Dr. Joe Tatta:
Welcome to today’s edition of the Healing Pain Summit. Today we are talking about the role of the health coach and helping patients recover from chronic persistent pain. My guest today is Roberta Mittman. She’s a health coach and author, a licensed acupuncturist and the founder of the Park Avenue center for wellbeing located in New York City, New York. Roberta specializes in guiding women over 43 to health and wellness. Her magic is the perfect holistic blend of both East and West medicine as principles of wellbeing. She’s also the author of ultimate wellness, the three mental shifts you can use to change the course of your health right now. So with that great introduction, welcome Roberta to the healing pain summit.

Roberta Mittman:
Thank you so much, Joe, for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Thank you. So you have a very interesting blend of licensed acupuncturists and then health coach, which I think is just great. I know health coaches are becoming the wave of the future to help people overcome their chronic pain and other chronic conditions. Tell us about how you arrived at those two very unique specialties.

Roberta Mittman:
Oh, I’d love to because I really get a lot of joy and talking about that. It’s a little bit unique. Um, I would say my journey has been, um, early and also in later life. So it’s a combination of both of those. I guess you could say that alternative medicine is in my genes because my father was one of the first MD acupuncturists ever, and this is like over 50 years ago at least. So he was really a trailblazer of sorts and he was a traditional MD with a family practice in the suburbs and he fell in love with acupuncture and use that at the end of his life quite exclusively. And people thought it was kind of nutty because they didn’t know what he was doing, but they came from everywhere cause he got great results. So I was very used to seeing how beautifully the combination of East and West works together. And so I would say that my practice is almost like a legacy to him and I always encourage people to choose options that work from them from wherever it comes from.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Hmm. Interesting. That’s a great tribute to your dad. I think all of us who are in health care, myself included, my mom was a nurse, so we kind of get our inspiration often from our own stories or our own lineage. So I think that’s a great way to enter in. And how did health coaching come on your radar?

Roberta Mittman:
Well, how of coaching was something that I decided to add to my practice. I have a wellness center in New York city, very busy practice over 20 years. And I decided, um, to add another dimension to my practice for several reasons. The first one was that I wanted to be able to offer my patients different perspectives in nutrition and lifestyle management and things that were just really so appropriate to them. And that maybe it was just a little bit outside of the traditional acupuncture role. And also, and almost more importantly, it enabled me to reach people outside of my zip code. I speak to people all across the country and all around the world on the phone, on Skype, or in my office if they choose to come. And it really enables me to reach so many different people at different levels.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So the role of the ha, the role of the health coach is rapidly expanding and there are many, you know, coaching programs popping up. Tell us why it’s so important that people seek out a health coach to help them with their care.

Roberta Mittman:
Health coaching is really growing and if you understand the role that it plays, you’ll see some people would say, well it sounds like a little, uh, frivolous or it sounds like or whatever. And you know what? Honestly, we’re able to help so many people who are undergoing whether or not it’s stress, whether or not it’s nutritional issues, pain issues, autoimmune issues. We’re not playing doctor. What we really are helping them to see where they are, what’s their thinking, and also how can they have the support and the accountability that many times they can’t get from the regular practitioner. I mean, we talk about all the things that are going on with their relationships, with the stress that’s involved in different suggestions drawn from so many different angles. But also we set goals and we keep people accountable to them. So we see real progress. So it works really well with the Western. Let me add this, I guess you could say alternative integrative component to their, to their care really makes a big difference. I’m happy to say.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So as a health coach, if I come to you as a health coach with you know, a chronic disease, let’s say, what types of topics can we expect to cover? So you mentioned nutrition is obviously one of them is what other topics might we cover in a typical coaching session?

Roberta Mittman:
Well, I would say it would be, it’s more of a program. We can’t cover everything in one session. It’s usually over a couple of months because we want his follow up and see how things are going and it gets the support and accountability. We do that from phone and emails. But the topics that I generally cover, there’s usually six in some order depending on the individual. So you mentioned the eating and the nutrition. We talk about the importance of sleep, talking about the importance and what’s the right kind of exercise. We talked about relationships and how important that is. We talk about stress management and we talk about how you can get support, um, in your own life and the steps that you can take to bring that forward.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. One of the things I admire about a health coach is that you spend so much time with a patient or a client, you really give people kind of that one-on-one dedicated time that people need. So on this summit we’re talking, obviously it’s called the healing pain summit. So it’s going to attract many people who struggle with chronic pain, persistent pain, different types of, you know, physical disabilities. Um, a lot of those patients already have a doctor, a physical therapist, possibly a psychologist. Tell us the unique role that a health coach can play in helping someone recover from kind of chronic persistent pain.

