From Nursing to Wellness Advocacy

This week, we’re joined by Rajitha Bommakanti, an Independent Patient Advocate and lifestyle coach. Raji was a practicing nurse for more than 30 years, and she now combines her clinical skills with holistic coaching to help change habits and achieve lifestyle goals. During our conversation, Rajitha delves into her utilization of evidence-based practices in coaching and how she empowers her clients to embrace lifestyle changes to achieve a vibrant, healthy life.  You’ll also learn how she collaborates closely with her clients on their journey toward lifestyle transformation.

With a focus on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, Raji embodies the essence of what it means to be a Wellness and Lifestyle advocate, and her practice aligns with the principles of Independent Patient Advocacy. Raaji is dedicated to keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital. She understands the patient’s experience from working inside the medical system, and she offers tools and resources to help them improve and sustain their health.

As the founder of the Healthy You Lifestyle Center, Raji is able to practice her passion every day. Her enthusiasm is especially evident when she sees the remarkable transformations in her clients.

Transcript

Host

Rajitha, thank you so much for joining us. I'm excited to talk to you about what you do for people. How you doing today? You

Rajitha

I am doing very good. Thank you for having me over today.

Host

Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, you have an interesting background because you've been a nurse for, is it over 30 years? Did I have that right? And you've kind of branched out, right? And you've, and so, once a nurse, always a nurse, but you've kind of become a health coach. So I guess my first question is, what was the, what was the impetus behind saying, you know what, I wanna do something more than just nursing, and why did you pick?

Rajitha

Yeah.

Host

the health coaching space.

Rajitha

As I have been, you know, practicing nursing, taking care of patients, my thinking was, okay, we take care of patients, you know, we get them all the procedures, medications and all that, they get better. But I have noticed they were not getting better. They keep coming back. They were, you know, they can understand some of the stuff that's going on. There's a lot of gaps. And medications and procedures are not.

the real fits. Notice that we were just kind of just putting band-aids and wanted to dig into more evidence and research. Is there another option? So when I was doing my research, that's where I found like, you know, coaching, holistic coaching, we have these engraved habits that we cannot let loose of them. And how can we do that? So

That is how I slowly got into different programs and now I do pretty much holistic coaching to help change the habits, export and micro habit change.

Host

And what's the process that you do with people to help them change these often lifelong habits that they've formed?

Rajitha

Um, first try to understand their background, where they are from. Um, you know, that's again, comes from my nursing assessment, um, where they are, what's going on because everybody has a different story, why they are where they are. Once we understand that, then, um, kind of giving what is, you know, lifestyle, what type of lifestyle do we need to live? And for what reason?

And if I say something like, okay, more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, plant bases, important, then I share that evidence with them. Okay, what is that sign saying? Why do you need to do that? Because for me, I need to know the why. When somebody tells me, I need to know the why. And then I will have my clients look at their environment, their situation, how they are, and then...

draw it accordingly what fits because what fits you might not fit me even though I say okay you know more vegetables are good but so what is that if you are a big time meat eater okay let's start off small maybe just one day a week you know or one meal in one day a week start off small and slowly progress so holding them accountable to those because

Each client writes their own prescriptions, what they want to do through the week. They're called SMART goals. Small, measurable, actionable, realistic, time-bound goals. They need to write and then follow through and throughout the week, coaching them on that.

Host

And when someone has a hard time sticking to their goals, what is that, which I'm sure happens all the time, I mean there's a multi-billion dollar exercise and diet industry because of that, what's your process of working with them to kind of get them back on track? What does that look like? So.

Rajitha

Um, that does happen quite a bit, right? And trying to first understand what is the reason behind, why are they doing this because it's not a short-term thing. It's not about me losing weight to fit into a certain dress that will only go so far, but if I want to stick to these goals, what is my real driving reason behind it? For me, it is like

I want to age gracefully. I love outdoors. So I want to be able to go outdoors, travel with my husband and enjoy my grandchildren, you know, be a part of their wedding and all of that. So that is my long term goal. So I have that long term goal, my why. And that's what, you know, reminding clients on that. Why is that you're doing?

because yes, it's very natural to have slips. If this was too much for you, let's cut that into a smaller bite. It's those small habits that build up over time, and those will be impactful.

Host

that's a great answer. So if the task is too big, just keep making it smaller till it's something they can access and something they can actually accomplish. And then there's probably a lot of confidence too that comes once they start achieving those smaller goals and there's a bit of a snowball effect is what I would assume. Is that correct?

Rajitha

Yes, that's what that builds them. Because the smallest goal, you know, when I can achieve that, then I'll feel good about it. I'm very confident. Okay, I was able to do this. Okay, let me add another one, another one. So, yep.

Host

That's great. And why did you decide to have a holistic coaching approach as opposed to specifically focusing on diet or on certain other aspects of lifestyle?

