Cast & Curious

Tag: stress

  • Mindfulness Based Interventions For Healthcare Professionals

    Mindfulness Based Interventions For Healthcare Professionals

    Healthcare professionals frequently experience stress and burnout in their work environment. Unaddressed, such stress and burnout sometimes lead to physical and mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, diabetes, fatigue, heart disease, hypertension, insomnia and obesity Burnout amongst HCPs has also been associated with reduced job satisfaction and negative patient outcomes, like reduced patient satisfaction and increased work errors.

    There is a growing evidence suggesting that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can help decrease stress and burnout experienced amongst HCPs, increasing job satisfaction levels and improving an aspect of patient outcomes (Escuriex and Labbe 2011; Irving et al. 2009; Shanafelt et al. 2009).

    Kabat- Zin (1994) defines mindfulness as the quality of awareness that occurs through intentionally focusing on present moment experiences in an accepting and non-judgemental manner. It is fast becoming a popular psychological stress reduction intervention mong HCPs. Mindfulness and Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBIs) “causes a positive shift in perspective and an ability to objectively view one’s life experiences” often referred to as “decentering” MBIs also causes “Reperceiving” which facilitates an individual’s ability to observe their thoughts and feelings with greater clarity.

    In this edition of #HealthXPh chat, I would like to know the practice and impact of mindfulness and mindfulness based interventions among healthcare professionals.

    T1. Do you practice mindfulness or MBIs at work? Why or why not?

    I started practicing mindfulness sometime in 2012, hoping to reduce stress and focus my attention to work. I was introduced to the guided meditation technique in an app called “Headspace”. Of course, I really don’t know if there was any effect on me at all (let alone my work) but I liked the “decentering” periods that took me off my busy schedule.

    T2. What are the benefits or challenges of practicing mindfulness or MBIs at work?

    It took me awhile to notice the impact of practicing mindfulness in my life. The irony of course is that it’s rarely me who did notice, but my family, friends, or colleagues and you guess, patients. Sometimes you barely notice the impact at all. But, I think with MBIs, I was able to stretch my patience, self regulate emotions and empathize in a more compassionate way. In a very busy and hectic work environment, the challenge was finding time and consistently doing mindfulness.

    T3. Would you recommend mindfulness or MBIs to colleagues, friends or even patients?Why or Why not?

    I have recommended MBIs to a number of “stressed” and “burned out” friends and colleagues. I have recommended it to a few patients who asked and were interested. I have yet to fully understand some of its impact on others, but i do get self report of “better, optimistic attitude’, “non judgmental” “anger control” and varying degrees of focused attention.

    Today I am continually practicing mindfulness based meditation- at home, work, during travel/commute and most especially when I am outdoors. It is not exactly a glorious, effortless of a habit, but even with the meditative breathing alone, I can “sense calm” in times when I’m probably burned or something.

  • Work Life Balance: The Art of Saying “No”.

    Work Life Balance: The Art of Saying “No”.

    I’m always have been a workaholic but I’ve never been more rushed in my life than lately. This year is about to end yet I feel I ought to spend more time with family and friends. Days are compressed with most nights I’m awake doing some work or school stuff. There seem to be an endless barraged of things to do and I’m sacrificing personal for my work time. Of course I did try “hacks” to regain some sense of work-life balance, but I need to try harder. One big contributor to work life imbalance is the difficulty of saying no, so I thought of discussing work life balance, vis a vis saying “no”, in this week in #HealthXPh chat.

    T1. Why do you think many medical professionals find it difficult to say “no” ?

    Medical education and training honed us to be super humans many of us grew accustomed to the culture of extending work time to service humanity. In a work environment where the culture are straight duties, overtimes , giving “extra mile” in the service of humanity, saying no is like saying no to our profession. It is pretty much embarrassing, to say no in the medical profession. Sacrificing personal life seem to be the de facto culture in healthcare.

    T2. What’s your funniest saying “no” experience?

    I digress a bit. Yes, saying no in healthcare is often embarrassing, sometimes outright humorous. How often do you find yourself yearning to say no to a request yet uttering the word “yes” instead? There are time that I said yes to a request or an additional work, yet I almost instantly wished I said “no” and hated myself for it. Sometimes, I say “yes” because a “no” in healthcare, is often interpreted as the work ethic of “scums” .

    T3. Can you give tips or advice on saying no to achieve work life balance?

    Lately I calendared a regular exercise schedule and declared it non negotiable. I did prioritize myself- health, and openly declared it to everyone- patients, friends, family and even my bosses. It was difficult at first but by calendaring it early on, it became a routine “excuse” to say no to every request foregoing that exercise routine.

    There! I hope to read your thoughts and advices on work life balance and the art of saying “no” at the #HealthXPh chat this Saturday, Sept 15, 2023 9PM Manila time.

