Resident Experiences

How Does Mindfulness Training Relate to Your Work?

At work I am much less reactionary...to pages, nurse requests…I have somehow gained some ‘space’ b/tn certain stimuli and my reaction to them...I take a moment to understand my role and how it relates…improving my interaction with them, with my patients.

I thought I’d be learning a relaxation technique, but this is work. I didn’t believe in it at first, I thought it was sort of ridiculous, but it has changed me. Practicing is work, but it feels like a gift…it’s changed how I think, how I see things, how things affect me. Before I go in the OR to update the chief - especially if I have something that will upset him - I do the breathing, I focus, and I am clearer, explain better, am not nervous.

I realize how mindlessly I’ve live my whole life. When I’m getting hammer paged, frustration building, 30 seconds of breathing makes it easier.  Releases it…it’s just gone.

It’s allowed me to parse out my stress: lack of control makes me STRESSED. I’m learning to accept what I can’t change and let it go.  Breathing, letting it pass. I take mini-breaks inside my mind, then I focus better the remainder of the day.

I’m on Neurosurg at the General.  I find I’m more purposeful and present with the pts’ and families.  I wrote the orders to withdraw care on a 32yo today and I’m just feeling it.  I’m in it, and it’s ok.

I feel amazing after class, different than anything else - but by Thursday night it’s just another box to check off. My life is all boxes, the next thing. But now I get something out of every day. Way more than in college or med school.

I recognize that I constantly live in the future or worry about the past. Having a name for this helps but these are hard habits to break. Outside the hospital it’s been huge. I think I’m more happy. I never got a regimen down, but I do little things all day.

"What, if anything, has changed? - Greater awareness of my body and the autonomic responses that accompany emotional states. The development of an ability to infer what I truly feel versus what I think I should be feeling.“