121. Time For Joy: Play, Connection, And Burnout Recovery

Intentionally schedule joy. We sometimes forget or we wait until we have time, and that time never comes. We have to prioritize it so we can ask ourselves, what would make me feel alive this week? It doesn't need to be something extravagant. Just try different things out.

Are you a woman in medicine, feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from the personal fulfillment that you desire? You're in the right place. Join doctors Joanne and Erin as they rewrite the rules for women in medicine. Let's begin.

In this episode, I will be talking with my co host, Dr. Joanne Sotelo. We're going to lighten the mood a little bit and we are going to talk about play, joy and connection. And as you likely know, Joanne is a psychiatrist and a coach and, and I would love to hear your perspective as a psychiatrist. Joanne, what's your take on play, joy and connection?

Thank you, Erin. And I was thinking about this as a topic more as a projection of what I've been working on for myself and the things that I know I need. So I figured if I need it, probably many other professional need it too. And I like to think of it always from that neurological perspective. And our brain needs healing, restoration and reconnection. And I say brain, but it's really our heart, our souls, everything. And especially when a lot of our audience are other women in medicine and professional women. And we carry so much stress, guilt, responsibility, and we need almost. I'm gonna say it this way because it works for me. Prescribed time to soften, to unplug, to have fun and just let joy lead. It's, you know, a lot of the conversations that I have with the women in medicine then that I coach is that it feels like a luxury. And I like to think, no, it's medicine and it's not something that we have to earn. We have it available to us all the time. We need to added to our list of things that we need to do. And again, it's that unplug that it's necessary for us to just do better overall because we're so perfectionistic in so many ways. Even though we talked about that in here, like no to perfectionism. Get to remember there's no right way to rest or amount of work that you need to do before you are allowed to rest and have joy. It's actually necessary. Like we talked about it here in, like in race cars in the pit stops, you don't wait until your tires break up or. Or you're. You run out of gas. You do it as a way to stay very efficient so that's the same way that we're talking about the importance of the joy, play and connection and include rest here. And also if I give it a little bit more of a twist as a psychiatrist, it's a great way for our central nervous system to heal and not even heal like there's a problem, but just recover. And for our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the one that really helps us relax, for it to really get active, it's almost immediate and then we need to start normalizing this instead of thinking about it as guilt or. And it's something that we need to really learn the importance of rest, joy, play. And it's also frequently something that then we can share. So it'll foster the connection and all the healing power that we have. We know that loneliness, it's something that's not good for our health. So this is a great way to foster connection and so many things that are contagious. Why not have it be laughing and dancing, resting or just simply being.

I love that, Joanne. So important. And that we oftentimes forget our parasympathetic nervous system and live so much in our stressed out, cortisol induced sympathetic nervous system. And I wonder why specifically for women physicians are these concepts of play, joy, connection, resetting so important?

I'll tell you some things that are specific to women in medicine. As physicians, we are conditioned to equate worth with productivity. We've talked about that in this podcast so often. And it's not just about how much we accomplish, but it's also are we feeling fulfilled and joy in our lives without guilt. So it's we have to relearn that. Also we know that chronic stress, which is almost our day to day, can lead to emotional disconnection. And instead of being in that constant overdrive and become emotionally numb, Joy and play, it's again almost an immediate way to bring us back to life. When we use joy, that also makes us stronger and more resilient. And it's positive emotions that really expand our capacity to cope with stress and recover faster from challenges. So it's definitely a protective factor. In addition, play reconnects us with our most authentic selves. I love this and kind of a lot of the identity work that I do with women physicians and coming back to our core core with what's important to us instead of all these roles and responsibilities that we put over our shoulders and again, how many times we say this, it's so important. Connection heals and loneliness and isolation are silent contributors to burnout. So it's also a way to prevent burnout and being more into alignment with what's important for us.

And, Joanne, you and I talked a couple of weeks ago when we were coming up with the idea for this show. I would love for you to share with our listener. You shared. You went on vacation, and it was just a vacation. There was no other agenda. I would love to hear from you. How did that impact you and bring about this play joy and connection differently than trips that you'd taken before?

Yeah. So I have to be honest, which, again, it's. It's part of my work and what's important and why we bring it here. Then it was kind of challenging. And I joke that I have to tell myself that I need to concentrate, to relax, and I think it's sad. And I had all these ideas, okay, if I. When I have downtime, I'm going to be working on this. And. And it's not necessarily work work, but it's just. We were talking about all the podcasts and books that we want to read, and, you know, like, I had all these ideas, and I was, like, a little unsettled with the lack of structure, but it was an alert for myself to be, wow, my brain is so used to this kind of rigid structure, the efficiency, the productivity, all these things that we talk about. And I slept and I walked down the beach and. And I literally played, and I saw some old friends and ate great food and literally just chilled and had fun. And it felt so good. And I just kept on reminding myself, this is what you need. This is the medicine that will allow you to then do all those other things that you want to do. But it was, you know, practicing what we preach and, you know, drinking my own medicine of, yeah, you talk about these things. What do you need for the things that you help other women in medicine with? So, yes, and I shared it with Aaron, you know, in a very humble way, like, man, right. Like, we don't always know what we need until we get it, and then it feels good. And it's literally like, I was just saying, I. I felt it settling in my body, like, this sense of relaxation and. And just pure joy I hadn't felt in a good while.

