When Healthcare Hurts: Strategies for Coping with Medical Trauma
Medical care is supposed to help us feel better. But for some people, the healthcare system itself can become a source of fear, frustration, loss of control, or trauma.
Medical trauma can develop after a frightening procedure, a serious diagnosis, a prolonged hospitalization, repeated medical interventions, or experiences of feeling dismissed or unheard. It can also accumulate over time. Especially for people living with complex, rare, chronic, or poorly understood illnesses, years of appointments, tests, uncertainty, and interactions with multiple providers can take an emotional and physical toll.
It is important to remember that the same medical experience will not affect everyone in the same way. An event may be stressful for one person and traumatic for another. Trauma is about the person's experience—not simply what happened or what someone intended.
Anxiety? Powerlessness? Ethical Distress? Use It.
It’s understandable that we could look at the world around us and feel anxiety, grief, and moral distress. We can recognize these emotions and give ourselves the space to acknowledge and process them. Moreover, we can recognize the need to combat our sense of powerlessness before it generates despair and paralyzes us into inaction. We can use our ethical compass and the physiological responses generated by anxiety and use these responses to our advantage. We can leverage these responses into action.
Forest Bathing: How to Reduce Stress with or without a Forest
We’re likely all aware of the health benefits of physical activity. However, did you know that just spending time in nature - with or without movement - has significant health benefits? There is even a term for mindful time spent under the trees - “forest bathing.”
Stressed? How to Stay Calm in Tough Times
Your heart is pounding, your breathing feels fast and shallow, your stomach is in knots, and your racing thoughts just won’t slow down. Are you giving a big speech, running from a bear, or just trying to make it through a normal work day? The difficulty is - your physiology might react in similar ways to each of these events! Keep reading to learn why and to learn how to combat these automatic responses.