*This was written before the US stimulus package was passed and some independent contractors may be able to get unemployment pay

We are living in extraordinary times. Everyone I know has experienced hard times at some point, individually, but as a whole nation, and as the collective of massage therapists, we are currently going through things that we didn’t expect to go through. When this started (before it was acknowledged as a pandemic, and unfortunately even since), some people had the belief that it was something that existed on the other side of the world and wouldn’t affect us. Others have claimed it’s just a germ, or just the flu, or a political conspiracy. As a nation, we were ill-prepared. I will save my political rant about that for another day (or another book). Right now, people need help.

Many massage therapists have voluntarily shut down their practice, and that includes those who have no savings and are worried about where their next rent payment will come from. Others are continuing to work, citing their finances. Others work for chains that threaten that they will have no job if they refuse to work. Harder times are coming unless we do everything we can to stem the spread of this illness.

I have put together some information and some resources that massage therapists will hopefully find beneficial.

Financial Help

• • Today (Saturday, March 21 2020) as I am writing this, the Senate and the House are in session, putting differences aside, and working with White House negotiators trying to finalize the details of the economic stimulus plan. Current thought is that individuals and small businesses will receive $1000-$1200 checks, and the plan is to get them out there very quickly, hopefully, April, and there may be an additional payment in May. The current thought is that if you filed taxes last year, you will not have to do anything special in order to receive it; it will automatically be mailed to you. I suggest watching national news shows to keep updated on this.

• • The Department of Labor has several important announcements on its website. While there is a statement to contact your individual state, the Federal government has issued specific new guidance for the states. Under the guidance, federal law permits significant flexibility for states to amend their laws to provide unemployment insurance benefits in multiple scenarios related to COVID-19. For example, federal law allows states to pay benefits where:
  • An employer temporarily ceases operations due to COVID-19, preventing employees from coming to work;
  • An individual is quarantined with the expectation of returning to work after the quarantine is over; and
  • An individual leaves employment due to a risk of exposure or infection or to care for a family member.
  • In addition, federal law does not require an employee to quit in order to receive benefits due to the impact of COVID-19.

• • Obviously, I cannot list resources for specific states. My suggestions are for you to contact your state unemployment office to find out. There are local offices in most towns. I live in a very small town, but there is one here.

• • If you are a business owner, the Small Business Administration is helping small businesses with long-term (up to 30 years) loans at 3.75% interest that can cover operating expenses, payroll, etc. When you call your local office, say you are inquiring about the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (the name they are giving to this instance).]

• • If you have credit card debt, don’t panic. Call your card company. Many of the major credit card companies are offering cardholders the opportunity to skip payments without interest. 

• • If you rent your home/apartment, many cities and counties are halting evictions due to late payment, and offering rent help. 

• • If you have a student loan, now is a good time to ask for forbearance. Contact your particular lender.

• • Many utilities, phone, and internet companies are giving people a break right now by easing shutoffs and forgoing late payments. Call your utility company to find out what they are doing.

• • There is further help for both renters and for homeowners. The Forbes website states that they will update this list as more information becomes available.  Best advice, though, is if you feel you are going to get behind on your mortgage, call the lender now. Don’t wait until you’re in real trouble of being foreclosed on. In this environment, and because lenders often get the information about financial developments before they do, they will often be sympathetic and help you out by deferring payments or accepting partial payments or even refinancing at a favorable rate. They do not want to get stuck with a bunch of defaulted foreclosure properties in the midst of a recession, which we are undoubtedly heading for. They would probably rather take some money that no money, or give you a grace period on making payments.

If you rent or your home (or office space) is financed by an individual, all the more reason to handle it and call them now. See if they are able and willing to work with you. I have seen quite a few therapists on FB who said that their landlords were very sympathetic and willing to work with them. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know. Some landlords may take a hard line or just not be in a financial position to do so themselves and refuse, but if they think about it carefully, they may decide that they would have difficulty replacing their reliable tenants in this environment, and work with you.

• • Sign this petition started by Leslie Titus to ask Congress to approve COVID-19 Massage Therapist Financial Hardship Relief.