Roberta Mittman:
I’m so glad you asked that. That’s a really fabulous question because a lot of people don’t understand how a health coach might help with something very specific like that. And honestly, there’s a really nice place for somebody to work with, a client who’s really having either discomfort. A lot of practitioners, a lot of information. It really helps to plow through that confusion to find out what is that person really congruent with? What are some of the stresses that come up and how can they help? It’s not therapy, but it’s really what’s working, what’s not working. And honestly, a lot of people need guidance that come to me is that they’re, they’re on medications and they don’t want to be on them. And so my job is not necessarily to get them off medications that would not my role, but in order to become congruent with it and follow certain steps so that hopefully they could maybe take a little bit less in time. It’s really working with their, with their health care and looking at all the things that people just really want to talk about and really want to get answers to, but they don’t have anybody that they can really talk to about it.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So to kind of help summarize that for, you know, for people, a health coach really helps become your advocates. So not only are they actually helping you with specific strategies, but there’s someone who can be on your side to help advocate for you. When you enter into, you know, your hospital, you’re a doctor or seeing a certain clinician. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Roberta Mittman:
Yeah, I mean basically I like to say I run alongside of them and I’m there with you and I’ll help you formulate the answer, the questions that you need to ask so many times in saying, well next time you go, this is an important question to ask. We need to know the answer. Like how is this level in your blood work? Or how is this food going to work with that medication? They haven’t thought about that. You know, there’s some specific things. And also the other thing is is but how are you feeling about all of this? Like what’s the fear that’s going on and how is that, how is that being translated? Are you eating too much at night? Are you, how are you very short with numbers in your family? You know, it’s like all of those different things. So I would work if they came to see you, I would be working with them to make sure that they’re getting the most out of their visits. They’re asking you about questions and like the mobility and the pain relief that they’re getting. I want to see like how we can maximize that and hold them accountable for following your recommendations as well.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. Accountability is so important. So I’m here with Roberta amendments. She is a license acupunctures and certified health coach. We are talking on the healing pain summit about the role of a health coach and overcoming persistent chronic pain. She’s the author of the ultimate wellness. And in her book she talks about a three R system. So tell us about that system and how you apply it when you work with your clients.

Roberta Mittman:
I’d love to. So there’s three R’s to this. The first one is recognize, the second one is reframe and the third one is reclaimed. It’s a really great formula for working with just about anyone with any specific condition. Um, it really does cover some of the basic cycles that people go through. Um, the, the pain specifically I would say is very, very apropos because there are saw, there’s so much negativity with pain. Nobody wants to be in pain. So, but there are a lot of stories that people develop around it and a lot of the self-talk that there is, so it’s a combination. I’ll just go over it really quickly. It’s recognize what’s the cycle of negativity, where are you now? What’s working, what’s not working? How are you thinking about those things and how could we change this to be more life affirming? Number two would be how, what are some of the steps that you could take? How could you reframe it, think about it differently and actually take action about doing something about that that’s really congruent for you. And the third one is reclaim and how to take this into your life in a bigger way so that you’re not held hostage by discomfort. There’s so many other things that are working as well. And we’re not trying to distract you necessarily from that, but we want you to have a full life.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So it’s a great simple framework that I think people can apply really easily if they want to, if they want to delve deeper into that framework and learn more, how can they actually purchase your book? Where is it located?

Roberta Mittman:
It’s right on Amazon. I’ll hold it up here. The three mental shifts you can use to change the course of your health. Right. And it goes into a lot of different topics, pain being one of them, and it applies this simple formula and it uses examples from there. So for instance, if you’re talking about recognizing, you might see yourself thinking about some of these things, like it’s not fair, why me? It always happens this way or it’s not going to ever go away. I’m going to be stuck like this forever. You can, do you ever hear that Joe, with your patients?