Rajitha

You know, like, just diet, just exercise, when you section off, that's the big thing we hear, right? Diet, diet, or, you know, exercise. We are a whole person. It's not just one thing. The food is we are feeding our body. It's really what is that we are feeding our mind. You know, that's where we work out of our subconscious mind, our programmed beliefs.

or limiting the views, whatever you want to call. We have been, for seven years of our life, we have been programmed in a certain way. Our parents, our environment, our schooling, and all of that. So those are the ones, are they the right programming, or do we need to switch over? So that's the reason it's a holistic encompassed way. If you do one or the other,

it does not balance. We need to balance our entire human self. And also, as you're talking, another thing is really I help clients find purpose in their life. As humans, we all come onto this earth with a purpose. Everybody has a different purpose, identifying what your purpose is. That gives you joy, love, peace. So

When you do those things, access those. These are all the little things, but that's what helps us shape ourselves into a whole being and living a happy. The love is that key thing. We need to be able to love ourselves, access that happiness and peace so that we can accomplish all our other goals around it.

Host

Tell me more about the idea of helping someone find purpose or their purpose.

Rajitha

It's about trying to understand yourself first. You know, we need to be aligned and understand ourself because nowadays in our daily life we are so busy running around chasing after things we don't even know what we are chasing after. We are constantly driving ourselves up there. So first is understanding ourselves by quietening ourselves and really getting to know oneself.

and also doing things, different activities, no matter how small or how big it is, exploring by doing it. After doing I say, okay, how do you feel about it? You know, did you get joy, you know, or you just did it, or you didn't enjoy that task? Write that down and then reflect on that feeling the next day too. All the different tasks that way you can understand.

Let's say I eat a piece of chocolate today and the next morning when I wake up I go, oh, I don't know why I wasted all my calories on that piece of chocolate, you know? So that's why even same thing with the task, day to day things that we do and looking at our feelings addressing that, you know, how did I feel today after this task and how did I feel tomorrow? And what are your skillset? You know, do you have that skill set to do? And are you good at it?

Well, you could be good at it, you have that skill set, but do you enjoy doing it? You might not be enjoying it. Some people are good at it, they're working in certain professions, making good money, but at the same time they're not enjoying it. So are you enjoying it? So let's say you have a good skill set, you're enjoying it, you're passionate about it. So what does the world need? Does the world need that skill set?

How can you make a difference in other people? When you approach them, doing that service based without an outcome attached. In the process, you could be making money, that's perfectly fine, but doing it with full heart, full reverence, and solving that other person's problem, that's what gives that peace and happiness within.

Host

What would you say is the way your nursing background informs your life as a health coach?

Rajitha

With my nursing background, you know, I am touching people, understanding people, where they are coming from, and able to assess what they're, if they have any type of medical needs, depending on what their lifestyle is, what is going on, and using that and also pretty much for all of them the lifestyle habit change is the same.

For certain conditions, it's little tweaks. Like let's say I have a diabetic patient, then I would say, okay, eat more beans after eating, walk for 15 minutes, doing different things like that, just tweaking a little bit and understanding, okay, where are they? If they have certain conditions like high blood pressure, let's not do some of these breathing exercises, let's change it up a little bit. And

Also, if they give permission, communicating with their physicians on their condition and as they are able to, you know, get into all these different lifestyle modes that, you know, the habits they're inculcating within them, slowly their conditions, like their blood sugars would go down, the blood pressure would go down.

So communicating that with them and the physician saying that, hey, this patient is at this dose of medication, but it is, you know, their numbers are dialing down. Maybe you might want to consider cutting the dosage down. So this way it is that slow process, but at the same time working hand in hand with the provider and the patient.

Host

When you're, first of all, I guess I should ask, do you still practice as a nurse just as a standalone kind of profession or track, or are you doing the health coaching exclusively now? I do. Okay.

Rajitha

I do practice as a nurse, I'm a case manager. So I do practice that at the hospital and also do the health coaching.

Host

I think that's great because then you have, you know, the, the kind of the structure and the organization of the medical world that you can kind of inform people when things do go off track. And my kind of follow-up question was, and I'm glad that you said that was, if, if you could allow nurses to inform their patients about certain things that they typically don't talk to them about now,

What would you feel would be helpful for nurses to share with their patients?

Rajitha

Um.

It would be really good, that would be the best thing to incorporate both the lifestyle coaching and the treatment modality with the patients and as the nurses are there with the patients talking to them, explaining to them depending on whatever is going on, especially the stress level because the patients are at a higher stress level when they...

Host

Thank you.

Rajitha

That's natural, right? When you go into a hospital, you don't know what's wrong with you, and that's when your blood sugars, yeah, and then they go up and the numbers are down. The medication dosages is increased. So explaining to them the importance of, you know, the lowering the stress level, what can they do at home to do that? What kind of support system do they have? The relationship is a huge thing.

Host

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Rajitha

You know, how can they access that support system? How can they involve their family? What are some of the simple, simple things that they can do? Like breathing exercise or sitting in silence. You don't have to call it meditation, just five minutes of silence and adding more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, movement, wherever they are, just making it very accessible to them, understanding their condition.

