Doing Too Much is Good For You
settle down
you’re doing too much try harder it’s
the only way to succeed
who’s right i was accepted
into a private middle school in the
suburbs of chicago
i showed up in walmart clothes to a
bloomingdale’s sixth grade homeroom i
was
miserable and i wanted to be there even
less than my 29 they’ve been best
friends since birth classmates wanted me
to be there
but my parents had made it clear this
is opportunity this is the best chance
you get
to move ahead unable to
disappear in my too small down jacket
and corduroy pants
i decided to stand out i pushed my way
into 10th grade french class
started several very exclusive after
school clubs
one member only fought against
anti-semitism in the social studies
curriculum
played on every team okay that was
required
and i was dreadful
and made not one friend in three years
so many well-meaning teachers pulled me
aside to tell
me to just relax a little don’t stress
that was a high touch phrase in the
1980s and i heard it a lot
not at home though my parents first
generation americans
born to parents who were refugees had
built their lives by trying harder
and doing more born way before jews
could pass
as white they believed that anything was
possible
but if it was worthwhile it would take a
lot of work
eleven years later armed with my
bachelor’s of fine arts
and very little common sense i’d taken a
job i had no business being offered
that’s how i found myself backstage
at the second city improv theater in
chicago
working and laughing and learning
alongside some of the funniest
would someday be famous smartest people
i’d ever met
and damn that was stressful
i’d been hired on a whim by the
executive vice president
he told me later that i was the first
person hired from outside
ever i was 10 years younger than anyone
else in the company
and i was on a learning curve for much
longer than i should have been
i did eventually crack the code and
integrate
only to discover that the substance use
culture was
way past my comfort zone so i decided to
apply to medical school like you do
i moved 500 miles enrolled in science
classes and an mcat prep course
built a loft in half a sublet room and
juggled
three part-time jobs i also volunteered
as an emergency medical technician
where i mentioned the stress that i was
facing to a paramedic who seemed to
really love his job and his life
tell me about it like chest pain he said
on a scale of one to ten how bad is it
a seven probably three years later
in debt up to my ears i stood in an
operating room at three o’clock in the
morning
holding a retractor above my head to
keep a woman’s uterus in view
for four hours and i
reflected on my choices i was sharing a
house with nine
other people but only four if the city
is asking
working as an american sign language
interpreter to support my eating
everyday habit
studying even in the bathroom and going
on hospital cafeteria dates with a
cute nursing assistant i’m at so
stressful like a nine out of ten but
worth it
and confusing because one of the things
i was studying so hard
was the negative effect of stress on
people’s bodies and minds
stress i was learning was the new
cigarette a bad
habit one should never take up we were
told to counsel patients on the dangers
of stress
and that should our patients not listen
they were pretty much doomed
does this sound like a problem you’ve
faced we’ve been
taught to fear stress to avoid it
to minimize it to eliminate it if you’re
causing stress in someone’s life
you’re the villain if someone is causing
stress in your life
that relationship is toxic get out
that we have to get away from stress
before it kills us that if you’re
stressed
you can’t possibly be happy again
i couldn’t reconcile these two
narratives you have to experience stress
to get what you want
or stress is poison stay away from it at
all costs
so i searched for people i could learn
from which path is best
and what i found confused me even more
how much stress
people faced wasn’t the differentiator
the difference seemed to be
how they perceived it and how they
handled it
i’d like to say i learned the lesson
then but nope
ten years later working at a federally
qualified health center as an attending
physician in family medicine
i saw a patient i’d known for years a
middle-aged
college-educated middle-class white
woman with progressive
multiple sclerosis her disease had
worsened to the point that she relied on
a motorized wheelchair
using a toggle at her chin to move
around hi
how are you today wonderful she told me
my grandbaby turned one this weekend
he’s getting to be such a big boy and
the flowers
at my door are blooming and i’m going to
that friday night concert series in the
park this weekend i’m really excited
i think i still wouldn’t have learned
the important lesson headed my way
except it was only a little bit later
that same morning
that i saw another middle-aged
college-educated middle-class white
woman in the room next door
this woman was well no mental health
issues no physical issues except for
some mild occasional low back pain
hi how are you today terrible it’s it’s
everything it’s my back
nobody understands my work doesn’t
accommodate me my family just
plans things never thinking about
whether or not i can join
have you been having pain well no but i
could be
when i asked she rated her stress 10 out
of 10 and i went on to help her as best
i might
but i also kept thinking how could i
help more patients be like the woman
behind door number one you see i’d been
a doctor at this point for more than a
decade and i was trying to reconcile
several things i’d noticed first
people are afraid of anything stressful
sure it will harm them and do
everything they can to avoid it second
resilience the ability to navigate
change and come through it whole and
with a sense of purpose
was a much better predictor of people’s
happiness than health
or wealth or anything else i could find
and third
the people who were resilient had faced
a great deal of stress
