Pearls:

Avoiding burnout is more than just being resilient - It requires having a positive attitude toward stress, recognizing our response to stress and reflecting on that response.

STRESS RESPONSE

Tend and befriend response - This happens when you're under stress and you release oxytocin which encourages connections. It has a caregiver and being cared for feeling associated with it that causes you to seek friendships and connect.

Challenge response - Increases self-confidence, motivates us, helps us perform under pressure and allows us to learn from stressful experiences

Fight or flight response - The primitive reflex that helps us immediately respond to life threatening situations.

There are three different responses to stress:

Research has shown that if one has a positive mindset regarding stress (i.e. that stress is helpful, challenging and you can learn from it) then your physiologic outcomes are better.

Traditionally, stress has had a negative connotation. Humans, however, are complex beings that have multiple responses to stress - not every stress response is fight or flight.

The majority of wellness data is centered around resilience. For Dr. Kalantari, resilience alone in and of itself is not enough. We should strive to not just return to our baseline after a stressor but grow from it. This is how the concept of stress growth originated.

We talk about resilience because, traditionally, resilience has always meant having the mental capability to bounce back from a stressor.

CHANGING PERSPECTIVE

If you are feeling under stress, the first thing you have to do is take a step back, take a deep breath, and reflect on what you are feeling and how you are responding?

Are you satisfied with that response?

Do you think the way that you're responding is the most beneficial way for you to respond?

Would you rather approach this stressor with a different response?

By being aware of your response to stress you can bring it into the forefront and by thinking about it, you can control how you are going to respond to that stressor.

Reflection is one of the keys to reaching a growth mindset. If you can acknowledge and embrace imperfections, you can say, “What is it that I can do to improve?”

The culture in medicine has traditionally been to soldier on and tough it out. We have created a setting and a culture where if you are vulnerable, you are thought to be weak.

Vulnerability is actually being courageous, it’s uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. It's extremely uncomfortable, but it is not weak.

In order to change the attitude we have towards vulnerability we have to change the culture that we have created in medicine and do so by example.

It is critical that we offload after stressful situations in order to help resolve emotions that we are feeling from an event.

Failure is inevitable. Grit is one’s willingness to pick yourself back up after failing and go at it again.