Tag Archives: health

Bit Post: How to Get Me There

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The loving space

OH how I hate these conditioning workouts.

And yet here I am, on the other side of another one, feeling *AWESOME* in spirit and absolutely spent in body.

I sign up only partially wanting to come. I still have the “I should” voice, which I appreciate and continue to reframe as “I know I will thank myself later. I will be glad that I did it. STRONG OLD LADY!!”

But the catalyst that gets me past the activation energy is the people. I know the coaches; I know they are here to encourage, to keep me safe, and never to judge. I may or may not know my classmates, but they are reliably friendly and welcoming, and we all follow the coaches’ lead, leaving any and all judgments at the door.

They say that how we treat ourselves underlies how we treat others, and we are generally kinder to others than to ourselves. So being in this space, where others are so kind to me, coming here regularly, teaches me to strengthen my body and soften my self-talk.

Melissa taught me the five factors that keep kids in sports; they are the same factors that keep adults in an exercise program:

1. It’s FUN
2. Our friends are doing it
3. We feel like we fit in
4. We feel competent, like we know what we’re doing
5. We feel we are making or can make progress

Generally I think if we have three or more at any given time, it may be enough to keep us going.

At Ethos I have all five. Well, today not the first one. But the other four, absolutely, no question, in spades.

There are simply not enough words for the gratitude.

Bit Post: Dementia

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Posted on Facebook, in rapid response to my friend’s share of an Alzheimer’s Awareness Week message:

More and more of my patients seem to live in fear of dementia, and rightly so. I see it as my job to hold that fear, validate it, and also monitor for its immediate effects. Constant fear that looms over us like a black cloud is threat stress, and that has significant negative health consequences in itself, both immediate and long term.

How can we get to peace with our inevitable end, however it may occur? I was just thinking about it this morning, as I have written about it often the past 8+ years on the blog. Today I believe that if I were to die tomorrow, and I had five minutes at the end to relfect, I could be at peace. But who TF knows? I could be a thrashing rage case at the end of my life, depending on the circumstances. But I realized this morning that this may be an excellent example of a Useful Delusion. Because I feel, however irrationally, at peace with my own death today, I can live more peacefully now, freed from that particular fear. Maybe. That’s the story I tell.

Of note: None of us can actually control our future health and death. But we have so much agency to influence risk and likelihood. Thankfully, all of the behaviors that help prevent heart disease also lower the risk of everything else: cancer, diabetes, obesity, and dementia. None of us can be perfect in all of our health habits; some are easier than others for each of us. But if we focus more on goals and trade offs, acting intentionally and mindfully as much as possible, assessing and adjusting often, I think we will have less to regret at the the end, no matter what happens.

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Someone once said when you love someone with Dementia you lose them more and more everyday. When they are diagnosed, when they go through different stages, when they need treatment and when they die. This is called “Ambigua Loss.”

I wouldn’t wish Dementia on anyone. As the brain slowly dies, it changes physically and eventually forgets who their loved ones are. They can end up lying in bed not moving and not eating or drinking.

There will be people who will scroll by this post because Dementia has not touched them. They may not know what it’s like to have a loved one who battled or is fighting Dementia.

To Raise Awareness of this Cruel Disease, I’d like my Friends to Put this on their Page Today.

Hold Finger on Post to Copy and Paste to Your Timeline.

A Special Thank You to All Willing to Post This On their Timeline for Alzheimer’s Awareness Week 💜💜

Self-Care:  Act Local, Think Global

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IMG_1451

Gotta be quick tonight, friends, as I have sat in front of this screen too long already today!

Creating and putting together slides for three upcoming distinct and related presentations, I am happy to report continued synthesis in my position on the relationships between personal resilience, culture of wellness, and efficiency of practice in medicine.

Drivers of burnout are systemic, no question, and not related to individual physicians’ lack of resilience and strength.  And yet, it will be up to us physicians, more than any other group, to lead change and make the system better for all of us, physicians and patients alike.  But we will not do it ourselves.  We must engage so many other stakeholders—hospital administrators, nurses and other care providers, insurance and pharmaceutical companies (by way of their leaders), and, of course, patients.

How can we engage any of these groups of people effectively?  Do we expect productive conversations and collaborative decision making when we stomp on the offensive with righteous indignation and passive-aggressive name calling?  Even if our language is polished, people can feel our underlying attitude and can tell when we’re not fully authentic.

I still think it starts with self-care.  Because if I’m not well, I cannot show up my best for anyone else.

Be The Change You Seek:

Curious–Kind–Forgiving–Accountable–Humble–Empathic.

How can I be all of these things, which I referenced last week, if I am sleep-deprived, wired on caffeine, skipping meals, and not connected to my emotional support network?  I finally made my own visual for the reciprocal nature of our habits:

Reciprocal Domains of Health Star

If I am attuned and attentive, then the bottom four serve to hold up my relationships, which is how I interface and interact with the universe.  I am one node in multiple subsystems, all connected, overlapping and integrated in larger and layered super-systems.  So the best thing I can do for the universe—to keep the systems intact and optimal—is make myself the strongest, most stable, most reliable node I can be.  I recently attended a strategy meeting where I learned the SWOT framework: for any given project and the people trying to implement it, what are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats?  It occurred to me to apply this framework to my habits:

Health Habits SWOT grid

It really does show how each domain relates to and influences each other one, and makes it all pretty concrete, especially how stress threatens almost everything.

So in the interests of self-care, and in order to care my best for everyone and everything around me, I will now do today’s free 7 minute workout and get to bed.

Onward!