Considerations for Fueling Resilience
Presented by Cheryl Van Demark
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Intentional resilience building is an often overlooked yet critical asset to successful rehabilitation. Fundamental, evidence-based skill sets to build resilience can be integrated into self-care plans to support optimal healing for patients and to nurture the health professionals who serve them. Each course in this series features a facet of the science of resilience, then offers an experiential component that can be immediately applied to home practice or used in a clinical setting.
It is necessary to consider how well patients are resourced to be resilient through their rehabilitation. Quality of fuel in the form or food, sleep, breath, digestion, eliminatory function, and environment are important aspects of creating self-care plans.
Meet your instructor
Cheryl Van Demark
Cheryl Van Demark is a physical therapist, yoga therapist, and yoga teacher with a master’s degree in physical education and exercise science. She is approaching 40 years of helping individuals optimize body alignment, restore movement, build strength, and cultivate a balance in body, mind, and spirit to pursue joyful living.…
Chapters & learning objectives
1. The Gift of Sleep
It is unsurprising that those with chronic illness and chronic pain often experience poor-quality sleep. Taking time to discuss evening rituals with patients to look for ways they might be interested in to improve their sleep is imperative for all aspects of health. The quality of sleep is reflected in attention, mood, and available energy for engaged rehabilitation. Health professionals will be encouraged to also apply what is learned to their self-care.
2. Food Is Medicine
Exploring patient relationships with food not only as fuel but also as that which impacts the quality and function of the body tissue is an essential conversation in rehabilitation or health coaching. Food is presented as a sacred resource with medicinal qualities that can be proinflammatory or anti-inflammatory, can have significant impact on the function of the gut microbiome, and can influence many of our most common chronic illnesses and chronic pain.
3. Breath as Vitality
People tend to take breath for granted, so we seldom pay attention to how we breathe. In the yoga tradition, breath is a metaphor for vitality. Science is demonstrating that breath is a powerful tool for self-regulation of the ANS and for assisting circulation of cerebrospinal fluid flow in ways that may help in the treatment of inflammatory neurodegenerative conditions. Humans get better at whatever we practice the most, so a case is made in this chapter to practice mindfully engaging breath as a touchstone throughout the day.
