Happy, Healthy Docs

Congress Gets Serious About Stress and Mindfulness

Listen to this inspiring YOUTUBE video I found regarding mindfulness. In a Congressional hearing, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) asks Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius about stress reduction via mindfulness, and how it can help our nation.  What's this about?

Stress management requires being mindful, or self aware in a given moment.  For example, if I'm feeling strong anger, rather than reacting and yelling, I might ask, "What am I feeling right now?  What's going on in my body?"  I might answer, "I'm really feeling hurt under the anger, and my heart is pounding."  So to slow the pounding and feel the hurt rather than yell, I breathe deeply for 10 minutes.  Being mindful helped me create a workable stress management strategy.  Now I'm calmer, I feel better physically, and I prevented an argument.   

Mindfulness meditation is an excellent tool to learn self-awareness - and to manage stress.  It helps with anger management, reducing violence, ameliorating pain, curbing compulsive/addictive behaviors, and more - areas now getting national attention.  So next time I'm upset and want to soothe myself with a donut, I might instead become aware that I'm really feeling disappointed and take a walk instead.

To do it:  Sit quietly.  Close your eyes.  Take deep breaths.  Become aware of your breath, your emotions, your body, by asking, "How am I experiencing myself?" For example, ask, "What emotion am I feeling right now?"  Or, "Where is there tension in my body?"  Then sit with that awareness.  Ask again:  "What emotion am I feeling now?"  A new one may rise up into your awareness.  Do this for 5-10 minutes. 

With practice you'll really get to know yourself well.  Becoming aware of your emotions is important, especially if this is difficult for you.  Why is it important?  Until you know how you truly feel about something, you won't change it.  Emotion is a much better motivator than denial. 

New Tough NY Physician Discipline Laws

  On 11/3/08, new legislation became effective in New York making the disciplinary system more strict for physicians reported to the Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) for misconduct, and makes such information more accessible to consumers. 

These law changes make it even more imperative for clinicians with addictive and psychological problems to seek immediate treatment to regain their health and avoid discipline.  A report to OPMC can result in quick publicizing of charges, and possible losses of license, job, career, income, self-esteem, and thousands in legal fees.  Colleagues in leadership positions should ensure such individuals get help ASAP.  Such individuals can also self-refer or be referred to the Committee for Physician Health at 1-800-338-1833 or 518-436-4723. 

A synopsis of the law changes include:

1.  OPMC now makes charges against a physician public much sooner: after they are served vs. after an order is issued, and before appeals.  

2.  OPMC can more easily obtain a physician's personal medical records if they believe s/he may be impaired by addictive and psychiatric disorders.    

3.  Physicians must update their profiles every 6 months, a condition for license re-registration.  

Other law changes involve mandating clinical competency exams, reviewing malpractice histories to see if doctors should be investigated, and more.  Courts must also notify OPMC of physician misdemeanor and felony convictions, such as DWI's.

Go to www.abramslaw.com for an article fully describing the new law, "The Office of Professional Medical Conduct:  How Changes In Public Health Law Section 230 May Affect You" by Lawrence F. Kobak, DPM, JD and Michael S. Kelton, Esq.  

   

Meditation: Quieting a Chaotic Mind

The mind can be chaotic.  Most people can't shut it off.  Some, including me, are "mind" types:  bright people who think - a lot.  My mind goes incessantly.  Some mind types obsess and ruminate constantly about the same thoughts.  I find this maddening.  The only thing that helps me is meditation.  Sitting quietly.  Focusing on my breath going in and out, allowing my thoughts to fall away.  Some think meditation should clear the mind of thoughts.  Not true.  It's a way to be present without getting lost in, or controlled by, your thoughts.

Obsessive thinking and worry can be a way to calm anxieties, to avoid difficult feelings.  Overly thinking a problem to solve it creates a sense of having control over it.  While problem resolution requires thinking, when it becomes obsessive it becomes a problem in itself.  This is especially true for controlling people.  They have difficulty feeling powerless.  Overly thinking something  submerges the powerlessness and gives a false sense of safety.  But worry never solves problems.  It only creates more anxiety.  Hence, the need for meditation.  It breaks this cycle and gives the mind a break.  And it creates real safety, because the stillness that occurs within reminds you that everything is going to be OK.

For some, though, stillness is scary.  Why?  Inner quiet allows emotions to surface.  With difficult emotions comes the urge to squash them by getting busy.  Of course drugs and alcohol create the same effect.  For some people, "busyness" is their addiction.  In fact they say, "Meditation isn't for me.  I can't sit still."  In truth, they're avoiding the anger, sadness, fear, disappointment, etc., that surfaces when they sit still.  This isn't conscious.  But it's useful to become aware of.  So meditating means learning to be OK with your emotions no matter what they are.  It's in this acceptance that calmness truly occurs.

I've had a tough week with lots of major decisions to make.  So I've been meditating a lot.  Before breakfast on my terrace, and in moments when decisions need to be made.  It calms me, and allows me to feel my feelings.  This then tells me what to decide.  Magic.  If any of this describes you, try meditating.  Just sit quietly, breathe in to the word "one," and out to the word "two."  Over and over.  If a thought pops up, acknowledge it in your mind, and then bring your focus back to the counting.  It's very simple.  And it's a great step toward cultivating stillness within your chaos. 

The Minimization of Drunk Driving and DWI

With July 4th and the holiday increase in drunk driving, I've been thinking about a comment an instructor of mine made years ago when I was in training to become a Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor.  He said, "People convicted of 1 or 2 DWI's/DUI's in reality probably have hundreds of "DWI's" for which they were never pulled over."  The enormity of that statement struck me.  In other words many people routinely drink and drive but only rarely get caught.  Such people, and society in general, greatly minimize the significance of this.  They see this behavior as being a "problem," or see themselves as "having a drinking problem," only if they get caught and convicted, regardless of how often in reality they drink and drive.    

An editorial by Michelle Chen in the July 1, 2008 issue of Newsday, a Long Island, NY newspaper, further reminded me of whether people look at their own drinking and driving behavior.  In Nassau County, NY, the County Executive recently put on its website a "Wall of Shame," a frequently visited site of photos of people charged with driving while intoxicated.  While questioning whether shame and mass humiliation work, Ms. Chen makes an interesting point:  "When shame devolves into spectacle, we enter a moral theater where the audience's reaction, not the nature of the offense, is the key player.  The Wall's awkward faces probably elicit more snarky chuckles than grave reflections on the dangers of reckless driving.  It's validating to know you're not "them."  And there's the titillation of knowing that your own transgressions remain secret because of your smarts or good fortune." 

Unfortunately cars can be huge weapons of destruction on the road.  And coming out of denial about personal behavior requires a willingness to be self-honest.  Do you drink and drive?  How often?  Are there passengers and kids in the back seat?  As health professionals there's an even greater social responsibility to get honest.  I used to smoke.  I'm a Health Educator.  I couldn't bring myself to teach smoking cessation classes until I quit.  It's hard to be a role model, and it's even harder to look inward at ourselves.  But driving under the influence and thinking it's no big deal is even worse.  As Ms. Chen says  in conclusion, "It's unclear whether the Wall [of Shame] will make roads any safer, but it could at least force us to turn the lens on ourselves..."