Mindful healthcare practices and perspectives are profoundly beneficial at all levels of healthcare—from the personal to the professional to the patients. With heartfelt appreciation for everything our home health aids, nurses, doctors, administrators, executives and other healthcare professionals have been through over this year, we offer these practical tools for well-being, communication, resilience, and thriving in order to create compassionate habits that can transform healthcare from the inside out.
These accessible and actionable mindfulness practices are not just a tactic to calm us down; they foster a way of being that becomes the foundation for building compassionate organizations. Please use these mindfulness practices for healthcare workers freely, and often.
Burnout in Healthcare
When we attempt to repress or compartmentalize how our work affects our lives—emotionally, mentally, physically, in our relationships—it can lead to increased stress, less productivity, heightened depression, anxiety, and may even lead to a greater risk of heart disease. It can also lead to burnout.
Baseline rates of burnout among physicians hovered around 50% even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since COVID, rates have increased. Recent data shows that 60% of healthcare workers report that their mental health had suffered over the last year. And an astonishing 30% of physicians and residents and 54% of nurses report moderate to high levels of burnout.
While the word “burnout” has become ubiquitous in recent years, the ways burnout shows up are not always clear—until someone becomes so unwell that they’re forced to take time off or, tragically, stop working in health care altogether. Here’s how burnout can show up:
How to Recognize the Signs of Burnout
1) Emotional and physical exhaustion: People with burnout usually describe experiencing a complete lack of energy that manifests itself physically. Some are even diagnosed by their doctors with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Regardless, this troubled state results in a debilitating feeling of dread for what the day will bring, even on days when no major work or personal responsibilities loom. Basic tasks and, sadly, even things that would normally provide joy become chores. Surprisingly, though exhausted, people with burnout often have trouble sleeping to the point they develop chronic insomnia. This inability to rest and recharge makes it harder to concentrate and focus, which eventually shows up in physical forms, such as panic attacks, chest pain, trouble breathing, migraines, and stomach pains. These symptoms become so severe and disruptive that it becomes impossible to cope with the challenges (and even pleasures) of daily life.
2) Detachment and cynicism: Those suffering from burnout tend to become perpetual pessimists. They go well beyond seeing the glass as half empty. For them, the glass is totally empty and there’s zero reason to try and fill it. Feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and an inability to accept consolation from others or connect to the empathy offered by others is commonplace. They retreat into themselves and resist socializing. Eventually, fueled by a desire to shut everyone out, they move to a state of total isolation and justify their retreat with a cynical approach to life, family, friends, work, you name it. The feeling of hopelessness transitions into one of helplessness and creates a default response to every suggestion in the vein of “what’s the damn point anyway.”
3) Feelings of self-doubt and ineffectiveness, lack of accomplishment: Sometimes people experiencing burnout are still capable of going through the motions. They still make it to the office. They still get the job done. They still join the family for dinner and handle the household duties. However, they do it in an almost robotic manner. There is no zest, no pleasure, and, therefore, performance suffers. They find ordinary tasks take longer. They procrastinate and invent excuses as to why they’re less effective. They get frustrated at things that were once easy and now seem overwhelming. Sure, they’re physically present and functioning on some level. But emotionally and mentally, they’re a shell of their former selves and are keenly aware of their inadequacy. This, as you can imagine, only perpetuates those feelings of exhaustion and detachment.
A Mindful Response to Occupational Burnout
Chances are, if you work anywhere within health care (or even know someone who does), some of these issues are all too familiar. By cultivating an awareness of these warning signs of burnout, healthcare providers have a better chance to work with it and recover from it—both on an individual basis and, importantly, across the spectrum of their workplaces and of our wider healthcare system.
Among the many necessary solutions for the burnout crisis, including organizational and policy changes, the practice of mindfulness has countless applications and proven benefits.
For doctors and other providers, mindfulness practice eases symptoms of burnout, while improving engagement, sense of meaning, and the ability to navigate difficult conversations with patients and to feel empathy. The enhanced self-awareness and emotion regulation resulting from mindfulness practice also enhances teamwork, decision-making, and ultimately patient safety, outcomes, and cost. Finally, mindfulness improves emotional intelligence, sleep, and overall resilience.
The benefits of mindfulness practice also extend to healthcare leaders and executives experiencing burnout and lead to improved focus, executive presence, strategic awareness, emotional-intelligence-based leadership skills, and effective communication.
Take Time for Self-Care with the P.A.C.E. Yourself Practice
We are all safer because of the work of healthcare providers. With deep gratitude, Dr. Reena Kotecha invites those working on the frontlines to take a moment to prioritize self-care with these four mindful healthcare tips.
- Permission: While healthcare providers are consistently advocating that their patients take time out to prioritize their health and well-being, we aren’t so good at doing the same for ourselves. I invite you to consider what would granting yourself permission look, sound and feel like? Might you use a phrase to encourage some self-care, such as, “I offer myself this opportunity for well-being.” For perhaps you’ll physically move into a space which signals to your body and