Hey guys, I'm Siobhan, a first-year medical resident.
Today I'm doing a requested video about how I deal with feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
And I'm going to take you through sort of four easy steps that I use all the time and I hope you find it useful.
So it's the perfect time this video, because I came home from work today actually feeling pretty stressed and overwhelmed.
So I was thinking to myself ''how do I actually deal with this when I'm at home, but also when I'm in the hospital?''
Okay. So step one: first you need to just figure out that you're feeling stressed. And I know that sounds obvious,
but that's the first step to actually being able to do something about it.
It's being able to identify it.
Step two: you need to figure out how to center yourself in the moment. For me before med school
I was a violinist.
And I performed a lot and I had to find ways to deal with stress and figuring out what to do to get myself
centered again.
So I use something that sounds really simple, but I basically just take a deep breath.
And even just now when I did it,
I scan my body for any kind of tension. And for me
I tend to hold my tension in my shoulders and actually my jaw. If no one's around and I'm feeling really stressed,
I'll actually just take that breath.
Let my shoulders relax and feel my jaw relax and immediately I just feel more calm.
And I just try to push out all those extra thoughts from my mind.
So I'm just relaxing and pushing those thoughts out of my mind. Sounds pretty easy, right?! Like it's
not a difficult concept. I think the trouble is that even when we know we should do something,
we're not in the habit of doing it. So in the moment when we're stressed,
you don't think about actually taking that breath and actually taking the time to relax. So step number three:
You really just need to figure out why am I feeling stressed? Why am I overwhelmed?
And it's almost never just one thing.
It's usually that there are a whole bunch
of things building up. Lots of things to do and on top of that you have to think ''Am I hungry?
Am I thirsty? Am I tired? And I think all those things
make you feel even more stressed and make it feel even more
difficult. And so all those things I like to put them down all onto a piece of paper, so then I can deal with them.
So today when I came home, that's exactly what I did.
I grabbed this post-it and I wrote down all the things that I needed to do still today.
So it says you know I need to make this youtube video, which I'm doing right now.
I need to practice the violin, I've got a concert coming up.
I'm on call tomorrow, so I got to prep some meals, then get it all packed in my bag.
I need to study, I was planning to catch up on some ECGs.
And I need to call my friend Allie,
it's her birthday today. And I wanted to do something active,
and I don't think I have time to go to the gym.
So I was thinking of just doing some push-ups on the ground, something to make me feel like I had been active today.
Finally that brings us to number four:
Figure out how I'm going to get all of these things done. And that's sort of a
challenging thing, because I'm actually a big procrastinator.
A lot of people don't know that, because I tend to get stuff done, but it's because I figured out ways to do it.
I'm actually I'm going to make a whole separate video just to talk about
how I manage my time and how it seems like I'm doing all these things even though at heart I'm a 100%
a procrastinator. So once that's done I'll link it above here, so you can watch that as well.
So that's what I do in a nutshell when I'm feeling stressed.
One: figure out I'm actually stressed. 2. I need to center myself.
Three: I figure out why am I feeling stressed, I write it all down.
So that four: I can make a plan to manage my time and get it all done.
So thanks for watching guys. Don't forget to subscribe to me if you liked what you saw and want to see more of my journey in residency.
Comment below to let me know what you think and if you have any other suggestions or requests for videos, just let me know!