Residency may have turned you into a “superhero, workaholic, Lone Ranger, perfectionist,” but if you aim to balance your professional and personal lives, having help makes the process easier. Optimal work/life balance is a worthy goal for physicians, especially if you value happiness, meaning, and overall life-satisfaction. Work/life balance support includes interpersonal and objective elements (read: people and stuff). We suggest that every doctor use these 5 resources for better work/life balance. Your Calendar This is perhaps the most overlooked resource. Keeping an organized calendar or schedule ensures that you’ve allocated appropriate time for work as well as play. If you read The 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, one of the most salient takeaways will be scheduling each week in advance. You can find the 7 Habits schedule format here. Think of it as a starting point, and modify as you see fit. Carve out a half-hour on the weekend to plan the upcoming week, work as well as fun. You can use your smartphone’s calendar app, a spreadsheet, or pen and paper — whatever suits you best. Does the 7 Habits framework interest you? Check out our 7 Habits of Highly Effective Doctors. Your Therapist Don’t have a therapist? Maybe you should get one. It’s time to lay mental health-related stigmas to rest for physicians. Remember, just because you’re a doctor doesn’t mean that HIPAA doesn’t apply to you. Even if you don’t feel anxious or depressed, having a clinician to co-process challenging scenarios and emotions is constructive. Due to expanded telehealth access, you may be able to see a therapist from any location with a secure internet connection. Looking for some additional insights on conquering work-related stress? Start here. Your Trainer Athletic trainers are pricey, but this could prove to be one of the best investments you ever make in yourself. Working with a trainer builds in an extra level of commitment. You’ve paid the fee and scheduled a date and time, making it more difficult to skip exercising. Furthermore, the time you invest in training will be higher-quality time. You won’t be logging mindless miles on a treadmill, but building a stronger, more resilient body that supports a more relaxed, sharper mind. Finally, the best trainers help us change our underlying incorrect assumptions about health and fitness, as well as our self-sabotaging health and fitness habits. We’re not saying you can’t do this on your own, but it certainly helps to have a skilled outsider’s efforts and perspectives. Your Tracker As a physician, you understand the value of biometric data. Why not track your own? A good fitness tracker, such as the Oura Ring, will track activity and sleep (including sleep stages), as well as heart rate, HRV, body temperature, and respiratory rate. Heart rate and HRV aggregated over time are especially useful work/life balance indicators. Increasing heart rate trends and decreasing HRV trends indicate that your stress needs better management. Your Social Network We’re talking about your in-real-life network, not your social media network. There may be some overlap between the two, but for the sake of work-life balance, let’s focus on the people you know intimately and trust. These trusted family members and friends are an indispensable work/life balance resource, who can help you with childcare, share meaningful life experiences, provide you with personal insights, or simply be a good listener during stressful times. In this recent post, we explore how it may be time to redefine the so-called physician lifestyle, making it relationship-centric instead of possession-centric. As many thinkers have said in various iterations, we are the sum of the people with whom we associate most. Source
