Mental Health in Osteopathy Throughout Christmas and New Year

Let’s discuss mental health in osteopathy throughout Christmas & New Year

The pressure of being a leader and perfectionism

All osteopaths experience ups and downs in their mental and physical health throughout their careers. However, Christmas and New Year bring osteopaths two specific mental health challenges. Firstly, there can be pressure to be all things to all people in the lead up to Christmas, while New Year calls on a social change, a pressure to achieve new heights come the first of January.

Being more conscious of our mental health during December and January is important for osteopaths because we can only offer the best care to our patients if we are healthy and ready to work. This is especially true since we give so much energy to our patients. Furthermore, an osteopath who is feeling emotionally, mentally and physically well is naturally going to be better equipped to manage stressful situations and overcome challenges as they arise.

Feeling pressure to be all things to all people

As we begin to wind down and shut up shop ready for the Christmas break, we often get a wave of patients desperately trying to book in before our doors close. In addition, social events, Christmas shopping, family obligations and get-togethers pepper our calendar and add to our already overflowing to-do list. Ironically, we feel an immense amount of pressure to spin all these plates and relax while we’re doing it.

Here are three simple questions to ask yourself when you feel overwhelmed or a sudden wave of pressure.

1. What am I afraid of?
2. What is working about this situation?
3. What’s the ideal outcome?

What am I afraid of?

Feeling overwhelmed, time-poor, and flustered often come from deep-seated fear (fear of failure, social embarrassment or the outside perception of not having our life together). By going directly to the source and addressing the root of our fear, we may be able to let go of our fear and therefore remain calmer and stay in control.

What’s working about this situation?

Overwhelm is usually paired with feeling out of control. We believe we’ve lost the ability to organise our time or accept where we are instead of always thinking of what else we ‘should’ be doing. By asking ourselves what’s working, we focus on the positive aspects of the situation instead of having tunnel vision on the negative elements.

What’s the ideal outcome?

This question places us back in the driver’s seat. If you don’t have a goal and feel overwhelmed, people usually will either put out spot fires or juggle lots of things just to feel as if they’re moving forward. But if you have a clear goal, you can either leave everything else that doesn’t matter and go for that goal or if you can’t get the ideal outcome, at least you know what you’re aiming for. You can then shift and make intelligent compromises that still have meaning behind them rather than just juggling lots of useless tasks.