Physician Burnout: Coping Skills- Journaling
One coping skill helpful for my clients is journaling or free writing. Journaling is where you sit with a pen and paper and write. You write everything and anything that is in your mind. Don’t write only about the good or only the bad situations in your life. I want clients to write about everything and anything that comes to mind. You write and write until your timer goes off. You do not stop. If nothing comes to mind, you continue to write the last word over and over. Write until the timer goes off.
Use Journaling as a Coping Skill
The end goal is to write for 10 minute sessions. Many of my clients feel that this is difficult to obtain so we usually start with 5 minutes of continuous writing. As they journal more often, they find that it is easy to get to 10 minutes of writing. It takes about 5 to 7 sessions to actually feel like you may be getting something out of journaling. The first few times may not be easy but if you keep at it, you may find that this is extremely helpful.
Journaling can Improve Your Mood
Research suggests that journaling can help improve mood and manage symptoms of depression and anxiety. Journaling your thoughts and feelings can help you understand them more clearly. Journaling can help by allowing you to think about your emotions in a slow, controlled environment. You can't rush through a journal entry. It takes time to write things out. Your hand can only move so fast.
There are two things that can be done with your writing. First, you can destroy your writing. You can tear it up, shred it, cut it up, or burn it up. You can destroy that writing in any way you feel comfortable. I suggest clients actually use their journal entry in a different manner. I recommend clients read their journal entry in 3 month cycles to help them process what happened in the past. This means the first of every January, April, July, and October, read the previous 3 months of journal entries. When you skim the entries, you are looking for specific themes or experiences that reoccur throughout your life. There will be specific issues that will repeat itself over time. These issues can be explored deeper with your thoughts about the issue or they can even be processed with the help of a professional. You can also reflect on what these issues mean to you, or even if some of the issues that you were previously worried about still matter today. Following up every 3 months to review and reflect is my preferred method for my clients.
Journaling helps Physician Burnout
I've had many clients bring in themes from their journals. We discussed the thoughts and emotions that come up from journaling. In many cases, journaling has enriched therapy for my clients because they've done some exploration on issues that have bothered them and are now able to sits and explore them with a professional. In many cases breakthroughs occur.
Journaling is a great coping skill that many people should use on a regular basis. It's a coping skill that I use personally and recommend. Try out journaling for several sessions and see if this tool is for you.
Get Online Therapy For Physician Burnout
When you want to work on your physician burnout, get online therapy. Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation. I’m Chris Rabanera. I provide online therapy in California, online therapy in Michigan, and online therapy in Las Vegas. I work with issues such as physician burnout, anxiety, depression, therapy for men and grief counseling.