• • Seek LOCAL resources. Now is not the time for pride to stand in the way of doing things you wouldn’t normally do, such as going to a food bank or going to local charities to ask for assistance. Rutherford County NC, where I live, is NC’s largest county, area-wise, largely rural, and only has a population of about 60,000. There are probably at least 20 food pantries here that are operated by churches and community organizations. There is also a soup kitchen open somewhere every day of the week. There are several local non-profits that help people with rent, heating expenses (thank God the need for that is close to over in most places).

• • Insurance tip from Allissa Haines: If you buy your health insurance on the national or your state exchange, you can probably edit your application to reflect your new income and get a lower rate. Allissa and Michael Reynolds have also made a lot of their podcasts available for free at https://www.massagebusinessblueprint.com/free-stuff
    Speaking of insurance, keep in mind that your liability insurance will not cover you in the event of a client catching the virus in your practice. Allissa, incidentally, was exposed to the virus and was in the uncomfortable position of having to call her clients to tell them that they had been exposed. You do not want to find yourself in that position.

Seek a temporary job. Go to a local temp agency and see what’s available. MANY grocery stores are currently hiring due to the food panic that’s going on. Yes, you will still be in contact with people. However, grocers are not a licensed profession, and they do not swear to a code of ethics that they will First Do No Harm. Amazon is hiring. Walmart announced yesterday that they plan to hire 150,000 additional workers. Ingle’s announced the same.

There are many massage therapists that have other degrees, other trade experience, and/or other skills. I personally know many who are everything from CNAs, nurses, truck drivers, and formerly (or still part-time) work in other professions. Medical personnel is in great demand right now, and so are all kinds of support staff in hospitals, from the janitor to billing coders.

I’ve also seen some enterprising therapists who are doing home deliveries for people who can’t get out…doing errands, going to pick up groceries or to the drugstore for the elderly or immune-compromised. Some are even doing it as volunteers. If you are in the position of being able to do that, what service to your fellow inhabitants of the planet.

Now that schools and daycare centers have been shut down in many places, it’s possible that neighbors who are still able to work may need reliable temporary child care.

• Unless you are 100% self-quarantining, there is hardly any work situation we can be in where we will not be exposed to someone. Social distancing is the best way to flatten the curve. It gives us the best chance of not passing this on to anyone. Going out anywhere to work is a risk, but again, those who work outside of licensed health professions do not swear that they are going to uphold a code of ethics to first do no harm. If you are a licensed therapist, you took that oath. Uphold it. We cannot maintain any social distance with our hands-on unclothed bodies and our face inches away from theirs.

Be creative. You may possess skills that other people need that you can do at home, such as website building skills or baking bread (since there seems to be a run on that at the grocery store), proofreading, sewing, preparing taxes if you’re that savvy, or any number of things.

• If you are a member of a professional massage association, contact their leadership and ask for their assistance in getting unemployment coverage for massage therapists during this unusual circumstance. They pay lobbyists in nearly every state. You will find the links to their leadership on their websites.

ABMP has a link on their website supporting the effort to obtain benefits for massage therapists. It allows you to send a pre-written letter that they have supplied to your congressperson by filling in your info and submitting a form. PLEASE take advantage of this call to action. They also have updates on their website about the actions in different states as far as shutting down or limiting massage therapy. ABMP also has a link to state shutdown orders on their website. 

AMTA has a link on their website supporting the effort to obtain benefits for massage therapists. It allows you to send a pre-written letter that they have supplied to your congressperson by filling in your info and submitting a form. PLEASE take advantage of this call to action. AMTA also has a link to state actions on their website. 

Keep Up With The Latest Updates

PLEASE keep abreast of your state’s situation by checking the website of your governor, your local health department, and your state massage board. There has been a lot of criticism of state boards, due to confusion that state boards have the legal authority to shut down the practice of massage on a statewide basis, which is not true. They are regulatory boards, not legislative. They can and should make an announcement once your governor has signed an executive order to curtail massage or order the shutdown of anything in your state, but they cannot personally mandate that massage therapists have to shut it down.

City councils have in some cases taken it on themselves to shut it down on a local basis. Here in my state of NC, Asheville’s council has shut it down. Other places may do the same.

