A Holistic Approach to Self-Care | Episode 56 | Reviving Vet Med

While bubble baths and spa days are nice, true self-care goes much deeper—it's about prioritizing actions that genuinely support your physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. During this episode, we share personal stories and evidence-based insights into why self-care isn’t selfish but essential, especially for caregiving professionals like veterinarians. We also explore the benefits of self-care for resilience and burnout prevention, along with practical tips to help you incorporate meaningful self-care practices into your daily life.

Importantly, we break down the eight dimensions of wellness—physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, occupational, financial, and environmental—and how they intertwine to create holistic wellbeing. From setting boundaries at work to spending time in nature, we offer actionable steps and examples to help you assess and enhance your self-care habits. Whether you’re new to self-care or looking to refine your approach, this episode will provide the tools you need to create a sustainable self-care plan that supports your ability to care for yourself and others.

Resources
Self-Care Assessment (download): https://revivingvetmed.kartra.com/page/selfcare

Work-life balance is essential to reducing burnout, improving well-being (article): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38729208/

Veterinarians show resilience during COVID-19: challenges faced and successful coping strategies (article): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36913395/

Burnout and Self Care for Palliative Care Practitioners (article): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32312415/

Self-care practices and depression, anxiety, and stress scores in veterinary students during a semester (article): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37265816/

Setting Boundaries and Saying No (Episode 52): https://revivingvetmed.buzzsprout.com/2011463/episodes/16009718-setting-boundaries-and-saying-no-in-veterinary-medicine-episode-52-reviving-vet-med

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Transcript

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Foreign hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Reviving Vet Med. Today we're going to unpack what self-care truly means and what it doesn't mean. We'll discuss how it differs from unhealthy coping strategies and dive into some research that highlights the benefits of self-care for caregiving professionals using the eight dimensions of wellness. Along the way, I'll share some personal stories and practical tips to help you incorporate self-care into your life in a meaningful, sustainable way. So, with that said, let's go ahead and get into this important episode. This is the Reviving Vet Med podcast and I'm your host, Dr. Marie Holowaychuck. My mission is to improve the mental health and well-being of veterinary professionals around the world. So, I have to say that self-care is often a misunderstood term.

To be honest, I feel like it's one of those words or phrases that has a bad rap or has maybe not had good branding in its past. And what I mean when I say that is that when we hear the term self-care, many of us think of bubble baths or spa days or splurging on a fancy latte. And while these things can be enjoyable, I think it's important to recognize that self-care goes so much deeper than that. And I think unfortunately this is one of the reasons why a lot of people sort of put a front up when it comes to practicing self-care. They think, well, self-care is not for me, or self-care is self-indulgent, or you know, self-care is for sissies or, I don't know, whatever it might be.

At its core, self-care is really about consciously prioritizing actions that are going to support your physical, emotional and mental well-being. So, it really is a proactive, intentional approach to maintaining balance in your life. To Taking care of yourself. And it really is essential for building resilience, for preventing burnout, and as caregiving professionals, for sustaining our ability to take care of others, whether it's our patients, our clients, or the other people in our lives. So, a few years ago, you know, well into my wellness journey, I was juggling long shifts in the ER and ICU. I was traveling a lot for speaking, and I was parenting. And I kept telling myself, I don't have time for self-care. You know, I need to just power through this. And I thought I was being selfless.

I thought I was putting my patients and my clients and my daughter first. But in reality, I was completely depleting myself. And I finally hit the wall mentally, physically, and emotionally. And then I wasn't showing up well for anybody. I wasn't showing up as the mom I wanted to be. I was making mistakes at work. And that effort to power through and be selfless and put everybody before me really had put me at risk of harming those that I was trying to help. And so, it was really a reaffirmation for me that self-care isn't an option. Even when we're super busy and when we have a lot going on, it is necessary. And I find even more necessary during those times in our life where we are incredibly overwhelmed and juggling a lot of things and working super hard.

And so, again, I think that it's important to highlight some really important things about self-care, that self-care is not selfish. In fact, self-care in some regards is an ethical obligation that we have as veterinary caregivers. And there's organizations like the Green Cross Academy of Traumatology who stress that for caregiving professionals, neglecting self-care can lead to harm, not just to yourself, but to those that you are trying to help. And so, in that way, when you commit to being a caregiver, you also commit to first taking care of yourself. And I think all of you have probably heard the analogy between caregivers and flight attendants, what they tell you in terms of putting your own oxygen mask on before assisting others. And I think we've heard this enough now that some of us may roll our eyes when we hear this.