    These are our guide questions:

    [su_box title=”Work Life Balance: The Art of Saying No.”][su_list icon=”icon: hand-o-right”]

    • T1. Why do you think many medical professionals find it difficult to say “no”?
    • T2. What’s your funniest saying “no” experience?
    • T3. Can you give tips or advice on saying no to achieve work life balance? [/su_list] [/su_box]

      See you all at the #HealthXPh chat!

      ( Image by stockking on Freepik )

  • Managing Stress, Building Resilience and Finding Meaning at Work

    Summary: This pandemic brought stress and the needed resilience to an all time high. Experts recommend finding new meaning at work to combat disillusionment. Join our #HealthXPh chat this Sat 9PM MLA Jan 29, 2022, share your experience and results!

    “I quit!!This is hardly the work I imagined when I entered med school! You risk your life and the safety of your family, for what? Getting rebuked for not extending an already extended duty??! What the f-!”

    MD

    I’ve seen more colleagues leaving this past 2 years than in 10 years I’ve been in practice. Many left because of the untenable healthcare system. Most, simply got burned out by this pandemic. Gone were the accolades and praises for health workers leading the fight against COVID-19. Instead, healthcare workers get ridiculed, criticised and accused of profiteering. People would rather believe popular but misguided personalities who propagate misinformation. Thus, vaccine hesitancy is at its highest.No wonder a lot of healthcare workers wonder- “are we still in the vocation that we all so loved before”?

    This pandemic “broke” many records in healthcare. Given the enormous level of burnout and stress healthcare providers receive at work, mental health issues is at its highest. The number of healthcare workers leaving the local health industry is also staggering, probably the highest in recent memory. Exit interviews among healthcare providers reveal predictable answers- seek greener pastures elsewhere or leave medicine until our healthcare system “figure out” this pandemic. If this diaspora continues, our healthcare system will probably collapse.

    What seem pretty obvious though is that in our healthcare system, care for healthcare providers is not a topmost priority. This is a difficult reality to swallow. Notwithstanding, healthcare providers should prioritize self care or we cannot sustain taking care of others. I am very interested in the thoughts and experiences of healthcare providers who continued doing their “calling”.

    “Why are you not leaving medicine? Have you found ways to manage stress at work? How did you sustain and build resilience? Did you find meaning in this thankless job? Or, are you are you simply zombie- riding the tides of this pandemic??” This will be the topic of our #HealthXPh chat. To guide our discussion, here are the topic questions.

    T1. How do you manage stress at work?

    T2. How do you build resilience at work?

    T3. How do you find meaning at work?

    All these questions obviously mattered even before. This pandemic however brought the level of stress and the needed resilience to an all time high. Many psychologist and mental health experts recommended finding new meaning at work as a way to combat disillusionment with the current healthcare work environment. Most of us agree on these recommendations, but “devil is in the detail”. Note my emphasis on the “how to” so many healthcare provider joining this chatr can try some out of what works for you. So come and join our #HealthXPh chat this Saturday 9PM Manila time Jan 29, 2022, share your experience and results!

    Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay

  • Coping with Pandemic Induced Stress

    In early 2019, I was assigned several innovative projects because of technical, educational and administrative “troubleshooting” abilities. I was happy with what I considered as a promotion, embracing additional responsibilities to a mildly busy orthopedic practice and academic duties. The projects entailed mostly online work, with few face to face meetings as needed.

    Inspite of my supposedly “stress-proof” lifestyle, stress began creeping in early January of 2020. I was trying out some “stress mitigation tactics” when this pandemic happened.

    Stress, is at a unprecedented level.

    My adult life was about balancing the pursuit of dreams, self care and positive contributions to society. Many medical professionals eat stress for breakfast and most survive, unscathed. We’re “stress-proof” so to speak. We’re confidently resilient, agile and unbending to “pressures” . When COVID-19 pandemic came, I’m confident about surviving stress. One year after and though I’m alive and coping, I’m still trying out new things to stress proof my life inside a bubble.

    I’m having a hard time “managing” this unprecedented level of stress.

    Here’s the deal. I am very much interested in how you, a medical professional, is coping with this pandemic induced stress. I’m an action guy and I like knowing details or specifics of your coping mechanisms. Verb, I repeat specifics and the context of its application. Yes, you may include all those memes, tiktoks, food galore, plants and what nots. Just have the “decency” to spell out if and when these whatever, helped you cope with stress. What metrics did you use. Yes, let’s be scientific- evidenced based coping mechanisms measured by. This will be our tweet chat topic later 9PM manila time. Game?

    T1. How did pandemic-induced stress got you?

