“Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”
“Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”
The hospital loudspeaker blared away while the three doctors ran through the hospital with patient’s lives on the line. Mayhem everywhere. Fortunately, it was just a Three Stooges movie short. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.
But I remember experiencing those types of days in real life (although with slightly less pies flying through the air). Working for 20-plus hours and then just getting to sleep right before being called for a code blue and have to run straight from bed to a patient’s room to perform CPR with a life on the line. Trying to save patients who are septic, throwing up blood, having a heart attack, a stroke, or pneumonia, and all of that on the same day (I really hate Mondays).
Yes, I think being a doctor is stressful. A soldier in wartime is probably the most stressful occupation, but law enforcement, firefighters, and airline pilots would also rank high. But all jobs can be stressful: all it takes is a hard boss, demanding customers or a troublesome coworker. However, the level of stress can be greatly influenced by how we perceive and manage it.
There are several suggestions to lower stress levels:
- Prayer and meditation
- Exercise. Target 30-60 minutes a day, most days of the week
- Relaxing music, most likely not something from Metallica
- Hobbies and crafts. One idea is adult coloring books. Be careful with these, though, because someone recently gave me one of these to do and I got more stressed out when I realized there were no numbers to tell me what colors to use (like they have in the kids coloring books)
- Try and get a good night’s sleep
- Massage and warm baths
- Don’t turn to alcohol and street drugs. Any perceived short term benefit will be offset by worsened problems down the line.
- Talk to family, friends, a counselor or a clergy member
- Forgiveness. If you hold anger or a grudge towards someone, then find a way to forgive them. It will benefit you (by lowering your internal stress levels) far more than whoever you are forgiving. For instance, injured patients who have a worker’s compensation claim or lawsuit against whoever injured them seem to not recover as well. I don’t think this is because the patient is ‘faking it’ or ‘malingering’, but rather because of increased stress over the issue. Of note, I did not originate this idea. It’s based on what other physicians have told me of their observations.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT- see Blogs 8 and 9). If you have any negative self-talk, then you need to stop it as it only ramps up your stress levels. In fact, negative self-talk may be a big source of your stress.
- Find short term goals. It helps you get through stressful times. There have been plenty of tough days where the idea grows in my mind that I can’t manage to do this for the next ‘X’ number of years. At these times I tell myself that I just need to get through that day and then I can go home and relax a bit. Thirty years later I’m still going strong.
- Don’t forget to find humor in the situation….. “Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”. Don’t forget to duck when things are flying at you, and don’t forget to block when you see a two-finger eye poke coming your way. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.
Next time: Using the concepts of attitude, focus, and perspective to control stress.