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The benefits of this project
Benefits for Your Patients
- Happier, healthier staff can lead to happier patients
- Fewer cancelled appointments due to staff sickness
Benefits for Your Practice
- Happier, more resilient staff
- Fewer sick days
- Fewer cancelled clinics and/or locums needed
Benefits for The Planet
- Healthier people reduces need for healthcare and so reduces healthcare’s environmental impact
Opportunity for improvement
- Working in primary care can be stressful, and as work-related stress represents a public health issue, anything that can reduce this is helpful. Stress has a role in the onset of cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and mental health disorders, resulting in increased absences.
- Yoga is a form of mind-body fitness that involves a combination of muscular activity and an internally mindful training. Yoga has been found in various studies to be an effective way to manage work-related stress, in fact even a short program of yoga is effective for enhancing emotional well-being and resilience to stress in the workplace Therefore, introducing yoga to staff working in primary care is one way of reducing stress.
- There are various ways to introduce yoga into a workplace, and one such way is to offer 30 days of collective yoga in January every year. Adriene is one yoga teacher who has posted free classes every day for 30 days in January from 2015 to 2024. Creating a WhatsApp group of interested colleagues who would like to join in with the challenge of doing a regular short yoga class every day is a collective way to bring yoga into primary care.
- This project outlines how to do this in your GP practice (see disclaimers).
- You might like to create a SMART goal for this project e.g. invite all staff members to join in the 30-day yoga challenge, set up a Whatsapp group with at least 5 staff members to support each other whilst doing the challenge and run at least one in-person yoga class at the practice during January.
How to carry out this project
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Data collection
Think about how you will demonstrate improvement. You might like to send out a pre-intervention staff survey to examine staff attitudes to yoga and how many already practice it.
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Invite staff
Send an email out to all staff in the practice (including GP registrars and medical students) in mid-December.
Resource: Example email
“Would you like to be stronger and more flexible but also more relaxed and mindful? If you've answered yes, please read on. I'm planning to do Adriene's free 30-day yoga programme on YouTube this year. She's an inspiring yoga teacher in America who has 10 different free 30-day courses. Each classes last 10-30 mins (most are around 20 mins) and they gradually build up as they go. You don't have to have done any yoga before to join in as she helpfully explains what we should be doing. I know some others are interested in doing her 30-day course so I'm planning on setting up a WhatsApp for those that want to join. I will post each new class on the group chat every day. The classes start on 1st January with a short introduction (no yoga), and they finish on 31st January. You can do each class whenever you like but if people find it helpful, we could try and do some of them together before clinic in the morning or at lunchtime. Please don't feel pressured to join the WhatsApp group or feel you must do every class on the right day if you do join, but I guarantee you'll feel better if you manage to complete them all. Just reply to this email if you'd like to be part of our new yoga group.”
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Follow up
Send a follow up email to all staff who have not responded on 30th December saying:
Resource: Example email
“I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year. In case your New Year's resolution is to get fitter or more flexible, it's not too late to join in the yoga WhatsApp group. We've got XXX signed up already. Please let me know if any of you would like me to add your name too so you can receive a daily short yoga video which you can choose to do anytime. The first one will be sent out on 31st so you can start as early as you like on January 1st!”
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Create the group
When people reply, ask them for their phone number if you do not have this and add them to your new yoga WhatsApp group.
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Start the challenge
From the evening of 31st December, post the first video. This is to be done in the morning of 1st January and will be a short introduction to the 30 days (no actual yoga). Add a message to this posting eg:
Resource: Example message
“Happy New Year everyone! I hope the next year brings you joy, rejuvenation and reconnection. I’m posting the first video from Adriene (which is a short introduction rather than yoga) so you can get started on the month ahead as early as you like tomorrow. Please add a word or an emoji when you have completed. Video as this helps stay connected and motivated. I’m looking forward to joining in this month with you.”
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Reminders
Set yourself 2 daily reminders: one to do the yoga and let the group know (e.g. “Day 3 done J”) and another reminder to post the next video every evening.
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Enjoy the Yoga!
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Post-intervention data collection
Look at how many staff participated and how consistently. If you used the pre-intervention staff survey, you could adapt this to assess any changes.
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Study
Review the results, summarise learning, share with practice team + decide if any changes are needed to improve the process. Decide when to repeat the project e.g. every January and use the Project Monitoring form to keep track.
Top tip
Reassure people that the yoga classes are suitable for all levels from beginners to experienced.
Try and do the occasional class at work if you can and invite everyone from work to join in, even if they are not in the WhatsApp group. This may encourage them to join in next year!
How to scale this project up or down
| Please note - Use of this project requires NetworkPLUS membership. If you would like to share this project with others, please invite them to purchase their own membership—access must not be shared with non-members. |
Your yoga group could continue throughout the year with daily, weekly or monthly postings and/or you could spread your project to other local practices, Greener Practice Groups, GP trainer groups or PCNs.
You could even share it further afield to your Federation, ICB (England) or Cluster, Health Board (Scotland or Wales) or GP federation, Health Trust (Northern Ireland), so the learning can be shared and the project easily implemented by other practices too.
Case study
Mile Oak Medical Centre in Brighton has had an annual January yoga group for the last 2 years. We started with 10 people in the first year and 13 in the second.
Some people kept up to date with the yoga every day whereas others took a few months to finish all 30 classes.
Everyone felt glad they had been involved and all have increased the amount of yoga in their life since.
Mile Oak Medical Practice, Brighton
Have you completed this QIP?
Tell us a little about your project in order to generate a certificate showing the probable benefits. This project may help with CQC evidence submission (see disclaimers).
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