{"id":22212,"date":"2022-08-01T00:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T00:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=22212"},"modified":"2022-07-26T18:17:10","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T18:17:10","slug":"strategic-stress-0822","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/strategic-stress-0822\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, we played a game in middle school until the teachers cracked down and banned it. Eloquently named \u201cSlaps,\u201d it consisted of one person, the slapper, extending his hands, palms up. A second person stood facing the first and laid his hands, palms down, on top of the slapper\u2019s hands. The slapper would then attempt to quickly smack the ever-loving fire out of the top of the opponent\u2019s hands while the opponent desperately tried to pull his hands away. If the slapper missed the strike, the roles were reversed. The brutal game tended to end with one player becoming fatigued and taking a continual beating until the top of his hands were beet red and the pain made him quit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that game I\u2019m reminded of as I look at the news today and listen to the existential stressors of our colleagues in veterinary practice. One painful slap after another. I turn on the TV and \u201cslap!\u201d I check my news app. \u201cSmack!\u201d I peek at social media. \u201cOuch!\u201d<\/p>\n

Slap! Slap! Slap! The longer I persist, the more mentally fatigued I become and the harder the information slaps seem to hit me. Horrible customer behaviors, inflation, labor shortages, misinformation, political and cultural polarization, human rights violations, war. I feel like I\u2019m living in a world of five-alarm fires and have nothing but a Dixie cup from which to throw water.<\/p>\n

I have arguments with imaginary clients, employees, activists and politicians about all manner of topics, I rail to no one about mental health in veterinary medicine, and I grit my teeth about the fatigue and overwork that so many of us feel. I know these emotional workouts do nothing to change the issues that upset me, but I get sucked into them. I suspect I\u2019m not alone in these fruitless pursuits.<\/p>\n

We Can\u2019t Ignore Everything<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Because of my mental self-flagellation, I\u2019ve thought a lot about what to do in a world where access to information can mean internalizing endless turmoil (real and imagined) and where the power to respond tangibly to industrywide, national and global threats is well beyond my or your reach.<\/p>\n

Being informed is essential. I don\u2019t see ignoring unpleasant truths or the plight of others as a wise or compassionate strategy. Also, giving consideration to industry and societal trends is unarguably smart for both businesses and employees. As I\u2019ve written many times before, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.<\/p>\n

At the same time, most of us have limited emotional and mental energy to get through our days. We wake up with finite emotional and decision-making capacities that we use up through our day until we have nothing left. Pushing past these capacities is exhausting, demoralizing and often counterproductive. Combine this limitation with the fact that working in a veterinary hospital is highly mentally and emotionally fatiguing on its own, and you can see where we have a significant problem.<\/p>\n

Know Your Limits<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I\u2019d like to propose an idea to help us meet the societal obligations of being informed while maintaining healthy boundaries<\/a> that might shield us from decision drain, emotional burnout, compassion fatigue and a general lifetime of anxiety. I\u2019m calling the approach strategic stress.<\/p>\n

Strategic stress is the practice of being informed to the level where we can decide how to address a given situation and stop there. It is not ignoring challenges or the plights of others but considering the challenges intentionally with the goal of:<\/p>\n