For Lynnfield resident Kristen Reed, a leader in the health and wellness field, nursing isn’t merely just a profession — it’s a transformative way of life for herself and her clients.
Reed is a Registered Nurse that’s won multiple prestigious awards, as well as a National Certified Health and Wellness Coach. She’s earned Bachelor’s degrees in Nursing and Psychology — having taken on monikers such as “The Wellness Woman,” coined by The Item, as well as “Powerhouse Woman of Boston” by Quotable Magazine.
She is also the founder of Nursing Your Way to Wellness — a holistic health and wellness practice based in Lynnfield with the goal of empowering people to reclaim their health, energy and confidence.
Reed started by explaining how her academic background in both nursing and psychology has shaped her approach to being a Health and Wellness Coach.
“So much of our health and wellness requires being aware of thought processes, so the psychology component comes in with pretty much every aspect of wellness that I talk through with my clients,” Reed said. “Whether that’s nutrition, eating habits, lifestyle strategies, stress management — it’s really a part of all of it.”
She said she was drawn to nursing from being able to help others, as well as the healing aspect of the field.
“I use my nursing experience all the time in my role as a Health and Wellness Coach — and I really saw a shift in people needing more preventative care, a more proactive approach to health and wellness, versus the current system that seems very reactive,” she said. “From a very young age I was interested in it.”
She noted that after she had started her own coaching practice, the program became so successful that she resigned from her role at the hospital she worked at to focus solely on her mission.
“The practice serves mostly women, but generally individuals to be able to help optimize every area of their health and wellness,” Reed said.
She recalled the first sparks that compelled her to launch Nursing your Way to Wellness — which Reed described as “seeing the need for more proactive care.” Now more than ever, she sees clients come in who have seemingly exhausted all other options.
“It’s about someone who can really look at the whole person, and that’s what I think really makes me unique,” Reed said. “With my nursing and medical background combined with coaching, it’s the best of both worlds to really give them transformative results… I’m always looking at nutrition, fitness as well as self-care, sleep and hygiene.”
Reed explained that the organization’s thorough and thoughtful approach to helping others in every avenue of their lives has helped set it apart from the rest as something entirely unique.
“It’s a very root-cause based approach that’s more functional medicine to really optimize how they feel, versus conventional medicine where we wait until we get sick, don’t feel well, and then reacting from there… And that’s been so rewarding for me,” she added.
She dove deep into what initially compelled her to walk down the path of selflessly serving others, where she talked about how her personal background emphasized the importance of helping people.
“In 2008, I broke my back while white-water rafting, I had a really severe accident and I had a burst compression fracture of my outside vertebrae — so I had to leave my doctorate program, return back home, go into rehab and learn to walk again,” Reed said of what became the most pivotal moment in her life.
“My life flashed before my eyes, and I said to myself: ‘okay, this is my passion, being able to help other people get the health-care they deserve’, and so that was a major turning point in my life, for sure,” she said.
Reed said that she prides herself in being strategic about her work, to make sure each client receives the best possible care. “Having the empathy and the warmth to connect with my clients, to have a very safe place where they feel like I’m with them every step of the way — but I also bring a fact-based approach,” she said. “Making it work is a combination of all that, the strategy, the protocol, the evidence-based research combined with empathy and a really personal approach.”
She shared a story about a transformative period in one of her client’s life, which to this day remains a moving memory for Reed.
“There’s this client that I had been working with for about five years, she had tried everything and came to me exhausted. A lot of frustration with seeing lots of specialist but not feeling heard and dismissed… She came to me with a complicated case, and we got to the root cause.”
Reed took charge and oversaw her care. “She tells me that I’m her guardian angel,” Reed said. “That I turned her life around and I remind her, ‘She’s the one that did it. She did the work, I was just her guide along the way… But we took a multi-faceted approach to help her turn things around again.”
After staying committed to the client, Reed said it’s one of her most rewarding experiences to be able to see her thriving again.
