The holiday season is here, and – for many people – this time of year evokes feelings of warmth and joy with an emphasis on spending time with loved ones and taking time to rest and relax. Unfortunately, health care is one of the few industries exempt from this downtime, and it’s not just patients who experience the holiday blues.
The reality of the holiday season for many health care workers doesn’t feature meaningful time spent with families or a well-deserved week off. Instead, that reality consists of heightened stress, increased job demands, clashing cultural ideas of what holidays are “supposed” to be, and the exasperating expectation to be filled with holiday cheer. Stress experienced during the holiday season can lead to increased feelings of sadness, anxiety, disconnectedness, loneliness, and social isolation. According to a recent survey conducted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2021), 40% of health care workers are anxious about working long hours during the holiday season and 54% say their stress level increases during the holiday season.
Many health care workers are already running on empty by the time the holidays roll around. Health care professionals need a consistent routine of well-being practices to stay charged, alleviate distress, avoid burnout, and remain connected to family, friends, colleagues and patients.
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, pressure on health care teams was on the rise, and the prevalence of burnout among physicians in the United States was at an alarming level, with half experiencing symptoms (Shanafelt et al., 2012). During the height of the pandemic, physician burnout rates across all specialties reached an all-time high, with 62.8% of physicians reporting at least one experience of having burnout in 2021 (Shanafelt et al., 2022). In a report published recently in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Rotenstein et al. (2023) found that clinical staff, and non-clinical support workers in health care, also experienced substantial levels of burnout; nurses had the highest reported rates of burnout at a whopping 56%. To add insult to injury, satisfaction with work-life balance, depression, and professional fulfillment were also impacted. Many workers reported that they wanted to leave their jobs within two years – including nurses (41%), clinical and non-clinical staff (32%), and doctors (24%).
Burnout is not conditional upon career stage, nor is it correlated with years in practice (Shanafelt, et al., 2003; Pentti et al., 2008). The risks associated with high stress and burnout are many and can lead to burnout syndrome (Fontán et al., 2001) and compassion fatigue (Bush, 2009), which can affect both physical and mental health, as well as compromise work productivity, performance, and quality of care (Adams et al., 2008; Balch et al., 2009; Oreskovich et al., 2012). Burnout can lead to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (i.e., feeling detached toward patients), a low sense of accomplishment (Wallace et al., 2009), and an increased risk of suicidal thoughts (Shanafelt et al., 2016).
Stress and burnout in physicians can lead to behavioral and performance issues at work, conflict in the workplace and at home, and dissatisfaction with jobs and careers (Shanafelt et al., 2012; Dewa et al., 2014). Studies show that even small increases in stress and burnout scores can lead to more perceived medical errors (West et al., 2009; Shanafelt et al., 2010), reduced work hours (Shanafelt, et al., 2016), and decreased patient quality care and satisfaction (Krumholz et al., 2013).
For many health care workers, stress goes unnoticed, building up over time when the focus is on providing excellent patient care – but not self-care. If your well-being battery is running low (or is completely dead), you won’t have enough energy to give to your patients (or your colleagues or even your loved ones) – and you run the risk of burnout. Adding self-care to your personal routine and advocating for self-care to be a priority within your organization’s culture is critical to making sure that your well-being battery stays charged during the holidays and beyond.
Here are 10 simple ways you can prioritize charging your well-being battery and take control of your mental and physical health:
References
Fontán IM, Dueñas JL. Burnout syndrome in an obstetrics and gynaecology management unit. Rev Calid Asist. 2010;25:260–7.; Maslach C, Schaufeli WB, Leiter MP. Job burnout. Annu Rev Psychol. 2001;52:397–422.
Krumholz, H. M. (2013). Variations in health care, patient preferences, and high-quality decision making. Journal of the Am
Oreskovich, M. R. (2012). Burnout and Satisfaction with Work-Life Balance Among US Physicians Relative to the General US Population. Archives of Internal Medicine, 172(18), 1377-1385.)
Pentti J, Vahtera J. Work stress and health in primary health care physicians and hospital physicians. Occup Environ Med 2008; 65: 364-6.)
Rotenstein, L.S., Brown, R., Sinsky, C. et al. The Association of Work Overload with Burnout and Intent to Leave the Job Across the Healthcare Workforce During COVID-19. J GEN INTERN MED 38, 1920–1927 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-023-08153-z
Shanafelt TD, Sloan JA, Habermann TM. The well-being of physicians. Am J Med 2003; 114: 513-19; Virtanen P, Oksanen T, Kivimaki M, Virtanen M,
Shanafelt, T. D., Balch, C. M., Bechamps, G., Russell, T., Dyrbye, L. N., Satele, D., Freischlag, J. (2010). Burnout and Medical Errors Among American Surgeons. Annals of Surgery, 251, 995-1000.
Shanafelt, T. D., Boone, S., Tan, L., Dyrbye, L. N., Sotile, W., Satele, D.,
Shanafelt, Tait D. et al. “Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work-Life Integration in Physicians Over the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Mayo Clinic proceedings (2022): n. pag. Web.
Shanafet, T. D., Mungo, M., Schmitgen, J., Storz, K. A., Reeves, D., Hayes, S. N., . . . Buskirk, S. J. (2016). Longitudinal study evaluating the association between physician burnout and changes in professional work effort. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 91(4), 422-431)
The American Psychiatric Association. (Retrieved December 3, 2023). Holiday Stress. Morning Consult.Chromeextension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Unassigned/APA_Holiday-Stress…
The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Thriving Health Workforce (Retrieved December 3, 2023). Addressing Health Worker Burnout (2022). Addressing Health Worker Burnout (hhs.gov)
Wallace JE, Lemaire JB, Ghali WA. Physician wellness: a missing quality indicator. Lancet 2009; 374: 1714-21
West, C. P., Tan, A. D., Haberman, T. M., Sloan, J. A., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2009). Association of Resident Fatigue and Distress with Perceived Medical Errors. Journal of the American Medical Association, 302(12), 1294-1300. 4.
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