And I just want to highlight this reiteration that you really do have to first take care of yourself, or you are not going to be able to take care of others to the best of your ability. So, if you're someone like me who has ever felt guilty about taking time for yourself, please let this be a permission slip to prioritize your health and well-being. Now, when some of us think about self-care, we actually think about what are really unhealthy coping strategies. And so unhealthy coping is, for example, after a stressful day, just unwinding with a bottle of wine or binge-watching TV until late at night. And while I don't dispute that these activities can feel good in the moment, they can lead to negative consequences like poor sleep, dependency, feelings of guilt.

And at the end of the day, they just take away from time that can really be spent doing things that build up your mental health. So, it's not that you can never engage in unhealthy coping strategies. I myself find that there are sometimes where I just want to lay on the couch after my daughter is asleep and watch some reality tv. And this can provide temporary relief from stress, but it will be harmful to your long-term well-being if it is done habitually. So true self care, on the other hand, is really about building habits that replenish your energy and enhance your resistance. For example, instead of reaching for that glass of wine, you might try journaling to process your feelings, or you might go for a walk to clear your mind.

These practices are not only going to help you with your stress, but they're also going to improve your overall health and well-being. And so, there is some research in this area looking at veterinarians and the strategies that they are choosing in terms of taking care of themselves during times of stress. There was a study that was published in JAVMA in 2023 titled Veterinarians show resilience during COVID 19 challenges faced and Successful Coping Strategies. And so, there were more than 250 online surveys completed by veterinarians in the United States. And they looked at factors that were most strongly associated with greater resilience. And one of these included so-called approach focused coping strategies. And so, approach focused coping strategies are aiming to find a solution to the problem or understand its cause or accept it.

And this was in contradiction to avoidance-oriented coping strategies which are basically just distractions. So, these are things that numb or distract, but they don't actually tackle the stress or the issue. And so definitely finding a solution to the problem. So whether that's you're feeling stressed at work, finding a solution by making an appointment with a mental health professional, or you're having troubles sorting something out, or you've got a really stiff body, or you know you're feeling achy and sore, an approach focused coping strategy might be booking a physio appointment or doing some stretching or going for a walk versus avoidance oriented is going to be just laying on the couch and not moving your body. Okay, so that is the difference there.

The other things that were positively associated with resilience among these veterinarians were engaging in physical activity or hobbies as well as getting emotional support, following a routine, maintaining sleep, hygiene, and spending more time outdoors. And you'll notice that none of these things are, you know, sitting on the couch and watching Netflix. In fact, denial, disengaging or giving up and use of alcohol or other drugs were associated with lower resilience scores among the veterinarians that participated in that study. So, it really does seem like if we want to improve our resilience, which of course is our ability to bounce back after distress or stressful situations, then we really need to be intentional about the activities that we choose. There is also work that comes out of the Merck animal health veterinary well-being studies.

And the study that was published back in 2023 demonstrates, or I should say the 2023 survey that was published in 2024 again showed that engaging in healthy activities and using healthy methods to cope with stress, for example, true self care is a predictor of higher well-being and lower burnout. So, these are things like spending more time with family, spending time with friends, that social connection, exercising more often, sleeping more than eight hours per day. All of these things are going to be and have been associated with lower levels of psychological distress and again, better overall well-being scores.

So, at the end of the day, you really want to think about the difference between healthy coping strategies in the form of self-care and unhealthy coping strategies which are not actually self-care is, can be okay in the short term, but not things that we want to do long term. And I think that was a big concept for me, certainly personally, to get my head wrapped around when I first delved into this information in this field. So, when it comes to research studies specifically about self-care, there isn't a ton of information out there. There is some research in the human palliative care field looking at self-care and what they really have found is that there really needs to be this balanced approach in terms of taking care of others and taking care for ourselves.

And that this really is more than just a checklist of things that you can, you know, tick off. This is really a conscious and deliberate act that varies from person to person. So, it isn't necessarily going to be the same thing on an individual basis. And it is something that is probably going to change as the person moves through their career and you know, takes on different roles in their life, whether it be parent, partner, mom, dad, any number of different things that of course we might transition through in our lives. Now some interesting things that have again come out of this research as well, specifically in veterinary medicine.

