Clawing my way back out of burnout has been a slow and steady crawl. If you are not familiar with the struggle, read my previous post, Burnout – Part One.
Once I recognized the problem for what it was, I was determined to fix it. If I want to do something, it will be done. Drive a stick shift? Done. Install a laundry dryer by myself? Done. Shingle a roof with a nail gun? Done. This seemed fairly simple – I’d just follow the advice I give to my patients.
- Sleep 7-9 hours a night: Not a problem. In fact, my husband is always flabbergasted at how I seem to fall asleep before my head even hits the pillow.
- Eat well: I’m not an emotional eater, and I really do try to practice what I preach by eating my fruits and veggies.
- Exercise: I was already running 3-4 days a week in training for my half marathon. I guess I could add in more yoga?
Well… that was incredibly unhelpful. Now I understand that Are you being serious right now? look patients give me on a daily basis.
New approach:
I watched all of Brené Brown’s TED talks and Youtube videos, and started reading her books. While this was helpful in terms of changing how I talk about self-love and care with my patients, it still didn’t fix my problem. I tried volunteering at our local free clinic, but those shifts were from 7 to 9:30 pm, adding on to an already full day. I was even more wiped out the next morning, not recharged. I picked up cross-stitching and crocheting again in an effort to diversify my life with hobbies. Lunch time was re-extended from 12 to 1:30 and I switched my half day to Wednesday to make hump day less miserable. I was still at 34.5 patient contact hours but working slightly less at about 50 hours a week. Things were getting better, slowly but surely.
Then there it was, an email from the local hospital’s listserve on an upcoming event to help address physician burnout through mindfulness. I was somewhat familiar with mindfulness from doing yoga for many years, but never had actually sat in one place and tried to not think for more than 2 minutes. Mindfulness is often mistakenly interchanged with meditation, but is actually a secular subset of meditation, at least in the West. It’s been seemingly a new fad with all the apps coming out such as Headspace and Calm. I don’t tend to chase the newest and greatest things, so I never checked it out.
Maybe now was the time. I dove into the research and stumbled onto the American Psychological Association’s article on the benefits of mindfulness. It seemed like it was the answer to all my problems: stress reduction, boosts to working memory and focus, reduced rumination, increased empathy and compassion.
I didn’t go to the event.
I couldn’t imagine showing up and declaring, “Hey guys, I actually really hate my job, you know, the one I trained for for 12 years and have only been doing for 2. So… if you could show me how to salvage that by sitting in a corner with my eyes closed, that would be great. But really, you just need to give me tools to keep me going for another 3 years until my loans are paid off, because then I’m quitting. Thanks.”
Nope. Not happening. So I downloaded the Calm app instead.
First off, I was not about to pay for an app, especially if I wasn’t 100% sure this was going to work. The nice thing about the Calm app is that the first program 7 Days of Calm is free, as are the first days of the rest of the programs. About 3 weeks of free daily daily sessions seemed worth the gamble.
I plugged in my headphones in daily for a week during my lunch to complete the 7 Days of Calm. The first thing I heard was beautiful nature outdoor sounds, complete with a babbling brook, birds and a gentle breeze. Next, a zen narrator’s voice came on and said a little blurb for 30 seconds or so on how to practice mindfulness, then back to nature sounds for another 9 minutes while you try to not think. I couldn’t NOT think for longer than 15 seconds before a thought popped into my head, specifically on how this was a waste of time and I had so many other things to do. But, I committed, and when I say I’ll do something, I’m going to do it.
As I went on through the week, I realized my mind is like my Chrome and Safari browser – 20 tabs open at all times. Maybe I did need help closing down everything to help focus on just one thing at a time. So I continued onward and made it a habit at lunch for the last 4 months. Some days, it still goes down like this:
Still frazzled, but able to disconnect from the world for 10 minutes. Sure, emotional regulation is a bit better after I complete my sessions, and I’m not as bothered by the little things as I was previously.
But, this started to feel more and more like a bandaid bandwagon corporations are jumping on. It’s in their best interest to try to address employee burnout, because otherwise their productivity goes down. Let’s not talk about how companies are squeezing every last bit of productivity out of their workers and simultaneously decreasing the number of staff to save on labour costs. Instead, let’s focus on how much companies care about their workers by hosting a “free” mindfulness event, outside of business hours, of course.
The use of mindfulness today has been twisted from its original intent. It was meant to be a technique to help us filter through all the extraneous crap and find clarity. Not to help us exist in an emotionally detached state in order to continue tolerating a shitty situation.
My moment of clarity came a few weeks ago when I saw one of my favourite patients. She was a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after undergoing chemo and radiation 15 years ago, and this summer, I diagnosed her with radiation induced heart failure in the clinic. She ran through the full gauntlet, to the point of requiring a life vest wearable defibrillator for months, just in case her heart decided to stop. Fortunately, her heart recovered on its own and she was now in the clear. This visit, she was only here for a sinus infection.
I asked her how things were going, and she let out a big sigh. “I’ve been working 60 hours a week because one of my coworkers was let go and now I’m responsible for her work. I don’t even know when they’re going to be hiring a new person. I’ll have to train them anyway, so it’s looking like I’ll be doing this for several months.” I was incredulous. I couldn’t hold back my response. “What?!? You didn’t drag yourself out of heart failure and everything you went through this summer, just to work 60 hours a week. You deserve better than that.” Sheepishly, she replied, “I know. I was waiting for you to tell it like it is. I’m going to fix it after the holidays.”
During my mindfulness session that day, I couldn’t let go of this nagging feeling. I finally gave in and explored it in depth – on the other side emerged the shame of hypocrisy. Sure, I did all the things I tell my patients – diet, exercise, sleep, mindfulness but chose to exclude the one thing that would actually help with burnout: WORK LESS. It was so simple, and yet so difficult. Because, money.
Who doesn’t like money? But through this, I’ve come to understand money in the bank does not equate to having a rich life.
What I am gaining in dollars, I’m losing in joy and happiness. In my quest for more, I have become less.
It’s time for a mindshift – what will I gain by working less? What material/costly things can I let go of in order for me to get my life back? Am I really allocating my time and money to the things that are important to me, or am I devoting my resources to things that help me put blinders on to a bad situation for a time?
What would you gain with less?
Next post on burnout: Why Now?
***Main photo taken at Guler Ice Cave, Trout Lake, WA