Category Archives: stress management

On What Helps

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 22

To Patients Preparing for Uncomfortable Holidays:

Seek what helps.

What did I write recently about staying off of Facebook and minimizing my social media exchanges?  How fascinating, look what I just did—spent the last two hours on Facebook!  I also write about trying, falling down, and trying again…  So this is me both falling down (in my attempt to stay off) and trying again (to engage meaningfully).

The holidays are coming, yay!  …And, not so yay!  The conversations we have with friends and family in the next 6 weeks or so have enormous potential—for division as well as connection.  Personally, I feel optimistic.  I plan to evoke my core values of open-mindedness, empathy, and integrity.  I want to look back on the gatherings with gratitude and deeper connection.  So today I share with you all the things I have read (today—see?  I endure Facebook for your benefit! teeheehee) that have helped me.  These pieces validate, challenge, reassure, alarm, question and motivate me to Hold the Space, Stay on the Path, and Seek Love.  Please share yours, also!

A fellow physician’s acknowledgement of the humanness of bias, its potential for harm in caring for patients, and a reminder for self-awareness and –management.

Posts by Michelle at The Green Study, reminding us that internal conflict is normal in the face of world events such as ours, with concrete suggestions for actions that align with core values:  “We cannot strengthen our character unless it is tested. We cannot defend our freedoms unless they are threatened. We cannot become better writers or artists or humans unless we have obstacles to overcome.”

An article from The Guardian that points me to reputable sources of alternate points of view, so I may understand better.

A call out from the Wall Street Journal—to help me own my shit before I call out others on theirs.

A gentle message from fellow blogger John Pavlovitz: “Friend, however you choose to navigate these holidays, know that it’s the right way. Give yourself permission to pretend or confront or abstain as you need to, and forgive yourself later if you decide you chose poorly. You’re probably going to get it wrong or at least feel like you did.

“But remember too, to save a little of that mercy for those who sit across the table from you or those who choose not to. They’ll be doing the best they can too.”

And finally, the Prayer of Maimonides, the twelfth century physician and philosopher:

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These holidays, wish me persistence and ‘stubborn gladness,’ as Liz Gilbert calls it.  I wish you all the same!

On Rest and Recovery

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 19

To Patients Who Feel Tired:

Take a break.

It’s the home stretch.  9/10 presentations since August are completed, last one in 10 days.  I feel positively exhausted.  I drove 2.5 hours to Champaign Thursday night, arriving around 11:30.  Sleep was not great that night… not for a couple weeks now, actually.  I presented at a conference yesterday morning, then attended other presentations the rest of the day.  I made new connections, re-established old ones.  I received an award, so humbling and touching, and engaged in lively conversation with colleagues at dinner.  I left Champaign by 10:30pm, and swung by to pick up my daughter from her sleepover just before 12:30am, because she wanted to come home.

I got out of bed at noon today.  Had some coffee and leftover carrot cake for—well, breakfast, I guess.  Folded laundry, paid some bills, cleaned off my desk.  The only things I have to do this weekend are write, work out, attend the middle school play, and maybe cook something.  It’s a weekend for much needed rest and recovery.

It’s been four months of intense learning, processing, sharing, and integration.  It’s maybe also been a year of angst, trying so hard to engage with ‘others’ in the personal political arena—mostly online.  Curiosity, probing questions, reading for understanding and hoping for others to do the same—I engaged in good faith.  Now I’m finished.

I have gone back on Facebook since my 24 hour fast this week, very occasionally getting sucked into reading diatribes about one thing or another.  I have minimized posting my own tirades, however.  I see a friend complaining about ‘the left,’ calling out the whole group as hypocritical.  I’m tired.  Tired of the generalizations and name-calling, tired of the fruitless arguments and echo-chamber goading.

So this weekend I’m resting and recovering.  I have reviewed and renewed my charitable contributions.  I’m trying to be more present to the family.  I’m considering my options for civic participation.  I’m saving my political curiosity and engagement for people I meet in person.  I’m sleeping.  A lot.

My last presentation this year will be to a new audience, outside of medicine.  I feel positively giddy with anticipation.  I need to be focused and my best—not just for them, but for me.  The energy I project can amplify exponentially if I get the resonance just right.  Then it recharges me, too.  And that can only happen if I’m rested and healthy.  So this downtime is my investment in future engagement.

What has you tired right now?  What do you need to recharge and re-engage?  Here’s hoping you find it.

 

On Fasting

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 15

To Patients Who Are Fed Up:

Try fasting.

That pun really was unintended!

I asked a colleague about fasting once—what are the benefits, why does he do it?  He asked, “Don’t you ever feel like it’d be a good thing, every once in a while, to stop eating for a day?”  Ummm… No, are you kidding me?  That would never and still has never occurred to me, I love food too much!

Tonight, however, I think I may understand a little better.  Maybe fasting is about counteracting overconsumption.   Certainly we have a problem with food glut here in the US.  I have heard the word ‘detox’ associated with fasting, too…  Maybe I just refuse to admit how poisoned I am by the food I eat to consider this remedy—I am pre-contemplative here.

I am finally ready to concede, however, that I overconsume Facebook.  Sure, it provides plenty of material for this blog, and I really do interact meaningfully with a lot of people (but wait, do I, really?).  And, I have let it overtake my consciousness too often.  The time suck is interfering with other tasks and yes, relationships, I must admit.  I rationalize that I am ‘reading,’ that it’s a source of so much interesting information and idea exchange.  That may be partially true, and still, it costs too much.

So I commit to a Facebook fast this day, November 15, 2016.  It’s been a long time since my last fast—actually a year, come to think of it—yup, almost exactly!  How funny…

Is there something you need to take a break from?  Something you do habitually, that’s not all bad, but that may be excessive, a little out of control?  Maybe you don’t need to quit it altogether, necessarily.  But maybe taking a little time away will help put it into perspective?  A little break—a pause.  Test your ability to resist, challenge yourself to notice where the habit shows up, what drives it, what you might substitute for it, and how the withdrawl sensations may evolve…

Now I’m wondering if I could actually apply this to my eating.  No, not fasting from all food (again, are you kidding??), but maybe something a little more manageable:  Fast from dessert for a week—substitute fruit.  From sweetened condensed milk on weekdays (“That’s like dessert!” one of my patients exclaimed once)—substitute soy milk.  This looks more like actual behavior change than just fasting… huh.

I will be back on Facebook tomorrow.  It will likely look very similar to my usual pattern, maybe even a rebound effect—a more intense fix after the sudden withdrawl.  Well, we’ll see.  I feel a lightness to trial and error lately, and this is worth a try.  I shall report back, so stay tuned!