    The first step in coping with stress is knowing or accepting you are stressed. I has had sleepless, anxious nights thinking I got COVID after inadvertently bumping one sneezing person. There were times I had to wake up, read online messages for fear of missing out some important news. I easily flare up when people disregard health protocols. I had eating binges and didn’t exercise. I get angry when people don’t follow procedures or are offering excuses . I lost that “what-if-you’re-in-this person-shoes” empathic mind battle completely. I am on a self preserving mode. When I argued with a family member over some trivial stuff, I called up a friend for help. I was breathing stress and I needed help.

    T2. How did you cope with pandemic induced stress?

    Accepting everyone’s in the same stress boat as I am, I started looking for “positives”, a way out, an opportunity to act rather than blame. I was letting go of things or actions that is beyond my influence. Watched less TV, social media fasted and tried a phone-less existence as often as I could. I focused on plants, food then some healthy routines. Pre COVID I had this weekly, daily routine of exercise, creative and challenging pursuits, journalling. When COVID came, all that is left is journalling thoughts, because all the actions were severely limited. I struggled much adapting my exercise, exploring and discovering routines. Am still am. Refocusing is hardest, particularly with greying of the work and personal time with a work from home arrangement. Rereading stoic literature was helpful in this. Then there is this social media hiatus. I often turn off my phone, lock it inside drawer so people could not call me at night. One of I think the best coping I learned this pandemic is being grateful. Even with the smallest of things or failures that made me a better person.

    T3. How did you know your coping mechanism is effective?

    First, I slowly regained some restful sleep at night then wake up early in the morning to exercise. I’ve learned to reply to essential messages at day time. There’s this seemingly relaxed and unperturbed attitude at the breakfast table or a leisurely coffee while trimming plants. I could also now walk away from whatever I work from without guilt, accepting everyone’s is entitled to some reprieved in this pandemic. I’m still working on my stingy often cold, stoic demeanour about so many things. I’m still whinny as hell, but I laugh, or give self demeaning jokes about more often. I’m still a work in progress and hopefully, this tweet chat will give me ideas on how to have breakfast with sarscovid.

    Image by KamranAydinov on Freepik

  • Mental Good: How healthcare professionals balance career and personal lives

    “To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.”- Confucius

    About a month ago a colleague committed suicide just a day after her hospital duty . She was working 72 hours straight without sleep for weeks, but not even her family had an inkling she was about to take her own life.  Two days ago I talked to another friend who is disappointed with his medical career because of the so many challenges he is going through. He is beat up. Today, I talked to another healthcare professional and the same “tone of disillusionment”  is palpable as tears well in the corner of her eyes.

    “This is not what I signed up for medicine”  was the bottom line for this three healthcare professional.

    Disappointment, frustration or simply “burnt out”  is a well known but rarely verbalised, “not so secret” secret among colleagues in the healthcare profession. In fact, it is so common in the medical profession we’ve considered this part of the “normal challenges” of our career path and we expect every physician to survive it. Of course the sad reality is that not everyone survive this challenge.

    Some of them end up dead.

    While the cases of suicide among healthcare professionals maybe small and sporadic (an outlier) what surprises us the most is that nobody seem to have an inkling that physician or healthcare professional A is depressed and suicidal until he or she is actually dead or dying.  Are healthcare professionals good at hiding depression and frustrations or have the general public gotten used to the notion that healers ought to endure superhuman problems and heal themselves?

    The devil is in the small details.

    Most of the telltale signs of depression are what we see as “normal” in the day to day existence of a healthcare professional. Seventy Two hours straight duty? That’s normal. Most even brag about it. Felt bullied by a senior? “Oh thats just normal. That’s needed for you to harden up.” Sometimes, our health system exerts tons of pressure upon a healthcare professional, yet it doesn’t provide an outlet for overcoming stress, deprivation and disillusionment.

    When colleagues on rare occasions do come to me seeking advise on what to do with their career and personal life, I am tempted to answer drawing from my own experience. How do you balance professional and personal life really? I realized though that my experience might be an outlier too and would not be applicable to anyone else even if we thread the same career path.

    So i bring these dilemma for discussion here on our tweet chat.

    T1. As a healthcare professional, how do you balance professional and personal lives? Where do you draw the line of caring for others without harming your personal lives?

    I have seen obviously sick or sleep deprived physicians tending to patients, a dangerous situation for both patient and professional.  Where do you draw the line here?  If you are a patient, what would you suggest to your healthcare professional knowing he is sick or is sleep deprived?

    T2. What counsel would you give to a disillusioned, depressed colleague who seeks your advise,  besides seeking professional help? 

    We always give advise to disillusioned or depressed colleague but we rarely knew or had the chance to follow up if they really did.  What other advise can you give?

    T3. Can you give an example of the “lowest low” in your medical career and how were you able to overcome it?

    Join us this Saturday, May 20, 2017 9:00PM Manila time as we bring balancing life, depression and medical career into the discussions of health in the Philippines!