Women In Wellness: Dr. Tara Morris of Airrosti On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Develop relationships with other healthcare providers in your community. Understand that we are a specialized group of doctors, and that’s a good thing. We can’t take care of every condition, so do what you do exceptionally well and then find other providers you can rely on to send patients who need alternate care.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tara Morris.
Tara Morris, DC, CCSP, an Airrosti Certified Provider, has been a Doctor of Chiropractic at Airrosti Rehab for ten years. She graduated from Boston University with her undergrad and then went to Palmer College of Chiropractic West. Morris has been serving on the USA Swimming Medical Staff for over ten years and travels to exciting International competitions with the team. Since moving to Austin, TX, 15 years ago, she has also been the Team Doctor for the Austin Outlaws Women’s Full Tackle Football Team. She is also a mom to two very active boys who are athletes themselves.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Absolutely! I was a very active Army brat growing up, so we moved around a lot, and playing sports was how I made friends. I was a swimmer and played volleyball, basketball, and softball. This is where my passion for working with athletes started. I played volleyball through college, and then in chiropractic school, I got a part-time job coaching a local swim club team, beginning my work with USA Swimming. Also, in chiropractic school, I learned the process of working with other USA teams and set my goal for it! I took endless hours of seminars dealing with athletes, their injuries, rehab, etc., and when we moved to Austin 15 years ago, I decided to focus on swimmers. That led to my work with USA Swimming after a rotation at the U.S. Olympic Center in Colorado Springs. When I found Airrosti Rehab Centers 10 years ago, it was a perfect fit for me. I love spending time with patients working on their injuries and teaching them how to rehab and maintain their health.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
I have a funny story that happened just a few years after I first started practicing, back in Pleasanton, CA. A patient came in for lower back pain, and after a few years of knowing him, I began to notice a pattern with his injury. I would only see him in my office with flare-ups in the summertime, and for the rest of the year, his low back felt pretty good. It seemed kind of strange to me. Well, upon talking more with him during his visits, I found out that not only was he an Oakland A’s baseball fan (like my husband and I were!), but he had season tickets to the games. One day, I asked him where his seats were at the stadium and when my husband and I went to a game that weekend, I found where he was sitting. After just a few minutes, I realized that to see the field of play, he had to turn his back in a particular direction, and he would sit like that for almost three hours every time he came to a game (which is A LOT with season tickets for baseball). So, we talked about his posture in his seats at his next visit. The following year, he changed the location of his season tickets, and guess what? No more chronic low back pain during the summer! So sometimes, you’ve just got to dig a little deeper with your patients to figure out what in their lives might be affecting their musculoskeletal conditions.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started practicing over 20 years ago, I had no desire to run my own business. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of an option out there for Chiropractors to just join a practice, work, and get paid, so I was forced into an independent contractor-type of work. I didn’t take any business courses in undergrad, so I had no idea what to do regarding finances. I paid for many things with a credit card, which was NOT a good idea. Anyone I talk to now who is joining the profession, I try to emphasize that if their goal is to run their own office, then go out and take business courses along with their D.C. degree. We learn how to diagnose and treat patients, but we don’t walk out of school with MBAs. Some of the best doctors (in all different specialties) don’t make it on their own, not because they’re not amazing doctors, but because they don’t know how to run a business.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
I believe that my work with patients is changing their lives. I hope that not only am I helping people to heal and get out of pain, but along with that, improving how they function in their daily lives. Most importantly, I hope that I am educating them on how to stay healthy and take care of themselves in the future.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
So much comes down to posture. Technology has changed the world, primarily for good, but with it, we have become addicted to our screens and drawn into whatever happens to be on them at the time. So, my top 5 lifestyle tweaks mainly have to do with that.
- Keep your head up! Hold your phone up, not your head down, to see the screen.
- Bring your work/keyboard/mouse to you, don’t lean forward towards it.
- Sit back in your seat. You don’t need a fancy $500 chair; you just need to USE the chair you have.
- Sleep in a neutral position, don’t have your head flexed forward or rotated to the side.
- Hydration! Drink water throughout the day.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
The movement I would start would be centered on standing up and taking care of your body, not on others for your health. Get up and move! Eat healthy most of the time (but allow yourself to cheat sometimes too, it’s all about balance) and find things that interest you, where you can get involved and develop personal relationships for your mental health.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Believe in yourself and own what you are doing.
- Develop relationships with your patients. Find out about their lives, which can open up the door to what might be causing some of their underlying problems.
- Develop relationships with other healthcare providers in your community. Understand that we are a specialized group of doctors, and that’s a good thing. We can’t take care of every condition, so do what you do exceptionally well and then find other providers you can rely on to send patients who need alternate care.
- You will make mistakes, own them and grow from them.
- Know your worth. You put a lot of time and money into your education, don’t give your services away.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is hugely significant as we’ve started to come out of the pandemic. I am very concerned about our children and adults who have spent so much time alone without in-person interaction with others. Virtual interaction is not the same as being in-person. At Airrosti and when I work with USA Swimming, being part of a team is one of my favorite parts of the job, being able to share in both the hardships and joys with your team. We need this as human beings. It’s essential to our well-being!
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
I will say I’m pretty old school when it comes to technology. I even still get an actual newspaper delivered to my house! But you can follow me on Instagram @14tjmm. You can also follow Airrosti on instagram, @airrosti, Twitter, @airrosti, or other social media platforms by searching, Airrosti.
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Women In Wellness: Dr Tara Morris of Airrosti On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support P was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.