NLP, Boosting Health and Beating Stress - by Dr Natheera Indrasenan

Dr Natheera Indrasenan is the UK’s only Licensed NLP Master Trainer approved by Dr Bandler and the Society of NLP who is also a practising doctor of nearly 20 years. In this article, she tells Matthew Wingett how she became interested in NLP and the benefits she sees every day.

After I finished my GP VTS in 1998 and within 2 years of working full time as a salaried GP I felt a sense of loss of control managing "heartsink" patients (that's a piece of Doctor's jargon, by the way, for those patients who never seem to change no matter what you do).  I wanted to improve my communication skills so that I could motivate patients to lose weight, stop smoking and be less stressed, among many other things, and I looked around for different ways to do it.

I did some research and realised that training as an NLP Practitioner might well give me exactly what I was looking for. I went to my first NLP training expecting to learn a "toolkit" of skills to apply to my patients.  What I came away with was an awareness of how we, as human beings, think and behave according to our lifelong “programming” of experience - and how we will always continue to follow this programming unless we consciously change it.

For example, procrastination as a behaviour stems from a set of pre-programmed thinking patterns.  If we can then change that set of patterns, then we get to feel more motivated in a particular situation.  The course gave me many benefits, including achieving a greater sense of control in managing my patients, and in understanding why people do what they do.

Since those early days, I have trained thousands of doctors in these skills.  I really believe it is becoming more and more important for us to feel a sense of control in our work, especially while external pressures continue to mount.  At the same time. patients also benefit greatly from having these skills to motivate themselves to create positive changes for themselves.

The lives of patients have been improved by my work, as have those of my colleagues, too.  In the last few years I specifically focussed on Stress Management, Time Management , Career Clarity and Communication Skills.

 

In this role I also founded "AcuityDoctor", the non profit “Doctors training Doctors” organisation.  As a result, NLP is now being offered all over the UK, with training events ranging in size from Deaneries and PCTs to individual surgeries.

I have recently started training the general public in using NLP techniques to promote good health particularly focusing on Stress Management techniques and Sleep Disorders. Knowing that nearly 50% of the problems my patients bring to me are stress-related, I strongly believe in the benefits of teaching the general public about their own health and how to use NLP to proactively combat external stresses and enjoy more relaxed and happier lives.

I have also worked with many City corporations, advising employees how to respond to stress and prevent that ever-prevalent problem in high-pressure world of business: burnout.

It is difficult to overstate the problems that are caused by stress and sleep difficulties.  It is estimated that 30 per cent of people in the UK suffer from insomnia, while a far higher figure at some time or other has to deal with stress.  What I do know for sure is that the benefits to a person's health once they have learned to overcome their stress responses and live a more relaxed life are massive.  At the same time, there are huge financial benefits to the business or organisation they work for once they have stopped taking time off work to de-stress are equally huge. 

I feel a real sense of satisfaction in the work that I do with clients, patients and colleagues.  Stress and sleep problems can bring so much misery to whole households, and being able to relieve it or strongly reduce it in a short time without the use of drugs, but just teaching someone to control their own mind, is a hugely rewarding task!  That is what I will be doing for the NLP LIFE Academy, too!