There was some work that I did here at the University of Calgary a few years ago looking at self-care practices among veterinary students that when they consistently said that they had some sort of self-care practice, that they did have better mental health scores. So, there was a score looking at psychological distress and those scores tended to be lower among those students who specifically said that they recognized the benefit of self-care and were actively engaging in it. The other thing that was demonstrated in that study is that those students who consistently slept more than six hours a night and who consistently engaged in either physical activity or getting outside on a daily basis also had better mental health scores. So again, there is a little bit of research in veterinary medicine as well to support the importance of these strategies.

So, at the end of the day then how do we engage in self-care? And I think one of the most important things to think about is that it isn't just getting outside, getting exercise and going to bed on time. There are a lot of different dimensions of wellness and each dimension of wellness represents a really important aspect of our lives. So really neglecting any one of them can throw us off balance, so to speak. So, we typically think of these as eight different dimensions. And I'm going to go through each one of these in a little bit more detail and I will start with physical wellness. This is the dimension of wellness that most of us think about when we think about engaging in self-care.

So, this includes things like regular exercise, balanced nutrition, proper sleep, and avoiding risky behaviors like smoking or excessive alcohol use. And I think personally for me, prioritizing physical wellness has been huge for my mental and physical well-being. I know we often think of physical wellness as nurturing physical wellbeing, but there's a lot of research to demonstrate that this has a huge impact on our mental health as well. And so, for me, scheduling workouts like yoga or using the Peloton app every day or going for a walk with my dog on a regular basis, I treat these things like daily non negotiables, meaning they're almost like an appointment that's in my calendar that I can't miss. And that has been transformative for me in my self-care practice.

And certainly, there might be days where I'm working a 12, 13, 14-hour shift where I can't do all the things that I would normally do. I can't take my dog for a half an hour walk or do a 45-minute workout. And that doesn't mean that I don't do physical self-care on those days. It just means that the physical self-care is either shorter or it takes on a different form. So, on those days I might do a 10-minute core workout or a 15-minute stretch, or 20 minutes of intervals on the bike or 15 minutes of yoga. It's still going to happen. It still has the same intent, but it's just more abbreviated or it's more suited to what my body needs that day. Now the second dimension of wellness is emotional wellness.

And so emotional wellness really means recognizing and managing your feelings so that you can build that resilience. And this includes things like managing our perfectionism or our imposter syndrome, or practicing self-compassion, working on our relationships. All of these different things contribute to better emotional wellness. And I think the most transformative thing that I have ever done for my emotional wellness is to engage in consistent counseling. And I've done different forms of counseling over the years ranging from cognitive behavioral therapy to EMDR to most recently internal family systems. All of them have their benefits and I cannot recommend counseling enough when it comes to emotional wellness. Now there's a lot of different things that you can do to boost your emotional wellness. It doesn't necessarily have to be just engaging with a mental health professional. It could be reading a self-help book.

It could be even making a self-care plan that's going to help your emotional wellness because you are taking care of yourself. It might be engaging in a self-compassion practice. All of these things are going to be beneficial. The third dimension of wellness is our social wellness. And arguably this might be the most important dimension of wellness. This is where we really are prioritizing strong, healthy, meaningful relationships. These are our connections with our family, our friends and our colleagues. And I say this might be the most important dimension of wellness because there is so much research to demonstrate that loneliness, which is the opposite of connectedness, is really bad for our mental and physical health. There's actually research studies to show that loneliness is worse than smoking when it comes to your physical health in terms of how that can impact your lifespan.

And so, we want to make sure that we are taking steps to build and maintain our social connections. This really gives us this sense that when things get tough, we've got people to lean on, or when we're feeling stressed, there are people that we can turn to. And again, I cannot stress enough the benefits of this. We've even seen the benefits of this bear out in research studies that have looked at online connections with individuals. There was a research study that was conducted not too long ago that looked at online support groups within the veterinary space and revealed that when veterinarians disclosed something stressful or challenging that they were going through and that was met with understanding and compassion and a sense of, yeah, I've been there too, that this actually improved those veterinarians well-being and mental health.