Some state boards have extended the deadline for CE/license renewal and/or made allowances for taking your CE, due to the cancellation of massage meetings and conventions. In my state of NC, we are allowed to do all 24 hours online this time, instead of the usual 12. Check your board website for info.

Professional association members can get CE online at no additional charge; it’s included in your membership dues.

Centers for Disease Control

World Health Organization

Wise Words From Massage Therapists I Listen To: 

From Ruth Werner:
Ignore My Earlier Advice. Shut It Down.

My friends and colleagues, it’s time to shut it down. It’s past time to shut it down.
I wrote a piece two weeks ago that provided some ideas about how to take care of your practice, assuming you were still seeing clients. I hereby rescind that advice, and I apologize to anyone who was misled.

Close your practice.

For how long? Who knows?

If it were me, I would start with four weeks and re-evaluate after three.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had all the information we needed to make informed, non-panicky decisions that we knew would maximize effectiveness against the spread of COVID-19 virus, and minimize financial hardship? Sadly, we don’t have that data.

No one is going to make this decision for you. Not your membership organization, not your state board, only you.

No one is going to make this any easier for you.

This is your call. And if you want my opinion (and presumably you’re interested, because you’re reading this), here it is: close your practice.

Here are some things we know that have led me to this point of view:

1. The time between exposure and symptoms can be up to 14 days.

2. The virus is contagious for days before symptoms develop, so your “healthy client” might not be.

3. The virus stays intact on surfaces for several days; it stays intact in the air for several hours (at least).

4. COVID-19 is extremely contagious, and it doesn’t take a lot of exposure to spread from one person to another.

5. The virus appears to be contagious after symptoms subside—but we don’t know how long.

6. At this point, older people and those with impaired immune systems are not necessarily more likely than others to catch the virus, but they are more likely to need extensive medical interventions. (Although that may be changing. In some countries the number of people in hospital care is skewing much younger.)

7. We don’t have enough medical capacity to manage what’s coming—which makes it even more vital not to add to that load in any way.

There are so many things about this situation that should have been different. I could list a bunch, but (A) it wouldn’t help and (B) isn’t our blood pressure high enough without recounting all the ways our systems have failed us? And this frustration doesn’t even include some of the nutso crazy pants stuff I’ve seen on Facebook and other outlets. For the record, keeping your throat moist will not prevent you from getting sick with COVID-19. Neither will holding your breath for 10 seconds.

But if we all commit to extreme social isolation, it is practically for sure that the impact of COVID-19 in this country will be less extreme, at least in the short run. While roughly the same number of people will get sick, it will happen over a longer period of time. This “flattening of the curve” means our health-care facilities might be able to keep up with our needs, which means the mortality rate will fall. And the day will come when we might be able to look back and say, “Wow, that wasn’t so bad—weren’t we silly to over-react?”

This Will Demonstrate That We Did It Right

The naysayers and virus-skeptics and my-immune-system-is-strong-so-I’ll-do-what-I-want folks will point fingers and scoff and say we all fell for a huge hoax. Let them. They are wrong.

There’s a parallel in our recent history. In the 1970s, massive changes were put in place to limit the type of air pollution that caused acid rain. At that time, the rain was literally melting our forests and corroding our buildings, not to mention what it was doing to groundwater. The changes, while expensive and inconvenient for many industries, worked. Acid rain is no longer considered a threat. And the result: some people (including some politicians who should *swearword* know better) suggest that the changes were unnecessary because look: acid rain isn’t really a problem! Argle bargle. You can’t *swearword* win.

Let’s Make Some Lemonade!

The financial burden of losing several weeks of business is undeniable. I’m sorry, there’s no easy way out of this. Once this crisis has passed, it will be important to plan ahead for the next one. Financial planners recommend having at least a month’s worth of expenses put in an accessible savings account—just for events like this.

That said, having some dedicated but unscheduled time to devote to business holds a lot of potential.

