While working for Exxon Corp. in the 1980s, Charlie Johnson, a chemical engineer and manager, found himself grappling with an unusual amount of stress.
“At that point in my career, I was very stressed out, and I thought I would absolutely go nuts if I didn’t do something,” Mr. Johnson recalls. “So I made a commitment to do meditation for 20 minutes a day.”
That course, taken in the mid-1980s, helped relieve much of the tension that Mr. Johnson was feeling — and became the impetus for what is now a thriving second career.
After taking early retirement at age 55, Mr. Johnson began to practice yoga more fervently, sometimes three hours a day. In 1992, he started teaching yoga out of his home, but his wife balked at the number of people traipsing in and out of their living room.
At about the same time, Mr. Johnson discovered a technique called “mindfulness-based stress reduction,” or MBSR, developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
The practice, which fuses Western stress-reduction techniques with yoga and meditation, is used in hospitals and outpatient clinics to help people with significant medical or psychological issues relieve stress, tension and pain.
Since the MBSR technique turned out to be similar to the blend of yoga and meditation that Mr. Johnson had developed over the years, he decided to begin training to become a certified practitioner.
In 2003, Mr. Johnson started a small business called Stress Reduction Training that offers courses based on his MBSR training and his own experiences with yoga.
His private practice takes him to hospitals and clinics where he teaches patients to use yoga and meditation to relieve a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, chronic pain, headaches, high blood pressure, sleep disorders, anxiety and depression.
Normally taught over a period of nine weeks, Mr. Johnson’s course is adapted to each participant’s circumstances. One of his students is a woman who is paralyzed from the neck down; others are in college, with high-stress classes and coursework.
“Sure I’m busy, but the big difference between my new career and working at Exxon is I get to help people overcome their problems,” says Mr. Johnson, age 61.
Some of the most gratifying moments, he says, occur when a person no longer needs blood-pressure medication or is able to surmount depression.
Photo by WSJ.
Yomi on May 30th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
That’s pretty cool. I use to work in healthcare as a PT. I wonder if Mr. Johnson gets reimbursed by health insurance in the hospitals. It’s very difficult for patients to come out of pocket for a well needed service like that. I know it would be a hit with wellness centers and fitness clubs. Anything to get us less dependent on pharmaceutical drugs is a plus.
Yomi
http://www.yomitravel.com