Episode 142: Overcoming Burnout and Finding Balance with Dr. Nicole Perrotte

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss, where I help you get

[00:00:05] on track and stay on track with your weight loss journey.

[00:00:09] I'm your host Dr. Alicia Shelly, so let's get started!

[00:00:28] Now, studies have shown that chronic stress can lead to waking, which can then lead to

[00:00:41] further stress because you're stressed about your weight.

[00:00:43] Needless to say, this creates a vicious cycle.

[00:00:48] And today we are going to be discussing strategies for breaking through the burnout and

[00:00:54] overwell.

[00:00:55] And today I have expert Dr. Nicole Parach, she has over 15 years of clinical experience

[00:01:03] as a board certified internal medicine physician and now a certified life coach, a mother, and

[00:01:10] committed to assisting women physicians and women in the medical field to overcome burnout

[00:01:15] and take back control of their life.

[00:01:18] Welcome to the podcast Dr. Parach.

[00:01:21] We're so excited to have you!

[00:01:23] Thank you so much Dr. Shelly, I'm so excited to be here to share with you and your community!

[00:01:29] Yes, yes!

[00:01:30] Well, before we get started, please tell us a little bit more about yourself and how

[00:01:35] you got into the space.

[00:01:37] Well, I am internal medicine and I went to school in Grenada, it's in Georgia's University

[00:01:44] then my training at MCP Hanuman in internal medicine.

[00:01:50] I then went into hospital medicine because it was more exciting than a patient medicine.

[00:01:56] I did a lot of the day-to-day grind of a patient medicine and so I became a hospitalist

[00:02:03] and I did that for the bulk of my career.

[00:02:07] Because it's high in case, it's high intensity, high acuity, that means that at some point

[00:02:12] in time you could potentially experience burnout, which is what happened to me.

[00:02:17] I was involved in many different projects, quality projects, committees, leadership as

[00:02:23] a chief director and on top of that, when you add a patient care and then add a family,

[00:02:31] it all adds up eventually because you keep adding rocks and stones to the bag and you're still

[00:02:37] climbing and you expect to go at the same place without changing anything.

[00:02:42] That is pretty much what I did.

[00:02:44] So I pulled myself out.

[00:02:48] Perfect, Angie, I'm sorry, please continue.

[00:02:52] You had a perfect one.

[00:02:54] That's exactly what it was.

[00:02:56] You're trying to climb then you're just adding those rocks and stones to the bag.

[00:03:00] It doesn't exactly give you that freedom to move as you want to.

[00:03:04] So you have to make adjustments.

[00:03:06] That's what it was up to.

[00:03:08] And that is where Pochin came out because I burnt flat-out and I had to make a change

[00:03:15] because I realized I couldn't continue.

[00:03:18] The other thing that also precipitated the burnout was having a family because that carries

[00:03:24] additional responsibilities on top of what I'd already mentioned.

[00:03:29] And as it turns out, my son also required additional medical care because he has special needs.

[00:03:35] As a result, I was stretching myself very thin.

[00:03:39] Burnt out and I said totally flat, totally overwhelmed, stressed out, everything.

[00:03:48] And couldn't go forward, couldn't think straight.

[00:03:52] Everything was very hard to do because you tired, you overwhelmed, you're exhausted, you're

[00:03:57] not able to sleep.

[00:03:59] Every little thing makes you irritable.

[00:04:01] You find that you don't want to do things because you're disconnected and you're like,

[00:04:06] why is this so hard?

[00:04:07] And so that is where Pochin came in and allowed me to revisit my thoughts and reviews of

[00:04:15] my mindset.

[00:04:16] Look at setting boundaries and looking at how I could make a change to improve things

[00:04:21] and for myself.

[00:04:22] That's a beautiful story.

[00:04:25] And I'm thinking for just sharing your burnout because I too found myself in burnout twice.

[00:04:30] Twice in my career and a lot of it is just that overwhelmed.

[00:04:35] Just having so much on your plate, not knowing how to balance and juggle and then you're

[00:04:40] just like what am I doing?

[00:04:42] So I mean, how do we get here to the space of burnout and we'll overwhelm?

[00:04:47] What is at the step because I felt like I was doing everything great but then I'm hearing

[00:04:52] burnout.

[00:04:53] So how do we get to the place, the space of burnout and overwhelm in our lives?