This is a great time to do a really thorough cleaning of your office. Go in when it’s empty, and disinfect your equipment and surfaces. Do a top-to-bottom refresh. Dust, launder, swab, decontaminate, and shine up all your stuff. Listen to loud music while you do it. It will be fun. And when you go back to work—oh, such a joy it will be to enter your gorgeous, sparkling workplace!

This is a great time to take some continuing education online. Go shopping in the rich ABMP collection of online CE classes, here. You could take some business classes, and use this time to make plans for a grand re-opening. You could take some research literacy classes, and go on a PubMed.gov treasure hunt for articles that are up your alley. Have you always been curious about a certain technique or approach to bodywork? Here’s an opportunity to explore it to see what you might want to pursue in live classes.

Do you send out blogs or newsletters for your clients? Get ahead on your writing, and put some pieces away for later. It’s more important than ever to keep those lines of communication open, so this is a good investment of your energy. Let your clients know that while you can’t see them in person, you’re thinking of them.

It’s tax time: get ahead of your taxes for this year, and set up your books for easy use next year.

If you are caring for children during this time, include them in appropriate activities. Make them your model while you watch a technique video. Learn, or re-learn, some anatomy together. Make this time a gift.

Most of all, breathe deeply and be kind. Let’s take care of each other and help each other through a scary time. We’re going to be OK. We will emerge, poorer in money, but richer in experience because we took the right actions. And we will be ready to help our clients and our communities come back up to full speed when the time is right.

From Cal Cates: 

Dear everyone who offers a service or type of care that is (when we’re being truly ego-free and honest) non-essential, but who is still staying open and touching/interacting in close proximity with people, but who is “being careful” and “prescreening”,
I have taken the liberty of creating a simplified form to support said caution and prescreening.
1. Please use the space below to list every surface you have touched, every place you have gone and the names of every person who has been within 6 feet of you over the last 14 days.
2. Please use the space below to do the same for each person that you listed above.
When you’re done thoroughly completing this form, the COVID-19 crisis should be over and we’ll be cool to proceed.

From Tracy Walton:
I understand that professional organizations are finding it hard–really hard–to discern right action right now. I have compassion for them and for all of us.
At the same time, this directive falls short (note–she was speaking of the original statement from AMTA, which did not advise therapists to stop doing massage).
The guidelines and messages from other countries are crystal-clear:
Social distancing now. Not tomorrow, now.
Massage is not in accord with social distancing.
Massage therapy may be health care, and important and essential, but it is elective and requires close contact by its nature.
Asymptomatic clients and therapists can and most likely are transmitting the virus.
We cannot afford to miss this. The stakes are unfathomably high.
My practice is closed for 3 weeks and probably longer.

About Me

I started taking bodywork classes back in 1993, finished massage school in 1999, and was in the first wave of people to get licensed in NC. I taught Ethics and marketing classes to my own class in massage school. They needed an instructor and I was qualified, so I was hired. I love massage therapy. I received my first one over 30 years ago when I woke up one morning and couldn’t turn my head. My enlightened mother took me to get a massage. After spending over 20 years in the restaurant business, I sold out and started massage school. I became an Approved Provider of Continuing Education, and since that time, I’ve taught more classes than I can count, mainly in the areas of Ethics, but also teacher training classes, marketing, and massage classes.

I also spent several years volunteering as a Unit Coordinator and later as the administrator of all the coordinators for the NC Chapter of AMTA. I spent five years serving on the North Carolina Board of Massage & Bodywork Therapy and was twice a delegate to the FSMTB. I’m the author of Heart of Bodywork, the Ethics column of ABMP’s Massage & Bodywork Magazine and the author of numerous books. Most are massage related; a few are on other topics, including one on the state of healthcare in every nation in the world.

I spent 13 years as a clinic owner employing a chiropractor, numerous massage therapists, a naturopath, an acupuncturist, an esthetician, and at various times, other practitioners. I closed it in 2016 when my deceased husband, Champ Allen, was sick. I spent three years working as the Massage Division Director of Soothing Touch, the massage product company, and for a little over a year, I have been working for CryoDerm, the pain relief, and massage product company. They are a family-owned company located in FL; I live in NC. I am fortunate to get to work from home. I was recently promoted to President of Sales & Marketing there.

