Southwest Florida, in fact the whole country, has a shortage of health care workers, mental health specialists, first responders and teachers, even as the needs for them continues to grow.

But we have proven tools to help prevent burnout and lessen stress to help our current workforce remain engaged in their careers helping others. Imagine what we could do for our community if we helped the workers who help us?

From January through April, more than 30 members of the team at SalusCare, the largest nonprofit mental health and substance abuse treatment agency in Southwest Florida, participated weekly in a pilot program designed to help to improve job satisfaction and the ability to meet the area’s growing needs for mental and behavioral health services.

The program trains people to be able to pull out of fight or flight responses to shift from stress, dysregulation and incoherence to self-regulation, coherence and resilience, resulting in less anxiety, stress, fatigue and greater energy, health and fulfillment. 

The purpose of the pilot was to reduce burnout and turnover, as well as address the reasons that cause people to not show up physically and mentally. If we don’t care for our caretakers, they can’t care for us. According to a 2022 study by the Centers for Disease Control, 46% of health workers reported feeling burned out often or very often, compared to 32% in 2018.

The training program used at SalusCare is not new. It uses science-based meditation developed through research since 1991 by the HeartMath Institute to align the body, mind and emotions through breathing techniques. After learning techniques, participants in the pilot program used non-invasive bio-feedback Heart Rate Variability monitors to help reach and measure “heart coherence,” to balance mind and emotions. The monitor measures naturally occurring beat-to-beat changes in heart rate/heart rhythms to measure adaptation to stress and environmental demands.

We knew from HeartMath’s history that we would see positive changes with the pilot, but the results, based on surveys of SalusCare’s participants conducted before the training began and after it ended, were better than we expected.

Significant decreases were noted in areas evaluated that can impede organizational performance. Organizational stress, which includes pressures of life, relational tension and stress, decreased 12%. Emotional stress, which includes anxiety and depression and anger and resentment, decreased 23%. Physical stress, which includes fatigue and health symptoms, decreased 27%. All categories measured improved from below average to above average. Other categories that measured emotional energy and contentment increased between 8 and 11%. 

“Our communication is much more direct, but not threatening,” said Michelle Sutherland, executive administrator and director of outsourced operations for SalusCare. “Feedback is given and received, and we feel safe doing it. As a group, we have slowed down to process information and take the time to be thoughtful in our feedback. We have opened up more as a team.”

At SalusCare, meetings now start with a few minutes of techniques the group learned to help collect and focus. As the result of more effective communication, one regular meeting at SalusCare that used to last more than an hour has been reduced to 30 minutes. 

The improvements were not just at work. One participant said the program resulted in significant reduction in her diabetic gastroparesis symptoms.

“It sounds so simple, that breathing will change my life,” Sutherland says. “But it works.”

The program has been proven scientifically over 30 years and is based on the idea that the heart-brain connection influences health, emotions, intuition and perception. The program has been used nationwide for employees of the military, hospitals and first responders.

With these impressive results from the pilot study at SalusCare we hope the community will support expanding the training to the rest of the staff as well as to other health care workers, first responders, teachers and others through grants and philanthropy.

We as a community can help reignite passion, increase energy levels and diminish symptoms of fatigue, sleep disturbances and stress, allowing frontline workers to be more efficient and effective in every place in their lives.

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