[00:04:57] Right.

[00:04:58] It's not having good boundaries.

[00:05:00] That's one thing.

[00:05:02] Not having clear boundaries to give us the ability to say no.

[00:05:07] And so we tend to be people pleaser as in medicine.

[00:05:12] We tend to want to do what's right.

[00:05:14] We tend to want to be perfectionist.

[00:05:18] We try to do everything we can to the best of our ability.

[00:05:21] So we say yes to everything and then we still want to make sure we do it 100% correct

[00:05:27] to please everyone and in the process sacrifice ourselves.

[00:05:32] When we do that, it's a recipe for disaster because you're not serving yourself but you're

[00:05:36] not giving yourself a chance to actually take care of yourself.

[00:05:41] Be compassionate bags maybe this isn't bit much.

[00:05:45] Maybe I should say no.

[00:05:47] Maybe I should actually get some rest and sleep instead of saying yes and instead of

[00:05:53] working on this project.

[00:05:55] No, you are speaking all the things.

[00:05:57] That's a big question for me.

[00:05:59] I was like yes, I need to go to people pleaser anonymous because I am such a people pleaser.

[00:06:06] So SNL, I think and what was it?

[00:06:09] This past week had a skit about people pleasing and I was like is this me?

[00:06:14] Like they're just like for it.

[00:06:17] I know you have to look for it and look for the clip.

[00:06:19] People pleasing SNL skit.

[00:06:21] It is hilarious.

[00:06:23] I was like oh my god why are they talking about me on SNL?

[00:06:27] But you're absolutely right.

[00:06:29] We actually say yes to everything.

[00:06:31] We say yes to everything, we overwhelm.

[00:06:34] We don't want to let people down because they need us and we find ourselves and myself included

[00:06:40] in this bit of overwhelm and like oh my gosh why can I not move forward in certain things?

[00:06:47] So why is it hard for us to break through that burnout or how can we break through the burnout

[00:06:54] when we find ourselves in this place?

[00:06:58] If you first have to admit you have a problem, right?

[00:07:03] I'm wearing a blister hat.

[00:07:06] You have to be self-aware.

[00:07:08] If you think you're finding, it doesn't matter what anyone says, we're not going to fix it.

[00:07:13] But you have to recognize that there's a problem.

[00:07:15] And once you recognize that there's a problem, you're self-aware.

[00:07:19] Then you're definitely on the road to getting it fixed.

[00:07:24] So that is the first step.

[00:07:25] First step.

[00:07:27] Self-awareness.

[00:07:28] Self-awareness.

[00:07:29] And then just realizing what you could control and what you can control.

[00:07:32] I mean we work in healthcare which is a humongous system and this is not perfect.

[00:07:39] And we're not going to fix the system by ourselves.

[00:07:43] There are many stakeholders.

[00:07:45] So you have to work on fixing you which means taking ownership of what you could fix for yourself

[00:07:52] those boundaries and making sure you take care of your emotional health, your mental health,

[00:07:57] your physical health, taking time to exercise each ride, taking those breaks,

[00:08:03] making sure that your sudden boundaries between work and home,

[00:08:08] you're not trying to do all your shopping in pajamas at the end of the night.

[00:08:13] That doesn't help you because you're...

[00:08:17] Are you not mean to call?

[00:08:24] I'm sorry, keep going, you're doing great.

[00:08:30] No but you're absolutely right.

[00:08:31] I love that taking care of your emotional, your mental and physical health.

[00:08:35] I had a friend, she worked like seven days a week and I was like when do you have time?

[00:08:39] You know because she had two jobs.

[00:08:41] And so it was just kind of like it just adds up and you're absolutely right we have to make

[00:08:46] sure we add that time in for ourselves and don't feel guilty.

[00:08:50] And not...

[00:08:50] No, that's the hard part.

[00:08:52] That's the hard part.

[00:08:53] It's easily feel guilty because I mean it's funny because there

[00:08:58] we don't put that blank space on our calendar.

[00:09:02] To give ourselves the rest, we just keep going, going, going, going.

[00:09:06] And we don't give ourselves a chance to recover and just say okay this is it.

[00:09:11] I'm done.

[00:09:13] Blocking everything.

[00:09:14] I'm trying to pull it off on my scrolling on social media.