I have also maintained a very small client list for massage that I see in a local spa, usually about 6-8 clients per month. I am not seeing anyone at this time, and don’t intend to until I can be sure it’s safe to do so. I don’t know when that will be. None of us do. I am practicing social distancing and as close to self-quarantine as I can get. My mother, who lives a few miles away from me, is 81, in compromised health, and needs help at times, so I will continue to go there as needed. She has a  home health care aid most days. I will run the necessary errands to keep her from going out. Otherwise, my husband James Clayton (I remarried last year) and I are staying at home with our dogs. Even my brother, who lives directly behind me, and I are maintaining 6 feet between each other. He was injured in a serious accident last year, has had 7 surgeries as a result of that, and has implanted antibiotics. James is a two-time cancer survivor who has had a lot of chemo and radiation, which does a whammy on the immune system, so I certainly don’t want to bring anything home to him.

I wish you all the best in these trying times and I hope you all remain well.

I struggled to write this post but decided I would go ahead with it anyways.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have received a couple of scathing emails from someone who unsubscribed from the blog saying that the information on here is misleading, arrogant, disrespectful, has nothing to do with basic massage therapy skills, and is a disservice to the profession.

It’s not the first time I’ve received a message like this, and I’m truly sorry the information we try to spread made someone feel this way.

But then I have to take a step back and ask why?

Why would a couple of articles get someone this upset?

Then I witnessed some discussion on a couple of Facebook threads and there was a word used… this word can incite some pretty big emotions in people.

The word was “cult” (and for the record, I’m not saying any group within our profession is a cult, I was just reading) and for some, this is a word that can incite anger. Especially when we’re referring to different groups within our profession!

According to one source, what makes this word so powerful is the “us vs. them” mentality which is sometimes seen in Facebook group discussions. 

So, I want to use this post to dissect why I think this kind of stuff happens and how we can all grow together.

Challenging Our Identity

I have written an article before that touches on this topic but for those of you who haven’t read it, I’ll give you a little bit of my story.

I was raised in a very religious family by loving well-meaning people. However, as I grew older and got into my teenage years, I started to question things and couldn’t always get an answer that satisfied me. Most of the time when I questioned things, people would get upset because I was questioning the very foundation of their belief system.

As I got into my twenties I started to take more of a step back from my family’s faith, I kind of still had a foot in it, but the rest of me was pretty much out.

Then in my thirties, I got to the point that I had to make a decision. Being involved in the faith didn’t make me happy, but there was genuine concern over leaving it altogether. How would my friends and family react? This was all I had ever known, how do I just leave and start a new life?

It was scary!

My entire identity revolved around being a part of this religion, I was identified by my faith!

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that as scary as that was, I still have supportive parents and family, sometimes we just have to put our differences aside. I realize you may be looking at this and thinking, what does this have to do with massage therapy, so just be patient with me for a minute.

I saw an interesting video the other day where the person was talking about the way we teach things to children can have a profound effect on them later in life.

They talked about grabbing the brain of a person when they’re young and if we dictate things to them in a way that presents something as fact, their very lives can be shaped by what has been put in their head.

They will genuinely believe whatever has been told to them.

I can’t help but liken this to my experience in college.

I didn’t really question the information being presented to me (in all fairness, I had no other advanced education past high school, so hadn’t really been taught critical thinking skills) because all the information I needed was in the textbooks and why would the instructors tell me something that was incorrect? I had complete faith in what was being taught to me.

I think for most of us, once we’re done college we look for the next best thing in continuing education and go down a road of looking for the best manual techniques we can find. Sometimes this results in following a couple of instructors (or maybe just one), then investing in Levels 1-4 of manual technique “X” and shaping our careers around these specific technique styles.

All of this could be happening in the early or “youth” stage of our careers, everything being taught to us is being presented as fact and we genuinely believe it because…why wouldn’t we!?

Knowing all of this, I can’t help but liken it to some of the things I see happen in our profession and I think I realize why I get some of these scathing emails once in a while.

We can spend several years doing these courses having great success with the patients who come into our practice, all the while this is shaping our identity as a therapist. Your patients refer their friends because you’re the best manual therapy “X” provider they’ve ever been to!

