coaching health and wellness shownotes

Empowering Healthcare With Lifestyle Medicine with Dr. Raquel Harrison

Feb 11, 2025

Shownotes For Podcast Episode 15: Empowering Healthcare With Lifestyle Medicine With Dr. Raquel Harrison

In this episode of the Health and Wellness Coach Journal Podcast, Dr. Jessica Singh sits down with Dr. Raquel Harrison, an emergency and lifestyle medicine physician based in Fairfield County, Connecticut.Dr. Harrison previously served as an Assistant Program Director for the Emergency Medicine Residency at Yale and was an Assistant Professor. Upon leaving Yale, she sought to understand her own health with a new lens and is now also board certified in Lifestyle Medicine. She worked as a part-time Emergency Medicine Physician at Bridgeport Hospital, Yale New Haven Health for over 5 years.

In this episode, Dr. Harrison shares her transformative path into lifestyle medicine—a journey inspired by her personal health experiences and her desire to align her values with her professional life. Dr. Harrison shares her passion and dedication to promoting evidence-based lifestyle interventions. With a focus on the six pillars of lifestyle medicine—nutrition, physical activity, sleep, positive social connection, stress reduction, and avoiding risky behaviors—Dr. Harrison reveals how these principles not only enhance health outcomes but also empower patients and providers alike.

Integrating Lifestyle Medicine Into Practice: Insights for Coaches and Healthcare Providers

With substantiated evidence supporting the benefits of making small, intentional behavioral changes, Dr. Harrison highlights the critical role that lifestyle medicine plays in optimizing health and well-being. Furthermore, she emphasizes the importance of focusing on health span (quality of life) rather than merely lifespan.

Together, Dr. Harrison and Dr. Singh explore the challenges of conventional healthcare, where time constraints and administrative tasks often limit the time - and therefore the ability, for providers to cultivate meaningful connections with patients. Dr. Harrison discusses how coaches and coaching techniques play an essential role in bridging this gap by offering personalized support to help patients implement lasting lifestyle changes. Together, healthcare providers and coaches can create a more holistic approach to patient care, one that promotes sustained health and wellness through collaboration and self-empowerment.

Additionally, the episode touches on the powerful influence of faith, purpose, and relationships in disease prevention. Dr. Harrison explains how conversations around values and meaning can lead to breakthroughs in patient care, bringing a deeper sense of fulfillment and wellness.

Finally, Dr. Singh and Dr. Harrison discuss the importance of balancing lifestyle interventions with pharmaceutical treatments and share strategies for introducing lifestyle medicine concepts to both patients and colleagues within conventional medical frameworks. The episode offers insightful perspectives on how a team-based approach to care can improve outcomes for both patients and healthcare providers.

Takeaways:

Empowerment is Everything: Whether through coaching, lifestyle medicine, or patient care, the ultimate goal is to empower individuals to take ownership of their health.

Team-Based Care Matters: Collaboration between coaches, physicians, and other healthcare providers is essential for creating lasting change.

Focus on What Resonates: Tailoring lifestyle recommendations to align with patients’ values leads to more effective and sustainable outcomes.

Social Connection is Health: From micro-interactions to deep relationships, our connections profoundly impact our mental, emotional, and physical health.

This episode is a must-listen for coaches, healthcare providers, and anyone interested in aligning values with action to create meaningful change in health and wellness. Tune in to explore the transformative power of lifestyle medicine and discover how coaching and care can work hand in hand to build healthier, more connected lives.