And so, we do really want to think about keeping that top of mind when it comes to prioritizing our different self-care strategies. So again, whether that's having consistent gatherings with your friends and family, having a regular phone call, meeting up with somebody, going for a walk with somebody, joining a club or a committee, or you know, going to a work event, you know, doing these things that are going to maintain your social connections is really important. Now the fourth dimension of wellness, and again these are in no particular order, is spiritual wellness. And I know some people hear the word spiritual and they think of religion or something like that. And maybe that does not resonate with you, but to be clear, spiritual wellness really involves exploring your sense of purpose and connection to things that are much bigger than you.

I'm not talking about connection to other humans, although it can be more so connection to things that we can't really explain. Right. So, whether that's God, the universe, Mother Nature, just this sense of there is so much bigger than what we can really understand in this world. And so, people can really find spiritual wellness through meditation, through church, through gratitude practices, through experiences in nature. I know for me; I have found that having a daily gratitude practice really does help me stay grounded and keeps me aligned with my values. And I also see great benefit in gathering in some of these other circumstances to practice spirituality in what other ways might resonate. So again, another really important part of our overall well-being, intellectual wellness is the fifth dimension of wellness that I'll talk about.

And this is really keeping your mind engaged by learning new things. And this doesn't necessarily have to be veterinary related. This could be hobbies that you're learning a new language, a new skill, maybe you're doing some home renovations and you're learning new renovation strategies, whatever it might be. And there's so many ways that we can cultivate our intellectual wellness. I know some people love watching documentaries. I do as well. I probably engage in this the most through reading nonfiction books and listening to podcasts. I absolutely love podcasts. I have so many different favorites. Many of them are targeted to mental health and well-being and I think this is just a great way that I can multitask myself care.

I can go for a walk with my dog, get some fresh air, get out in nature, move my body and I can listen to a podcast at the same time and learn some things along the way. So whatever way that you learn, whatever way that you can really further integrate things that you know and understand, whether even that's in the form of teaching, all of that falls into the realm of intellectual wellness. Dimension number six of wellness is occupational. So, this is your work wellness. This is the thing that you do with your work to practice yourself care. So, things like making sure that your values are aligned with the work that you do, that your work brings you satisfaction, you feel a sense of purpose in your work and that your work is not impeding your health, so to speak.

So, this might mean setting boundaries at work. If you're interested in more information on setting boundaries, I urge you to take a listen to episode 52 which is where we talked about setting boundaries and saying no. In vet medicine, Work related wellness can also be learning a new skill or doing some sort of new certification. I know for me every year I have goals and strategies in terms of skills or certifications or training or learnings that I want to do. And again, those are all in alignment with the things that are most important to me and those are things that you want to take time to reflect on as part of yourself care as well. Dimension number seven of our wellness is our financial wellness.

So, this is something if you know, if you're anything like me, you maybe get uncomfortable talking about finances or you get stressed when you think about your money. We don't want to underestimate the amount of distress that can come from financial stressors. And so, our financial self-care strategies are about doing things like creating a budget, setting realistic financial goals, taking time to automate your savings, preparing your taxes, connecting with a financial planner. In fact, the Merck Veterinary Wellbeing study reveals that those veterinarians who engage with a financial planner have lower levels of psychological distress, higher levels of well-being. So, this is really telling in terms of the impact that our financial wellness can have on us. So again, talking with a financial planner, that's not as enjoyable as going to the spa.

When we think about self-care strategies, however, that is really going to have a positive benefit in our lives. And so, we do want to think about Incorporating self-care strategies in the financial wellness domain as well. And then last but not least, Dimension 8 of our wellness dimensions is environmental wellness. And this is all about remembering that our surroundings influence our well-being. This means our planet, right? How healthy our planet is will determine how healthy we are as human beings. And even if you bring that down to a smaller level, your home space, your workspace, how your environment is, does have an impact on your mental health, whether or not you like that. Okay, maybe even your physical health if you have, you know, any sort of hazards in your environment or anything like that.

I know for me I am definitely an individual whereby if my environment is very cluttered, I have a really hard time thinking straight. And you know, I use the example we've just passed through the holidays here and we're now into the New year. When I came home from visiting my parents with my daughter, we had Christmas presents and holiday decorations and you know, all of these different things and I could not think straight. I couldn't even think about all of my New Year's tasks and the things I had to tackle until I could get all of that stuff put away, organized, arranged and you know, taken care of. And so again, this is just one example of how our environment can impact our wellness.