You have the absolute best of intentions and you genuinely help most of the people who come and see you (none of us have a 100% success rate) because your hands and the technique you use works so well. Your practice is thriving, so why question it? Plus, you go to another course from the same provider and you’re surrounded by like-minded people who are also having great success with these techniques!

Then somebody questions it.

Your very identity, intentions, practice, and success are all questioned.

If you changed, how would your colleagues react? what about your patients? their referrals? your place in the community?

Your very identity could be changed…and that’s REALLY SCARY…trust me, I know!

Challenging our own belief system, whether its the one you were raised in, or the type of therapist you are might be one of the most difficult things you could ever do, but the thing is, it doesn’t have to be!

Evidence-Based Practice

Last year at our associations AGM there was a huge discussion around evidence-based practice.

Some of the discussion centered around reading research and applying it in practice. I wouldn’t say it was a heated discussion but there was certainly a bit of controversy. Much of this was around how to make research easier to access and making the information easier to digest.

Then when it was all over, an interesting thing happened.

An accountant came up and asked me “what does evidence-based practice mean?”

I said: “well, it means using your experience in practice while reading the most current research and staying up to date on new findings so we can better serve our patients for better treatment outcomes.”

She said: “isn’t that just a given!?”

You’d think so?

This is where I have to give a shout out to Erik Meira, he wrote a post on his blog a while ago about the “evidence-based funnel” instead of the evidence-based stool many of us had come to know, it looks like this:

 

 

Quite often with discussions I see online, and from the odd scathing email I get, some of the things people say are:

“I deny research in my practice because my experience is more important than research”

“I question YOUR research and you do not accept our anecdotal experience”

Well, first off, I don’t actually conduct any research, I just read the available research. But the thing is, no one is saying your experience doesn’t count. In fact, as you can see in the illustration, clinical expertise is a HUGE part of being an evidence-based practitioner. If you’ve been in practice for any length of time and had clinical success, your expertise is vastly important to you and your patients.

As you can see, another critical part is patient values and circumstances. You are part of their values, they trust you, they like you, you have helped them!

In fact, one paper shows us how patient’s expectations play a huge role in recovery from pain and rehab from injuries. If one of these patients has come to you for treatment before and you helped them, their expectation is that by coming to see you again, you will help alleviate their pain.

This helps to show us how treatment outcomes do not depend wholly on the type of technique we use but are also influenced by patient attitudes and beliefs. 

Another aspect of this is the confidence of the provider. When you suggest how a technique or treatment will help it can enhance the expectation of the patient that they will, in fact, get better, which can improve those clinical outcomes.

One thing that also comes up is that some of us are trying to discount what has come before us. Well, this isn’t true either, all of those who wrote textbooks, developed new techniques, and taught us in the early years deserve a huge amount of respect for what they did. The only issue is that some of these books were written in the ’80s and much of what is taught, research has shown to no longer be accurate.

However, at the time these people were visionaries and they should completely be given due credit for that.

While it is important to give these past authors their due respect it is equally as important (if not more so) to give respect to the new information coming out which is helping to shape current practice. Just like how those in the past pushed the profession forward, so is the new research, and we must include this in our practice. 

Great Examples And Putting Differences Aside

The whole point of this blog and many others similar to it is the sharing of new knowledge and trying to help educate other practitioners.

When I get some of these scathing emails, while it can be disheartening, I look out and see the other side, which are some great examples of those who changed their narrative for the better.

MTDC coach Walt Fritz travels the world teaching his courses on “Foundations In Myofascial Release”, and is quite well known for it. Yet, just recently he changed the name to “Foundations Of Manual Therapy” because this is a more accurate description of what he does.

Walt has been doing this for a long time and that title change could have alienated him from his audience and some of his mentors from the past. I know it was probably hard, but he challenged things and had to change his identity because he is doing his best to keep up with current evidence.

I look to our friend Ann Sleeper. For years Ann taught courses in “Muscle Energy Technique” with a narrative that was used for many years. When faced with what new research says and coming to a better understanding, she has changed the narrative in her courses.

