Perhaps through some divine intervention or flap of a butterfly wing somewhere, I was asked to write this article about resident wellness in a time where I have been learning a lot about perception and resilience in my rotations. I was recently assigned to work with Dr. Richa Sood, an Internal Medicine physician at Mayo Clinic who specializes in resiliency training for patients. This doctor teaches patients how to practice resilience through “The Resilient Option” program, created by Dr. Amit Sood. I learned that only 30% of resiliency is thought to be genetically determined, which gives me hope that we can practice resiliency to get us through difficult times. I know you’re busy, so I summarized the highlights of Dr. Sood’s teachings into an infographic (below). For more information about the program, check out resilientoption.com.
For stress management, I have found that doing a 10-minute meditation with the app Headspace right before I go to bed to be a peaceful way to end a stressful day. You can get the full Headspace app for $9.99 if you are a member of the American Medical Association.
If you feel sad and burnt out, allow yourself to feel these emotions instead of repressing them. Your body keeps the score of the emotions you have repressed. I think beating yourself up for experiencing unpleasant emotions makes experiencing those emotions unnecessarily worse. In their new book Burnout, Drs. Amelia and Emily Nagoski describe emotions as like tunnels with a beginning, middle and end. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in the middle. Here are the ways that we can “move through the tunnel” of stressful emotions:
1. Move your body: This can range from planned exercise, to dancing in your living room, to tensing up your entire body then releasing.
2. Diaphragmatic breathing: This can range from a guided breathing exercise using an app or just 1 minute of paying attention to the breath coming into your body and the breath leaving your body.
3. Positive social interaction: This can range from complimenting your barista to calling a friend.
4. Laughter: Listen to your favorite stand-up comic, watch a funny show, or call a friend and recount a time you laughed so hard it hurt.
5. Affection: A 20 second hug can provide a similar degree of stress-relieving benefit compared to a short jog.