Category: Stress Management For Physicians

• Combatting Learned Helplessness

  

  “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”-Unknown, but frequently attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald A debilitating thing happens when we begin to feel like our efforts don’t make any difference. At first, we might try even harder to…

• 21 Things to Do When You Don’t Want to Do Anything

  

  There are times when we might feel so overwhelmed or distressed that we are emptied of our desire to engage. Everything just seems too hard. Or we are physically exhausted, deprived of sleep, rest, and relaxation. So we find ourselves mindlessly scrolling through social media for hours, at the end of which we usually feel…

• Dealing With Guilt As A Physician

  

  “Guilt is one of those emotions that feeds on itself. With every bite it gets a little heavier.” Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about coping with loss and about checking our social support to see if it is genuinely supportive. As we discussed, some of the steps to healing are both…

• Problem-Focused vs. Emotion-Focused Coping Strategies

  

  To Solve or To Soothe? When we face a situation that causes us distress, we can try to reduce that distress by working to change the situation. We can also try to manage our emotions, or we can try a combination of both approaches. Emotion-focused coping centers on efforts to change our emotional responses to…

• Potential Pitfalls of Social Support for Physicians

  

  Research has consistently shown that social support helps buffer us against stressors, but there are times when we may be getting suboptimal social support that can actually make us feel worse. 

• Coping with the Death of a Patient

  

  Have you ever struggled with your emotional reactions after losing a patient? There are rituals and practices frequently associated with loss of a loved one that may be absent in the case of loss of a patient.

• Did We Win? Finding Your Purpose

  

  Why do you do what you do? Work is not something that happens in a box over on the side while the rest of your life waits patiently for your attention.

• Boundary Setting as a Physician

  

  Healthy boundaries are flexible boundaries. They are not so infinitely malleable that they end up meaningless, but they are also not so rigid that they don’t allow for situational variation.

• Using Reframing Techniques as a Physician

  

  We see ourselves and our circumstances differently depending upon how we frame them. We might not like any of them. But until we acknowledge that we are making a choice, we are giving away our power to change that choice.

• Practicing Self Compassion for Physicians

  

  Do you have an overactive inner critic? A little (or maybe not-so-little) voice in your head that is eager to pounce on any misstep you make, amplify any mistake, berate you mercilessly for being less than perfect? These vicious self-judgments come with a high price, increasing the risk of depression, anxiety, burnout, and other stress…