While she is essentially teaching the same “technique” her description behind what is happening has been updated. This is another example where I’m sure she found it quite difficult, she was known for years as the person who taught this technique, it was part of her identity.

I recently heard of another instructor who for years has taught “Muscle Energy Technique” and has also decided to update the narrative of their course due to the new things we understand around biopsychosocial aspects of pain and what new research has been telling us.

These are great examples, and part of what makes them great examples is how long they have been teaching, they have a huge following, and could have easily kept teaching the same thing. Instead, they decided to update, change, and adapt, which in turn will hopefully happen to their respective audiences.

We don’t have to have the “us vs. them” mentality (and I know this happens in the technique, pain science, and other groups) if we could be open to sharing ideas and actually looking at what good quality research says. Growing up, one of the things I used to hear at home was how we could get our point across better “if we season our words with salt”. So, perhaps I can do a better job of that when writing these posts, perhaps we can do that within Facebook groups, and perhaps we can all do this when attending live courses and events? We all want the same thing…to help our patients as much as possible and be successful therapists. To do this, we don’t have to learn a new technique, but we do need to give an accurate description of the one we’re using, communicate well with our patients (and probably season our words with salt here too), and do things they like. 

And maybe sometimes we just have to put our differences aside.

In 2007 I worked at a sawmill and the union gave us direction to strike.

We had no idea how long we’d be out (although we were fortunate to receive strike pay). The first month went by, then two, then three, until eventually, we were out for over 17 months. None of us saw that coming!

These are surely unprecedented times.

In my 44 years of life and my nine years of practice, I have never seen anything like this.

The Covid-19 virus has become a global pandemic and none of us are sure when the end is in sight. There are good news stories coming through of how some are battling through and getting back to health, and then other stories of life lost on a large scale in some areas.

Hitting closer to home is how many of us (if not all) are having to close our practice with no opening date in sight, only estimates. None of us know when this is going to end and with that comes the uncertainty of what the future holds, not only for our health and our families but also for our businesses.

So, in the meantime, what can we do?

1. Exercise

We all know how beneficial exercise is, not only for the body but also for the mind.

For us introverts being isolated is kind of fun, we get to stay at home in quiet places, read a book and recharge, but at some point, it’s probably going to become a struggle.

However, for our more extroverted friends, this can be a very stressful time as they don’t get the fulfillment they need from social interaction, which can definitely take a toll on mental health.

Exercise is one of the most beneficial things we can do for mental health, so if you’re starting to feel down think about doing some exercise at home. If you do a search on youtube it’s pretty easy to find some different bodyweight, yoga, or other programs that might help you with your mental health, but also keep you fit and healthy so when your clinic opens you can return to work and help those patients that have been desperately missing your treatments.

Here are a few articles with some suggestions for stay at home exercise:

You Can Take Care of Yourself in Coronavirus Quarantine or Isolation, Starting Right Now* – Anna Goldfarb

These fitness studios are live-streaming workout classes for free during the coronavirus outbreak* – Sophie Lewis

Do Yoga With Me* – doyogawithme.com

Top 10 Exercise Ideas to Do at Home During Coronavirus Quarantine – Nick Ng

I haven’t tried any of these, nor am I giving them an endorsement, but there are at least a few different things you could try from home to get some regular exercise, just see which ones (if any) work for you.

If you don’t like these options, see if you can connect with some friends to do some sort of exercise together via skype, zoom, facetime, or messenger so you not only get some exercise but some of that valued social interaction as well. 

*these free offerings are temporary during the coronavirus pandemic

2. Learn Something New

We are going to have a lot of time on our hands during the coming weeks/months…who knows how long.

So why not take the time to learn something new?

Over on theMTDC Facebook page, we have been trying to do some Facebook lives to look at some new research and had a discussion last night about how a few of us changed our narratives on some old massage therapy myths when were faced with research that told us otherwise. We are going to try and do this as often as we can during this pandemic so that we can at least learn something and share some ideas with our colleagues while having some social interaction and helping each other out.

You can watch the one we did on research here, and the one on how we managed facing massage myths we truly believed in when faced with research that told us otherwise here.

