Ryan Shephard – A Look Into How Doctors Chill Out
Having lived with the good doctor Ryan Shephard for a number of years now I feel as though I know as much about emergency services as he does, well perhaps not quite as much. What I do know about however is that a shift in ER is intense and filled with arrested patients, blood and gore, cuts and grazes, worried family members, tears, tantrums and catastrophes. What I also know is that the men and women who work there each and every day deserve medals. I was chatting with Ryan last month about how he and the others find ways to relax and so he did a little bit of covert digging for me and here is what he found out.
Cooking
Many of his colleagues told him that the most relaxing thing that they could do was to cook a recipe on their day off. This seems very strange given that cooking is potentially one of the most stressful things that I do, but each to their own of course. The men and women who spoke about their love for cooking said that they would usually pick a complicated dish to complete which requires a lot of their time and energy in order to make it just right.
Boxing
An overwhelming number of the staff at the ER where Ryan works told him that they love nothing more than finishing a shift and then going to the gym to box holes in the punchbag. I can imagine that over the course of a shift there must be an awful lot of pent up aggression so to go and destroy a punchbag afterwards does appear to something that is completely normal.
Meditation
I knew that Ryan relied quite heavily on meditation to make sure that he was in a good headspace for his upcoming shift and to be honest I always assumed that the majority of hospital workers would be exactly the same. Somewhat surprisingly there were a very low number of staff who said that meditation helped them to unwind. There were still some who said that meditation helped them however and that some even took advantage of the odd quiet moment in the hospital during their shift to take some much needed quiet time.
Musical Instruments
The number of staff at the hospital who play musical instruments is incredible and I had no idea that medicine and music were so aligned. The majority of those who can play a musical instrument said that this was the way in which they chilled out at the end of a busy day. I guess if you consider things like dexterity and the fact that to play a musical instrument you need to be good with your hands, much like working in medicine. One of the doctors even charges some of the residents for lessons!
Do you know any medical staff, how do they like to unwind at the end of a long and stressful day? Let us know in the comments.
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