Work-Life Integration
Have you ever found yourself working long days to keep up with the demands of work? Or have you ever found yourself thinking about work even when you want to pay attention to family and friends? As new practitioners, it can be fairly easy to fill your life with work rather than prioritizing your health, family, and community. It is well known that this lifestyle leads to burnout. You may experience feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, reduced personal accomplishment, and resentment of your workplace. A negative work environment may be of your own affliction. How do you overcome this? There has been much talk about work-life integration – two worlds existing together in harmony rather than separation. However, several studies demonstrated that healthcare professionals have a difficult time with this concept, and report poor work-life integration despite high reports of burnout. Some strategies to successfully integrate your work and life involve self-awareness, identifying imbalances, and open and honest communication with individuals at work and home. For example, you may find yourself checking e-mails constantly throughout the day regardless of work hours. Set aside time in the evening to catch-up on e-mails before bed, rather than being at the mercy of every e-mail notification that you receive. What are some strategies that you employ to have a better work-life integration?
Be sure to check out Personal Development Strategies for New Pharmacist Practitioners, a webinar available to all ASHP members for CE credit. This activity covers topics surrounding work-life integration, approaches to manage stress, and ways to improve emotional well-being for new practitioners.
#MentalhealthRx #wellbeing
The upcoming posts this week (as well as additional posts which will be posted throughout Mental Health Awareness Month (May) by Maggie Kronz, Daniel Pons, and Bethany Withycombe) were created by ASHP New Practitioner’s Forum CDAG to provide you with helpful resources to improve your mental health and well-being. Previous topics include: Positive psychology and how this can be applied to your personal and professional life to increase your levels of happiness and well-being, managing anxiety and depression, identifying your personal values and how to incorporate these values into your career to avoid burnout, and imposter syndrome and how it may be affecting your mental wellness.. We hope you find these posts beneficial and give you a good starting point to help you be well!
References:
Durham ME, Bush PW, Ball AM.Evidence of burnout in health-system pharmacists. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2018; 75(23):S93-S100.
Shanafelt TD, West CP, Sinsky C, et al. Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction with Work-Life Integration in Physicians and the General US Working Population Between 2011 and 2017. Mayo Clin Proc. 2019;94(9):1681-1694.
Schwartz SP, Adair KC, Bae J, et al. Work-life balance behaviours cluster in work settings and relate to burnout and safety culture: a cross-sectional survey analysis. BMJ Qual Saf. 2019; 28(2):142-150.