgrounds in Western medicine to talk about integrative medicine.
Integrative medicine is an approach to health care that addresses the full range of factors that can affect a person’s health: physical, mental, emotional, environmental, etc. Ayurveda is the perfect complement to allopathic medicine, which focuses very little on the prevention of illness and disease. While health care in the United States is starting to offer more wellness-based services and alternative healing modalities, the delivery is hit or miss and far less meaningful than the work we do as yoga health coaches.
With the implementation of new laws and fear of malpractice, nurses have lost touch with what their scope of practice encompasses. It encompasses teaching and educating the public. Nurses CAN discuss diet, lifestyle, supplements and medication. So nurses can educate in line with what we learn in Yoga Health Coaching. For nurses, Yoga Health Coaching is a fulfilling return to the reason why they got into nursing in the first place.
Yoga Health Coaches in the medical field can start to bridge the gap between Western medicine and Ayurveda, between a treatment-based system and a prevention-based system. What we learn in Yoga Health Coaching demystifies ayurveda and makes it accessible to everyone.
What you’ll get out of tuning in:
- Why Ayurveda is the perfect complement to allopathic medicine.
- How teaching patients about Ayurveda will help future generations.
- How Yoga Health Coaching provides nurses with the structure to effectively educate patients and client about the foundations for health.
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Show Highlights:
- 0:00 – Integrative medicine is an approach to health care that addresses the full range of factors that can affect a person’s health: physical, mental, emotional, environmental, etc.
- 2:15 – Annette Schellnbarger worked as a bedside nurse for over a decade. She discontinued her work a couple of years ago in order to complete her training as an Ayurvedic Practitioner. She sees ayurveda as the perfect complement to allopathic medicine, especially in the area of mental health.
- 3:55 – Nancy Plunkett has been a hospital nurse for over 22 years. What she noticed about allopathic medicine was how little emphasis was placed on prevention. As a yoga health coach, she now feels a sense of fulfillment because she is able to help people prevent illness and disease. Her fear is that as an R.N., she’s not able to treat or diagnose anything, so she’ll have to be careful with how she approaches her patients.
- 6:30 – With the implementation of new laws and fear of malpractice, nurses have lost touch with what their scope of practice encompasses. It encompasses teaching and educating the public. Nurses CAN discuss diet, lifestyle, supplements and medication. So nurses can educate in line with what we learn in Yoga Health Coaching.
- 10:00 – For nurses, Yoga Health Coaching is a fulfilling return to the reason why they got into nursing in the first place. Nancy is hopeful that she and other Yoga Health Coaches in the medical field can start to bridge the gap between Western medicine and Ayurveda, between a treatment-based system and a prevention-based system. That will require educating and collaborating with medical doctors.
- 18:10 – Teaching patients who are being treated for disease or illness about the wisdom of ayurveda will help that wisdom filter down to future generations who may be able to avoid the disease process. What we learn in Yoga Health Coaching demystifies ayurveda and makes it accessible to everyone.
- 25:35 – If you are in a medical field, Yoga Health Coaching provides you with the structure to teach your patients or clients the foundations for health. While health care in the United States is starting to offer more wellness-based services and alternative healing modalities, the delivery is hit or miss and far less meaningful than the work we do as yoga health coaches.
Your Favorite Quotes:
- “There are so many laws, and we have been put in such a place of fear that we have lost touch with what is our scope of practice. And our scope of practice involves teaching and educating the public.” — Annette Schellenbarger
- “We have to allow people to be in charge of their health because what we’re ultimately doing is teaching them how to become self aware.” — Annette Schellenbarger
- “This is the fulfilling part of Yoga Health Coaching for me is that I can do what I was supposed to do in the first place, what I was taught to do.” — Nancy Plunkett
- “Imagine if we can teach those people who are acute about disease prevention, then in another generation or two, that knowledge will carry down.” — Paige Pearman
- “As a nurse . . . , I have worked with very, very ill people. And 80% of the reason why they’re there, even the cancer patients, were due to lifestyle and food choices. Every single one of them. And so ayurveda to me was like this lifeline.” — Annette Schellenbarger
Guest BIO:
Paige Pearman is an Ayurvedic Health Counselor through the California College of Ayurveda and Yoga Health Coach.
Internationally known Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist, Marma Therapist, Herbal Rasayanist, Registered Nurse, Massage Therapist, and Registered Yoga Teacher, Annette Shellenbarger, is the original founder of Chandra Ayurveda.
Annette brings long-term balance and health to her clients that range from next-door neighbors to yogis in Europe. Annette is also a leader in bridging Western and Eastern healing modalities, and restoring Ayurveda to its authentic, spiritual and most effective roots, and is an innovator in applying Ayurveda as a complimentary system of well being, wellness and health.
Annette works with western doctors to support clients and provide a well rounded, holistic system of healing. Annette teaches and lectures at yoga studios, hospitals, community centers, and has a successful online program teaching Ayurveda to medical professionals, health coaches, yoga teachers, Registered Dietitians, and functional medicine doctors.
Nancy Plunkett is a registered nurse, yoga teacher, yoga health coach, yoga nidra facilitator, Take A Breath facilitator, and facilitator on yoga sailing retreats.
