Breaths to Calm
by Raya Iqbal and Jessica Singh, MD
This article was originally published in AAMC Aspiring Doc Diaries.
Great job, Raya!
Raya Iqbal, a second year medical student at Virginia Commonwealth University, received a scholarship to participate in a mind-body skills group facilitated by Dr. Jessica Singh during the summer between her first and second year of medical school.
She co-authored “Breath to Calm” to discuss the use of diaphragmatic breathing as a mind-body approach to help alleviate test anxiety, as she is studying for the USMLE Step 1 Exam.
Raya, it is a gift to bear witness to your journey and a pleasure to co-author this piece with you!
~ Dr. Jessica Singh
Raya is passionate about sharing mindfulness practices with other medical students and medical educators in the hopes of potentially integrating these techniques into their practices and medical education.
“After personally experiencing how overwhelming test anxiety can be, I was surprised to experience for myself the beneficial effects of diaphragmatic breathing which I learned in a mind-body skills program that I participated in as an extracurricular activity. This technique is universal, priceless, and practical, and has the ability to widely help others.”
Click here to read the article.
Mind-body skills groups, developed by Dr. James Gordon and the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, have numerous benefits. Not only have they been proven to increase quality of life, decrease depression and sleep disturbance, they also decrease burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and personal distress, and increase empathy in medical and nursing students.¹
Contact us if you are interested in joining a group or bringing them to your organization.
References:
van Vliet, M., Jong, M., & Jong, M. C. (2017). Long-term benefits by a mind–body medicine skills course on perceived stress and empathy among medical and nursing students. Medical teacher, 39(7), 710-719.