I certainly make a point of getting out to the mountains as often as I can to again really connect to nature. That ties into that spiritual wellness, but also just enjoying the environment as well. And then again, every day it's part of my self-care to spend time clearing clutter from my space. And so, thinking about those different strategies, what can you do for self-care in terms of taking care of your physical environment? Now when it comes to developing a self-care plan, again, I know this can seem cliche to some individuals, but if you don't have a plan, how are you going to practice self-care? How are you going to make sure that you get it done? And you know, there's different things that you can do to enact a self-care plan.

I tend to think of it in five steps. First, I think about having an awareness of the importance of self-care. We all need reminders about this. I have been reminded most recently. You know, overworking myself and taking on too many obligations has left me feeling really run down. And I've just been reminded, you know what, I do need to carve out more time to take care of myself. I need to carve out time for some of these things that I love to do that give back to my mind and body. So just having that awareness is the first step. The second step is knowing what you're doing to take care of yourself. And I'm going to include a link to a self-care assessment in the show notes for you to click on.

If you want to complete an assessment and look at what you're doing in each of the different self-care or wellness dimensions. You want to know what you're doing and what you're not doing so that you can make a change, right? If you don't know what you're already doing or what you want to do, then how are you possibly going to make a plan? And so, then the third step is the planning. And this is where I urge you to be very specific when it comes to yourself care. Saying things like I'm going to practice more self-care or I'm going to watch less TV or I'm going to boost my social connection Self-care, It's too vague. You want to be very specific. It has to be measurable, right? Think of the Smart goals acronym. Right?

Specific, measurable, attainable, relatable and time bound. So, these would be things like I'm going to practice yoga twice a week for an hour or I'm going to call my friend Janet every Sunday. Something that can be measurable that you can look back on and see that you've achieved your goal. The fourth step is to have some sort of accountability. So, whether you write this and you share it with somebody, maybe you share it on social media, share it with a friend, a mentor, a coach, a family member, your partner tells someone they have some way of being held accountable. Now there's online groups that can help with this as well. There's apps that can help with this and I urge you to take advantage of those. Most of us are individuals that really thrive on outer accountability. 

We are more likely to follow through when we know somebody else or something else is holding us accountable. So, find ways to introduce that. And then last but not least, step number five is to follow up. This is where you want to regularly check in with yourself care. I regularly check in with myself care on a monthly basis. I actually have a reminder in my calendar because that reminds me to schedule my monthly appointments related to self-care like acupuncture, physio, massage, you know, whatever it might be. Counseling those types of things and having these regular check-ins just keeps it top of mind so that it doesn't fall by the wayside. So those are some strategies.

But again, I would urge you on the whole to think of the self-care things you do every day, the self-care things that maybe you do once a week and then there should be self-care things that you do once a month and also potentially once a year. Okay, so just those maintenance things like dentist appointments, doctor's appointments, those are all forms of self-care. But we're not doing those all the time, we're doing those on an annual basis. Maybe it's your health screening again, still self-care goals and this is why we need to reevaluate on a regular basis. So, at the end of the day yourself care is going to evolve as your life changes and as your priorities change. But the benefits are undeniable. 

When we commit to self-care, we don't just improve our own health, we really do enhance our ability to care for others and we create a more sustainable path in the veterinary profession. So please keep that top of mind when you think about yourself care. So that's it for this episode of Reviving that meant. If you'd like to dive deeper into this topic, check out the resources that we've shared like the self-care assessment, which you can find a link for in the show notes. If you found this episode helpful, please take a moment to forward it to a colleague or coworker who you think would also benefit as well. We would appreciate it if you would subscribe to the podcast so that you're sure to get the new episodes as soon as they drop. 

You can also follow us on social media Reviving that means for more tips and strategies for well-being in veterinary medicine. If you have any questions about today's episode, suggestions for future topics, or inquiries about sponsoring us, please email podcastevivingvetmed.com I'd like to thank Asia and her team at Bear Beat Productions for producing this episode, and I'd also like to thank you for listening. I hope you'll tune in next time. In the meantime, take care of yourself. Bye for now.