Here are some other free offerings you could use:

• Sandiego Pain Summit Videos* free until April 15 – Rajam Roose
• Runchatlive.com* enter coupon code BELIVE at checkout. – Matt Phillips
• Conedinstitute.com* there are several free course listings on this page for massage therapists.
• Audible.com* has made audiobooks for kids free while schools are closed. 

Again, I haven’t used any of these freebies (yet) but if you know of any others please share them with us so we can get the word out to as many of our therapist friends as possible to help with this downtime.

*these free offerings are temporary during the coronavirus pandemic

3. Connect With Other Therapists In Your Community. 

Now more than ever we need to support each other.

Believe it or not, this is a golden opportunity to connect with other providers in your community. Try sending other therapists, or clinics an email and see if there is a way for you to connect online while we’re closed down.

Maybe talk about whatever you focus your practice on and find out what they focus on. Perhaps then a referral system can develop once we’re back up and running again.

Or maybe you can discuss marketing strategy, confusing conditions, patients who you’re not sure how to help, or just talk about how hard things are right now being business owners.

This might even be a way to discuss how your government is handling things in your area, how it affects you and your practice, along with understanding how your business can take advantage of government assistance at this time.

Our businesses are quite different than most, so the more we can help each other with this, the better off we will all be. 

The point is to connect with other healthcare professionals in your area and see if there’s a way you can help each other, we all need that right now.

4. Start A Blog

If you’re not already blogging to support and market your business, now is a great time to start.

Perhaps you’ve considered it in the past but never really had the time to do it…well…now’s your time!

While blogging can sound difficult, it doesn’t have to be. We’ve written tips about creating amazing blog posts before, which you can read here. The great thing is that you can do it for free! WordPress and Wix are both options that provide free websites for you to start blogging with if your business doesn’t already have a website to blog from. 

One of the great things about having a blog in our industry is that it positions you as the expert in your community. As long as you are putting out some quality content regarding your treatment and what you do, it gives you an opportunity to reach new patients and build more trust in your current ones by showing them you care enough to write about and research a topic to educate them. It can be invaluable!

5. Communicate With Your Patients

Arguably this could have been ranked as the #1 thing to do, but I thought self-care was more important.

As much as we need each other right now, your patients may need you even more. 

Everyone is freaked out and they are looking for good information from trusted resources. You are that resource!

So, don’t be that annoying therapist that is emailing them a few times a week, but once a week or every two weeks just check-in and see how they’re doing is a good way to remind them you’re still there and you care about their welfare.

Look for trusted websites with trusted information you can share with them.

Especially if you know they are elderly, or immune-compromised and this pandemic could be a big issue for them. Be that trusted healthcare professional that cares enough to send the odd email just as a check-up to see how things are going. If you know they had something big coming up, check-in and see how it went, or send condolences if you know a big event got canceled, be personable ab0ut it, you know your patients and what matters to them.

Most of the time our patients see us more than they do their doctors and our relationship with them is far different. Be that trusted healthcare professional. I hate to say this is a “marketing tactic” (and I’m definitely not a marketer), but you want to be front of mind with your patients once it’s safe for them to come and see you again, so it’s important to stay front of mind and honestly how hard is it to send a couple of emails here and there for the people who support your business? It will be well worth the time investment.

If you know your patients have businesses in town, do what you can to support them as well. Order take out from their restaurant, get groceries delivered from their store, or use their delivery service company, just try to support the ones who support you. 

This is a weird time and we’re all in this together, so the more we can do to help our families, our colleagues, our careers, and our patients, the better! While we don’t know how long this is going to last, we should use the time as wisely as we can. Like I spoke of at the start, when we were out on strike for 17 months there was a lot of wasted time, sitting and waiting. If I had known we were going to be out that long, I wish I had used the time in a more productive fashion. It wasn’t until month 15 that I actually registered for and took a course. There is so much I could have gotten done in that time, but we just didn’t know when it was going to end. I don’t plan on taking this time as lightly and I want to be as productive for my business as possible. I hope you do that same too. If there’s anything we can do to help and support you at this time, don’t hesitate to reach out, we’ll see what we can do to help. You’re not alone, we’re all in this together.