I
qualified as a doctor 15 years ago. Working as a busy, full-
time GP for the last 10 years, it is often a struggle finding the
necessary balance to maintain my sanity, my empathy for
patients and my emotional reserve.
With the current ever-increasing demand in the NHS to
meet targets and make savings (as well as patients’ ever-increasing
expectations despite dwindling resources) it is more important than
ever to equip staff with the tools to improve resilience and promote
self-care.
It is also imperative to educate patients about managing and
maintaining their own health, giving them the ability to improve their
own wellbeing.
Yoga is an easily accessible, cost efficient and effective means to
improve people’s mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.
I started practicing yoga a decade ago, a few years after completing
my GP training. As a fully independent practitioner, the pressure of
workload and stress of living with risk increased exponentially.
I was searching for an antidote when I stumbled upon yoga. The
moving meditation that is yoga and the philosophy underpinning
it have given me a different view of the world and of life. It has
equipped me with the resilience to not just ‘survive’ as a doctor in
the NHS but to do so with a smile.
It has inspired me to share this magic that is yoga with others,
both colleagues as well as patients. This led me to embark on a yoga
teacher training course which I completed this year allowing me to
spread the yoga love.
My enthusiasm must be contagious: I have had a lot of interest in
the short lunchtime classes from staff at my surgery as well as staff
at our local nursing home. I am hoping to demonstrate how yoga
can help with staff wellbeing and job satisfaction.
Yoga has also helped with what I am able to offer my patients,
giving me another option, a tool to allow people to help themselves.
Prescribing and teaching pranayama (breathing) techniques to help
with anxiety, for example; giving appropriate, safe, short asana
sequences to help with lower back pain, neck and shoulder tension.
There will, of course, always be a place for medication, but
there are a lot of common everyday presentations where yoga
can help either in place of, or in conjunction with, traditional
medication prescriptions.
It is vitally important that awareness of yoga and its benefits
is further explored so that yoga can be assimilated as a well-
recognised and widely accepted therapeutic means to help
maintain wellbeing.The role of yoga for a GP and in the wider NHS. By Jackie Cheng
A GP’s perspective
I am excited to be part of this time of discovery as yoga finds its
feet as a staple option – and potentially as a prescription in the
NHS. It has been an invaluable way to keep me balanced and sane,
to remind me to be still, to remind me to live in the moment and to
remind me to breathe.Jackie Cheng works as a GP in Wiltshire and is a lover of all things
yoga. She lives and teaches yoga in Southampton, Hampshire.
See chiyogasouthampton.co.uk for more details“Yoga has equipped me with
the resilience to not just
‘survive’ as a doctor in the
NHS but to do so with a smile.”yoga in the