Even simple thing about going to the mailbox and coming back, that's a huge deal for some of them if they're not able to walk too far. So those are those little things that they can add, tell them these things will help you if you can start incorporating them.

Host

And you're saying in general that that's just not discussed at the hospital? And why don't you think people have incorporated that, you know, philosophy of education?

Rajitha

No. No.

Rajitha

You know, medical professionals are pretty much taught about, okay, this is a diagnosis, you diagnose this medical condition and for that we prescribe this medicine and give the prescription. This is how you need to take the medication. Some patients go home, they have side effects, sometimes they communicate with the provider, sometimes they don't. So when they don't, again, you know, the condition, you know,

it's out of control, they have to come into the ER. But the medications, things like that, that's the only way they have been taught. They have not been taught other way. These are the things that you can incorporate into treating a patient. So it's all about also how safe are you within your own body as a healer, right? When we are in the hospital, we are all healers.

We are healing patients and how comfortable are we? Where is our stress level? Where's our nervous system? We have to be balanced, aligned, and comfortable in ourselves so that we can give that same healing to the patient because if you are at that high level stress, you have too many patients to see and all of that and you're walking into a patient's room.

that person can sense your feelings and you know our body is always scanning for that threat that sympathetic system so they are not so comfortable sharing stuff with you they are already in fearful mode because they don't know what's going on with them so here you go are we at this point of healing or not that's a question to ask ourselves

Host

Do I sense a slight criticism of the medical system right now where the nurses might be overworked? Is there kind of like a hidden message there that you were kind of hinting at?

Rajitha

Well, we know the shortage of nursing. So they are, we are short. So that would be a wonderful thing to incorporate. But again, we have to look at what their loads are, where they are with that. And it's just the system change of our whole health care system. This is how we are built at this point.

Host

Yeah.

Rajitha

without pinpointing anybody, you know, we just need to think of a different way of treating and healing patients. In medications, is that the only answer? It is a partially answer, but is that all we are going to do? Pump medicines and, you know, do procedures? Where is our basic?

concept, you know, nursing is all about touch, feel, things like that. We have lost that in this whole process. We are more worried about making sure that documentation is correct. Right? That is also important. But just getting back to our basics, and that would be very helpful for us as we are.

you know, with the technology, with the innovation, everything that's going on, we just need to remind ourselves about the basis.

Host

Where do you tend to find that clients are finding you? Because it's such an emerging field, the idea of health coaching and advocacy in general. How are people discovering this?

Rajitha

Big thing is word of mouth and another one I'm national board certified health and wellness coach so all the health and wellness coaches are listed there if anybody is looking for them they can access them through that and also healthy wealthy is another huge platform that is based out of Europe that's all over. So they have.

many coaches in there and because they are a non-profit organization that said, okay, it's very important for people to address their needs because we are constantly addressing other people's needs, we are looking at other things, we are not focusing on our health. So how can we make that, you know, we see what we need for our own body and heal ourselves, make it affordable?

Because at this point, insurance doesn't cover, because most of them say, okay, is it covered by insurance? No, okay, I don't want this. I would rather go with medications. So where it's more affordable and also where coaches can come and coach. So it's a platform where it's a dollar a day. It's just $1 they need to invest on themselves. It's a group coaching, coaching for one year, slow microhabit changes.

will happen, they will write their own prescriptions and have unlimited communication with the coach anytime they have any question or any.

Host

And how do people connect with that program that you're talking about where it's a dollar a day and they have their coach and access to them? What's the easiest way for them to discover that and connect with you?

Rajitha

Um, that is like healthy, healthy, wealthy. Um, and, um, it is HTA.

Host

H-E-A-L-T-H-Y. What's that? Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Rajitha

Can I just get that paper? I'm sorry. Hold on. You can count that.

Rajitha

Okay, this is what Healthy Wealthy is. It talks about lifestyle change. So directly if they can connect with me by going to healthywealthy.io forward slash 590 which is the coach number for me and the spelling is H-E-A-L-T-H-I W-E-A-L-T-H-I dot

Host

Mm-hmm.

Rajitha

I owe.

Host

So it's healthy but with an I at the end and wealthy with an I at the end instead of a Y and dot I O. Okay. So far.

Rajitha

at ios.com forward slash 519.

Host

519-519-590. That's your personal coach number, is that right? Okay, all right, great. Is there anything else you'd like to say for people in terms of what they should be looking into or other good advice? So, I'm gonna go ahead and start with you. So, I'm gonna start with you.

Rajitha

590. Um, but I would say is let's just pause and think, you know, what is that, you know, in within us that we can do for ourselves? Just calm down. Just sit in that quiet place and understand yourself. Which area are you coming from? Listen to the heart, not your mind, because we have several thoughts going on. But if we make a decision with our heart.

Do we have that love, peace within us? We have that access. No matter what state you're in, you always have that capability of moving forward and healing yourself. So you have the power to do that. So take charge of yourself and heal yourself.

Host

Thank you so much for being on the Patient Advocacy Now podcast. I really appreciate your time.

Rajitha

Thank you.