And when it feels foreign to play and relax. I know one of my coaching clients talked about visiting family, and she was spending time with a young nephew, and they went to the park, and her kids are young adults now. They went to the park and they played with this young child. And the joy and the laughter that happened. And so I said, well, do you have to have a young child with you in order to bring play to your interactions with your spouse or your. Your own child? And so they scheduled time at the park to play together. And then I, you know, I. She said that she recently went mini golfing with her spouse. And I was cheering her on to say, like, okay, now you're learning to find ways to add play into your life. And think about how often kids laugh in a day versus adults. It's. I don't know the numbers, but they laugh way more than we do. And so how can we learn from them and find time to either play or. Even when I was coaching a client the other day, talking about white space, and they're like, well, what am I supposed to do with white space? It's like, you can do nothing and practice doing nothing. See what happens. Get to know yourself a little bit. We're so used to cramming so much from our to do list, and yet play and white space are such valuable tools that we are not using often enough, certainly in medicine.

It's so funny that you mentioned that, because I was thinking about it like that of that it was easier when my kids were younger because I sat in the floor, I played and. Or we would do a little bit of parlor play. They might have been doing their thing and maybe I'm doing something else, but I had enough awareness to know they need to see me play as well, they need to see me relax as well, rather than what we automatically do sometimes with good intentions. It's not like we're bad parents, but we're on our phones and, you know, we're busy, we're having other conversations. And I was aware of the presence, I believe, more than my own need for joy and fun. I was. I think I was showing up as a parent and unnecessarily for myself and now that they are older, that I don't have that sit down in the floor, then it's more of Wayne. What have I been missing? And I was sharing with Erin as we were recording with Kim Downey, and I could hear the. In the background because my college kid is in town and it's summer and I. They were in the kitchen and they were so loud, but at the same time, I was enjoying their conversation and their laughter and like, the things that we miss. And like you just said, Aaron, we don't have to wait for it to happen. I mean, this is. This is the point of the conversation. We need to be intentional about it and create it and Add it. And I know that for myself, it's because I sometimes get overly responsible with the things I have to do. But I have people in my life that bring some of that excitement, the adventure. They get me out of my house, it's easier for them to bring that joy. And I give them permission to push me when, you know, so it's all important, all the flavors of fun, joy and connection that we need.

And so we've shared a little bit about this, but I would love to know more, Joanne, what are specific things that we can do to bring those aspects of play, joy and connection to our lives more easily?

So I have to repeat it the first one, because it's the one that I have to apply to myself the most intentionally. Schedule joy. And we know that it sounds a little cheesy, but again, we're so busy, we're doing good things, we're taking care of other people and we, we sometimes forget or we wait until we have time and that time never comes. We have to prioritize it. Like we say, we do what we prioritize. So we have to put it in there so we can ask ourselves, what would make me feel alive this week? What, like you said, what will bring me laughter? And it doesn't need to be something extravagant. Just try different things out. The second one, which I think it's very important for us as women in medicine, is that we can unplug in small doses. It's sometimes the consistent small habits that create the bigger differences. So it could be whatever fits for you. But find times when you can disconnect from the day to day responsibilities, even disconnect from your phone and do something that's out of character for you, that will tap into your creativity, will bring that joy, something that you really enjoy doing, and then also plan other bigger things. But the small doses can make a big difference. And another way to think about it too, it's creating micro moments of play. Again, like as I was saying, if it could be with your kids or if your kids are older, you can, you know, or if you have pets or like you said, Erin, I love it with your partner or with your friends. And it could be put some music in the kitchen and do something silly. I sometimes do that with my staff in the clinic. So it doesn't have to be elaborate. It could be a couple of minutes here and there. And we know that it taps into all those amazing feel good hormones that, that we all need and to emphasize in our podcast, prioritizing meaningful connections. Also thinking who who brings you joy and lightness and can you call them, make plans, laugh together, and nurture those important relationships?

So powerful and. And simple. But if we're out of practice, it might not seem very easy. And I'm going to do a quick summary here. Joanne, you shared that your take from psychiatry. Neuroscience is basically, you know, we need to make sure we're paying attention to our calm nervous system because the other one is in overdrive. That's my, my twist of words there. And normalizing without the guilt. You talked about it being important for women physicians, again, that factor of being able to have joy without guilt and that we so oftentimes equate our values and our worth with productivity. And yet it's so important to balance that out with filling ourselves back up with joy, play, and connectivity. And then you also shared some easy ways to put more joy in our lives, including scheduling it. And I love the little micro doses. We don't need to make it overcomplicated. We don't need to plan a huge trip. You can create small little moments of joy, as you said, by turning on some music and brightening your mood. So powerful. I wonder, is there one more piece of advice or wisdom that you would like to share with our listener? Joanne?

Yes. I'll give you two things, short and sweet. Give yourself permission. I say that to myself all the time.

Right?

There's no permission slip here. It's you. And the other thing is, I like this reminder. Rest is productive, play is essential, and joy is medicine.

So powerful. Thank you so much for reminding us how important play, joy, and connection is, even for women in medicine. And that reminder to make sure that your own care in those areas is scheduled, just like the care of your patients. And with that, we would love for you to, if you think this is a powerful message to put in front of other individuals. I shared with Joanne this morning. We just passed over 500,000 or no, 50,000 downloads with our podcast. It's now in the top 5% worldwide and we would love to get in front of even more listeners. You can help us with that by pausing now going to the rating and review. Give us an honest rating review. We would love any feedback that you have for us. And stay tuned because our next episode is coming right up.

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