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Sure. I mean, fear plays a large factor, especially with pain. There’s something called fear avoidance, which is people start to obviously become fearful of certain activities and they avoid them. And that kind of starts to read into the disability both physical and wellness, mental, every city.

Roberta Mittman:
Oh, that’s really interesting. Yeah, I could definitely see that. And then with the reframe, it’s like, how can you think about this differently? So here’s a perfect, a quick example and that is what can I do right now this very day to feel, to get my nutrition on track? Or what can I do right now to use my joints in a purposeful way to move in a way that’s congruent with this condition and start to move it ahead a little bit. Um, it’s really about thinking about how you can do things differently. What can, what can I do? Can I add a modality like acupuncture, guided meditation for stress. There’s so many different things that we go into and that’s about reframing it and looking at things differently so that you’ll be able to find options. There are options out there for everybody and in case you haven’t thought of them, we come up with them for you.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So the park Avenue center for wellbeing is located in New York city. You have a very successful coaching practice as well as acupuncture practice there. Can you give us a patient example or a client example of someone who’s had chronic persistent pain or you’ve helped coach to a place of wellness?

Roberta Mittman:
I’d be happy to. You know, as a matter of fact, I’m just thinking of this one person now. Her name is Terry. She’s from California and we started working together because she has an autoimmune disease with a lot of pain and plus some other types of discomfort let’s say, and when she came to me because she didn’t have energy, but she was also, she was just feeling low that this condition was getting the best of her and you want it to know how to get to, how to live her life. She has a teenage child and she has a wonderful career as well, so something wasn’t working so we were on the phone and we worked out so many different options, different ways of looking at things. We changed her schedule around. She was so that her more productive time for her work, she worked at home as a writer was like in the morning when she was more alert.

Roberta Mittman:
She was saving it for another time. When could she a friend because she needed some social contact to do some exercise. What kind of different kinds of um, uh, supplements or something like she wanted to ask her doctor about and also about the fear. Like was this always going to be like this when she got a flare up, was it ever going to get better? And she really saw that it was so she really did beautifully. She was calm, she was balanced. She really had like a new lease on life, I believe. And it’s just one example of this interaction that we have and it gets, it gets personal, it gets close and it really goes into all aspects of somebody’s condition.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So one of my goals and missions with this summit is to kind of start to open, you know, not only the public size, but also other practitioners eyes about the kind of global increase in chronic pain and painful type syndromes. How can we, well first, first off is in your practice, what percent of your clients do you find struggle with pain? And then second as professionals, how do we start to lower the rates of pain and disability in our society?

Roberta Mittman:
That’s, those are like amazing questions. We could be here for like another two hours on that one. But that’s great. So the first one is how many people come with pain, different levels. You know, also I have an acupuncture practice and of course that’s very pain oriented as well, but there’s usually some kind of pain even when you’re trying to lose weight. There is like discomfort and muscle aches and pains or there’s like some kind of like joint pain or whatever. So I would say a high, uh, re I’d say 90%. And the, and honestly it, the, the role of how we can lower that is probably, it’s so individual, but many times it’s like starts to in your diet, it starts with prevention. Knowing what you could be doing. Don’t, don’t you notice I didn’t use the word shut. I hate that word. You could be doing. And to prevent that. And I worked with a lot of people at all different ages, and so it would be really different for different ages, but I think awareness is the most important thing and knowing that you can combine East and West and there’s so many great options out there, so I think that’s the most important thing.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Right. So trying to take an integrated approach to your rehab and recovery, basically. It’s very, very important.

Roberta Mittman:
Absolutely. To me, that’s the key.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Yeah. Excellent. So I want to thank Roberta Mittman for being on the healing pain summit today. Um, can you please tell us where we can find out more information about you?

Roberta Mittman:
Of course. It’s my name. It would be at www.robertamittman.com.

Dr. Joe Tatta:
Excellent. So Roberta is located at the Park Avenue Center for Wellbeing located just in my backyard here in New York city. Please check her out. I want to thank her for being on the healing pain summit today and sharing her wisdom and the role of a health coach. And we will see you on the next episode. Thank you.