Many people go into dentistry because they want to help others and be in a caring profession. We can soon allow this need to lead to burnout as we want to do so much for our patients in such a limiting system.
Burnout is a result of chronic stress of living with the mismatch between how we want to live and how we are living. The symptoms of burnout are exhaustion, cynicism and feelings of reduced ability professionally and/or personally.
As a Principal, it is very easy to allow your business to take over your life and be a large source of stress. It can be very easy to feel alone, with the responsibilities weighing down solely on your shoulders. As a result, many principles are living with burnout and continuing to struggle whilst unable to see a way out.
It is really important for you, your practice, your patients and your family that you look after yourself. Managing the stress in a healthy way, allows you to enjoy your practice, reduces your risk of burnout and enables you to have a life outside of dentistry.
Ten tips to improve your general wellness within dentistry:
- Stop comparing yourself to others– everyone is at different stages of their career and has different preferences. Staying within what works and feels right for you will take you down a path that is easier for you. Pushing to do what works for others but is not right for you will cause you more stress and exhaustion
- Your reason– understand your reason for getting up every morning and keep your practice running; this may be to serve your patients or to fund your lifestyle. Whatever it is, be aware of it to help you continue to get up in the morning and to guide the direction to take your practice
- Support network– having the right people around you to go to when you need support helps to reduce isolation and eases any issues you may have. These people within dentistry can include other dentists and principals, your practice manager and head nurse, your accountant and financial advisor, specialists in your area and members of the LDC. Knowing who you can rely on for support in times of concern is really important to enable you to reach out early and reduce the impact of mistakes. Having others within your community, feeling like you belong, is also important to our wellbeing
- Delegate– within your practice, you employ others to take on certain roles. Utilise them to take off some of the load you carry as a principal. This can take time to train them, but will pay dividends when they save you time and stress by taking on responsibilities that they can. As well as delegating tasks and responsibilities, giving others a level of autonomy and ownership means that they will invest more into your business and work harder for you. Bouncing ideas off others can enable other options to be explored, which could be more effective than those you think of alone
- Time away from the practice and dentistry– ensure that you spend time every day doing something non dentistry related. This not only allows your subconscious to work on the issues you are facing, but you enjoy the life that the practice is paying for you to live. Reap the benefits of all your hard work. This space will also allow you to be refreshed for when you enter your practice and dentistry again, meaning you will be in a better mood and more effective when you do
- Move– exercise in whatever way is right for you. Dentistry is a sedentary profession and is harmful to our physical health. Ensure you do some version of exercise every day, this may be a walk, a gym session, a run, yoga, whatever is right for you. Not only is exercise good for your physical health, it is good for your mental health with the boost of endorphins which have effects for hours after the exercise
- Mindset– we experience our life through our perception of our reality. This is based on our past experience, our beliefs and our filters. Working on our mindset can alter our situation without having to change anything outside of ourselves. Our mindset is the most important aspect of our wellbeing, and is completely under our control. With working on our mindset, we can influence our experience, that of those around us and our physical and mental health
- Feeling our emotions- throughout our lives, we are often told that emotions are bad, to keep the stiff upper lip and get on with it. When we don’t experience our feelings, we push them down and start to feel angry or numb. In the short term, it can be an effective coping mechanism. However, in the long term, this is unhealthy and can lead to episodes of intense emotion, which can explode at the ‘wrong’ time or cause us immense discomfort or illness. Emotions are present to be experienced and learnt from as they have a reason for being present. Working with our emotions, through experiencing them and understanding where they are coming from, allows us to dissipate them as well as make changes to our life and thinking to reduce the stress they can be produced from
- Discover who you are outside of dentistry- we often identify as our job- ‘I am a dentist’. This is very limiting and, when things are not going well, can make us feel as if we are a bad person. However, we are much more than this one role in life. Having hobbies and interests outside of the practice, enables us to live a fuller life and disengage from dentistry. We can feel better about ourselves
- Take breaks– no matter how busy you are or how many people want some of your time, it is really important that you take time away from the business. This is especially important at lunch time. Even though this is probably the easiest time for your staff to talk to you, it is important that you get some time to switch off, especially if you are in surgery all day. To be able to perform your best as owner and dentist, having at least a ten minute break will allow you to reset and return to what you need to do in a more effective way. This is especially important when you are at your busiest or feeling overwhelmed
- Get outside– following on from ensuring you have a break, try to do this by going outside. There have been scientifically proven benefits of spending time in nature, so ideally this would be in a green space. Even if you are in an urban area, getting out of the practice is really important. If you can, go for a walk to get your heart rate up to counteract the sedentary aspect of our job. The health benefits are amazing, both physically and mentally
- Try not to multitask– our brains are not able to multitask, it takes time for us to refocus on the task at hand so the constant swapping between tasks is ineffective. This does include eating whilst typing up notes, discussing issues with your PM, etc. When you are doing something, have your full attention on that task and you will complete it faster and feel less tired
- Acknowledge what you have done– there is an inevitable to do list which will never end as there is always something that needs doing. We often focus so much on this that we never acknowledge what we have actually done. This could be a ‘done’ list at the end of the day or as you go through your day. Regularly, look back over your last month and year to see what you have achieved and really consider what you have accomplished
- Have compassion for yourself and others– we often can have compassion for others, especially when they are going through a tough time, but we tend not to be as compassionate to ourselves. In general, we are hard on ourselves and have great expectations of what we should do or have done. It is not often that we afford ourselves any compassion. We will have times that we do not perform at our best, that we get angry or frustrated at others, that we feel that we are not good enough. However, this is normal as we have a culture, especially in dentistry, of striving and perfectionism. This is not always possible! Hindsight is a self flagulating tool, we put our current state onto a past event and beat ourselves up for not doing better. We always do our best with what we have at the time. This best not be what we feel it should be but it will be the best you could do at that time, and that is OK
Dentistry is a hard profession to be in, and many of us start to feel isolated in how we feel, especially when it becomes overwhelming. I have been in that position myself, being desperate to get out and do something completely different. However, once I started working on myself, I discovered that it wasn’t entirely dentistry that was my problem. I continue to practice as a dentist whilst working with other dentists to find a way for them to live a more contented life, whether that be remaining within the profession or discovering what else they want to do to feel more fulfilled and happier.