Unlearning Self-Defeating Thinking Habits: A Proactive Approach

CME/MOC: 1.5
TRACK: Management and Administration in OEM

David Frances, PhD, Quadrant Health Strategies, Inc., Beverly, MA

OEM promotes good nutrition, regular exercise, and healthful habits to prevent illness and injury. But OEM practitioners have lacked the tools to actively address one major contributor to health and productivity problems: common mental health disorders, estimated to cost American business at least $225 billion/year. This session will present research-based concepts to address these problems in the workplace and introduce evidence-based techniques for self-improvement and demonstrate a stigma-free training program by which to educate receptive corporate audiences. This session will review benefits and shortcomings of traditional efforts to address mental health issues in the corporate environment; present 50 years of research supporting the concept of cognitive health; describe how irrational, self-defeating thinking habits can be identified and unlearned; and demonstrate a lunch-and-learn program on cognitive health that has been piloted successfully at two global companies.