This morning I had to get up at 6 for a meeting. I am not a gracious morning person, to say the least. I wasn't sure what to do about breakfast, because I'm never particularly hungry too early in the morning. When I was "post-call" at the hospital, whether in med school or in residency, I usually had no appetite for standard breakfast food. My good friend Jen would tease me about my breakfasts of "chocolate milk and bacon" that I used to eat, especially on the surgery service, where we often worked more than 36 hours in a row before going home. (Of note, when Jen did her surgery rotation the next year, she came around to my point of view, at least temporarily.)
Side note: I used to like drinking chocolate milk out of the 8-oz cartons, because after I opened them by the "push here" ovals (see below), they would smile at me, and sometimes I desperately needed a smile, even if it was from a milk carton.
Bacon.
Among other things.
I arrived, signed in, got my name card and presentation packet, and found a seat. Then I joined the line for a very nice breakfast, with fruit, muffins, bagels, and - oh joy - hot foods, including scrambled eggs, potatoes, and bacon. Not only was there bacon, but this bacon was perfect - flat, salty, and crispy, with that melt-in-your-mouth texture that is so rarely achieved. I think all told I had something like 8 slices. One doesn't often see or taste bacon this perfect. Sigh. Chocolate milk and bacon for breakfast. Jen would be so proud.
It was still pretty early, but we were in a big conference room with many windows, and although we were not facing the right direction to catch the sunrise, it was thrilling to watch the sky turn from an indeterminate dark color, through indigo with pink-stained clouds, navy blue, and then brightness. The outlines of the surrounding buildings were so sharp, and the early sunlight on the warm-colored brick was intense and wondrous. Such a beautiful accompaniment to breakfast.
The presentation was entitled, "The Work-Life Balancing Act: You Have More Control Than You Think." Since I've been with the company for almost 16 months, I'm not exactly a new provider (what professionals who provide medical care to patients are called - docs, nurse practitioners, physician assistants), but once the talk got started, I was so glad to be there. The presenter was David Posen, MD, who used to be a family doc but got into stress management about 30 years ago, and the things he had to say resonated deeply with me. He has several books published: "Always Change a Losing Game," "Is Work Killing You?" and "The Little Book of Stress Management."
I won't give you a blow-by-blow of the presentation, but the main thrust is that there are things over which we have control, and we can decide to control them to provide more balance in our lives. Since I graduated from residency I have worked part-time; that was my decision because I had a baby at home, and then two. This is my second "career," and I knew from the outset that I didn't want to devote 50 hours a week to work. That was my first decision toward more balance in my life, and I'm not sorry I made it.
A lot was said about the physiology of stress, and beliefs people have that they "can't" change anything or "don't" have time, or "should" be a certain way or do a certain thing. A certain amount of stress is necessary for us to perform optimally, but past a certain point it leads to exhaustion, illness, and burnout. As someone who has recently recovered (and perhaps is still recovering) from burnout, I am grateful to be on the "plus" side of the stress curve.
Another couple of interesting things he mentioned was that "multitasking" is a cognitive impossibility, because our brains only focus on one thing at a time (the exception here is something "mindless" or automatic, like driving a familiar route in normal weather, or knitting, or doodling). A statistic he threw out was that "people who check their e-mail between 20 and 40 times an hour reduce their functional IQ by 10 points. This is 2-1/2 times the IQ drop of smoking marijuana, which drops one's IQ by 4 points."
I wish I could have had a recording of the whole presentation, although I did take notes on the handouts. I had asked him a question during the presentation, and he was intrigued by it and asked me to write it down for him, so I talked to him for a little while during the break. Later on, he had us fill in a "personal mosaic" with "work" as only one of the pieces. After we did that, he had everyone stand up. The instructions were, a soft ball would be thrown, and if you caught it, you had to say your name and what one of the pieces of your mosaic was. Since I had spoken to him at the break, he threw the ball to me first. The mosaic piece I mentioned? "Blogger." It was on the tip of my tongue, although I could have said "mother," "wife," "singer," "chain maille jewelry maker," or "teacher," among other things. Hence the exchange at the beginning of this entry. (Another side note: each of us was given a signed copy of "The Little Book of Stress Management" at the end. I thought that was a nice touch.)
Overall, although there are some things I can change to make my life even less stressful (such as go to bed earlier, something I intend to do, but perhaps not tonight), I was pleased with the amount of balance I have in my life. Some might call it laziness, but after having been "burned out," I never want to go there again, so I take care to surround myself with things that energize me - hobbies, exercise, friendships, teaching - so that I can be refreshed to go back into the fray that is work, or even life.
What refreshes you? Are you taking time for yourself? When was the last time you did something just for fun, just because you wanted to, without "should"-ing on yourself about it (as in, "I should be doing ______ instead")? Who told you that you must make your bed every day? Are you taking things that don't matter and elevating them to a place of power, at the expense of taking care of yourself?
David (the presenter) mentioned that especially for caregivers (parents, those caring for a sick loved one), it is vital to decrease our stress and take care of ourselves. I remember a striking analogy that came to me when I studied the anatomy of the cardiovascular system. The heart pumps blood to the entire body via a huge artery called the aorta. Smaller arteries branch off the aorta, channeling life-giving blood to various parts of the body - the head, the arms, and so on down. The very first arteries that branch off the aorta? The coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart. Block those, and the heart is in trouble. If the heart is in trouble, the rest of the body does not do well, to put it mildly.
Make sure you feed yourself. It isn't intended to be at the expense of others. Nourish yourself, and you will find you have more energy to give away to those who need you.
Or, to put it another way, as we heard in church this past Sunday:
2 Corinthians 9:8 (NLT) "And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others."
Wish I could have shared that wonderful bacon with you. But thanks for sharing my memory of it with me.
May your life be filled, and balanced.
wb
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