“The body is perfectly capable of handling stress in a healthy way,” Ms. Johnson explains. “It’s our perception of stress that can affect our body and performance negatively. If a rheumatologist can reframe their perception of stress, they can change how their body responds.”
To train yourself in this reframing approach, intentionally think of the positive aspects of stress. She says, “Ask yourself how this stress will help you grow: Where is the learning opportunity? How will this stress allow you to handle similar situations in the future better? Is your stress contributing to your goal of helping people feel better?”
Ms. Johnson says it’s important to understand the different types of stress and how each uniquely influences physical, emotional and psychological health. This understanding can help you view stress in a more positive and useful way. Examples:
- Normal stress: This stress comes from the normal stressors experienced in an average day and can be used to maintain resiliency as long as micro-recovery steps are practiced regularly;
- Training stress: This stress is created intentionally, such as by pursuing academic training, taking on more responsibility in a new role or going to the gym to build muscular and aerobic capacity, with the goal of building resiliency; and
- Excessive stress: This stress feels overwhelming and leads to burnout. Excessive stress affects performance negatively and, in the long term, causes negative health risks, such as hypertension and weight gain. Excessive stress decreases resiliency.
“By using cognitive reframing to perceive excessive stress as training stress, resiliency is built instead of diminished,” Ms. Johnson explains.
3. Build Performance Stamina
Rheumatologists tend to work in a reactive state within their high-stress, fast-paced environments. “We have learned from physicians who have experienced burnout that pushing yourself without recovery and continuing to take on more is a sure-fire way to hit a breaking point,” Ms. Johnson says.
The human body has a limit in how long it can sustain high performance. For most people, high performance begins to deteriorate after about 60–90 minutes. To sustain high performance beyond that timeframe, a person should intentionally seek micro-recovery. Without this recovery—which many physicians often try to power through without—performance decreases. The symptoms of decreased performance are lower physical energy, negative emotions, a loss in focus and disconnection from why they chose to help people in the first place.
For rheumatologists who want to improve their physical, emotional and psychological performance on the job, Ms. Johnson suggests keeping these three aspects of high performance in mind:
- Use a micro-recovery strategy about every 60–90 minutes;
- Pause and check in emotionally to practice self-awareness and determine how emotions are affecting your performance, your conversations with patients and your team; and
- Reframe your thinking about stressful situations so that you change how your body responds to the stress.
Always think about ways to sneak in recovery moments, Ms. Johnson advises. “If you have to make a phone call, stand and stretch while you talk. If you need to have a conversation with a person, ask them to walk with you as you talk.”