[00:09:17] I'm going to bed.

[00:09:18] I'm not going to work on any more projects.

[00:09:21] I'm calling it a cleansing.

[00:09:22] And I'm just going to relax.

[00:09:24] Maybe read a book.

[00:09:25] Maybe just...

[00:09:27] Julia Bats maybe just write what you're grateful for.

[00:09:30] What went well at the end of the day.

[00:09:33] Simple things suggest the stress.

[00:09:35] Spend five-teminist meditation at the end of the night and

[00:09:39] just calm the nervous system because we're walking around with these overstimulated nervous

[00:09:47] We are on it.

[00:09:49] You get hell like I'm afraid to like beat the horn sometimes because I don't know who's in

[00:09:53] that car in front of me who stopped at a green light.

[00:09:56] So yeah, you're on it.

[00:09:58] I'm going to add your overstimulated and there's no chance to really just exhale and decompress.

[00:10:04] So really important as well.

[00:10:06] Being able to do that.

[00:10:08] Now this just for y'all aware so number one was being self-aware.

[00:10:12] Number two was control what you can control and then make sure you take time for emotional

[00:10:18] mental and physical health.

[00:10:19] Was that number three?

[00:10:20] Take time for emotional physical okay.

[00:10:22] And then what is the number four?

[00:10:24] So for number four, spending time at the end of the day when I was

[00:10:29] gratitude and journaling or three good things that went well

[00:10:34] at the end of meditation.

[00:10:36] Anything along those legs.

[00:10:38] That's true because I do find when I'm more grateful it makes me not think that the

[00:10:41] day was for like for some reason it's like oh my god nothing went well but if I

[00:10:45] agree it really does.

[00:10:48] It really does.

[00:10:48] It makes a huge difference because it doesn't matter how bad the day it was once you

[00:10:53] spend that time looking for the things that went well you'll find that the list is actually

[00:10:57] pretty long.

[00:10:59] It just keeps growing.

[00:11:01] It was a lot better than I thought.

[00:11:02] A lot exactly exactly.

[00:11:06] Well these have been such great tips

[00:11:09] that people can use to kind of overcome that burnout to work through it.

[00:11:13] I would just want to add one other step would be you know sometimes you get to a place where

[00:11:18] you may need a coach, you may need somebody to help you through it.

[00:11:21] And I know I had to utilize a coach to kind of help me with my mindset and just the things that

[00:11:26] were going so feel free to reach out to people sometimes they have

[00:11:31] in different employees called the EAP where you have people who you can reach out to that can

[00:11:36] maybe help you if you're feeling overwhelmed and stressed and definitely make sure that you're

[00:11:40] speaking to your physician and you know PCP about it.

[00:11:44] So you're not alone you're not alone and there's help.

[00:11:48] Yes yes yes yes yes.

[00:11:51] No any last minute tips any last minute suggestions that you have for maybe somebody who's

[00:11:56] experiencing burnout right now?

[00:11:59] It's not the end of the world it is something that is definitely

[00:12:04] overcomeable I don't think that's a word but I think we can get as that.

[00:12:08] I just Dr Shelley said whether it's EAP, therapist, your PCP or a coach and you want to find some sort

[00:12:20] of support mechanism to help you get to the next stage where you're actually thriving.

[00:12:26] And I'm also someone who works with other physicians and new persons, women in health care so

[00:12:33] happy to help them with burnout to help them work through overwhelm and navigating what that

[00:12:39] looks like when you're stressed overwhelm and burnt out to get to the other side where you're

[00:12:44] thriving, where you're enjoying life and you have flexibility of your time and you're enjoying

[00:12:51] the time you've your friends and family.

[00:12:53] Amazing now if somebody wants to connect with you how do they connect with you?

[00:12:59] So they can reach me on LinkedIn or my website and that'll be www.mind-eu.io

[00:13:08] And so that will be in the notes for you to reach out happy to chat and help us as I can.

[00:13:16] Well thank you so very much Dr. Parat for coming today and just sharing with us strategies to

[00:13:22] overcome that stress and burnout. Thank you all for joining us as well on the back-on-track

[00:13:28] achieving healthy weight loss podcast. If you liked this episode please share it with others,

[00:13:33] like it and subscribe and don't forget to leave a five-star review. All right and we'll see you

[00:13:39] on next time have a great day.