in their lives because stress
is to mental health and resilience what
exercise is to our body’s fitness
for most of us both stress and exercise
are kind of awful easier to avoid than
engage in and harmful to overdo either
one
but it’s the only way to get stronger
my med school professors were right
stress can be damaging we have to avoid
or minimize the damage
by knowing our limits recognizing the
warning signs in our own minds and
bodies not just the red flags like
substance abuse risky behaviors or
sabotaging relationships
but the yellow flags as well the
behaviors or feelings that
tell us we need to go ask for help now
before we get hurt
and my med school professors were wrong
stress is a tool not a toxin
just like every tool it can bash your
head in if you don’t know how to use it
but you cannot build without it
i’d like to say that i learned this
lesson from other people’s experience
but stresses and people don’t really
work that way
four years later i was building my own
business as a youth development speaker
still practicing medicine raising my
four boys with their dad
that cute nursing assistant i’d married
who is now an emergency medicine doctor
the second city improv theater invited
me back to create a show about raising
kids
i’d hosted a pbs television series and
was guesting on the today show
and good morning america and then
my mom slipped into a coma and went into
hospice
500 miles away
the stress i faced writing my mom’s
eulogy
felt like a solid five
i asked my uncle a psychologist with
many books
and decades behind him what he thought
about the fact that it didn’t bother me
more
i’d be surprised if it really even
stresses you that much he answered
you spent your childhood caring for your
mom as she struggled with bipolar
disorder and alcoholism
and your adulthood helping her manage
all of her physical issues
you have the skills for this
skills the paramedic who scooped up
overdose patients
and performed cpr but smiled every day
and found time to mentor me
the nurses and patients i met in med
school whose outlook
defied their situations the patient with
ms
who looked straight at and also beyond
her circumstances
my parents sending their only child out
to face each new challenge
no platitudes but plenty of humor and
faith in me
skills that’s what they all had
those six weeks going back and forth
from whirlwind times at home with my
kids to
long stretches of silence at my mom’s
bedside as she slipped away
were actually the calm before another
storm
my marriage was ending
you might think as lots of people felt
brave enough to
actually say out loud to me well what
did you expect
you’re doing too much that’s when i
realized i had to do
more i had to learn not only that there
are skills to resilience but what
exactly they were because i was going to
need them in spades
if i was going to get through the
hardest time in my life
and help my boys through it as well i
needed to understand what
specific skills create resilience
i’m a scientist so i looked at the
research
when you look at dozens of markers
measured by scientifically validated
resilience scales
the one social scientists use to define
resilience
there are eight key skills eight
actions anyone can take at any time
any one of which could make me more
resilient and able to handle
this enormous change i was facing
number one build connections with other
people
people i’m willing to ask for support
i don’t have to have all the answers but
when i don’t have them
it’s the people i know or can reach that
will make all the difference
i could work on broadening the number of
people i really know not
just the folks on my social media
friends lists but genuine connections
and i could deepen some of the
connections that i do have
by showing up for them yes but also
through being vulnerable which can be
really hard but when i got brave enough
to tell a few people the truth
about my grief and anger
they were able to understand what i
needed in the midst of my divorce
it turns out that the most meaningful
connections i have
didn’t happen until i was willing to
stop believing my own advertising
of always being in control and having it
together
number two set boundaries
what am i willing and not willing to do
my own resilience gets stronger when i
put some
limits around my availability and my
resources
recently i made a new rule at home no
one may talk to me when
i’m in the bathroom unless there’s
actual fire or spurting blood
that one boundary has strengthened my
resilience remarkably
number three open to change
to the possibility that there are
different paths than just the one i’d
imagine
staying open-minded is a hard one for me
because of my pretty profound
ego it makes me very resistant to the
idea that i could be wrong
about anything but especially the future
i’d pictured
which makes it very hard to be resilient
if
when i’m wrong number four
manage discomfort i had to figure out
what helps me start to feel okay when i
don’t feel okay this is absolutely
crucial to resilience
most of us hate discomfort to such a
degree that we can’t think
past it we overeat or focus on how many
drinks will numb that discomfort
those and so many other negative coping
mechanisms
cause real damage all changes
even the good ones are uncomfortable i
finally found the right combo of
exercise trashy romance novels and ice
cream to manage my feelings without
hurting myself
or anyone else number five
set goals i have to know what i want to
have any hope of getting it
that’s it that’s the tweet
number six find options
you know which choice most of us go with
when we’re faced with a decision
the first one we think of and we have a
lot of lore
around this trust your gut go with your
instincts
but i know that often my first idea is
not my best one
case in point this talk needed several
pretty significant edits
most rough draft ideas are not as good
as they could be
with a little bit more thought so i have
to force myself to think of several
options in just about every situation
number seven
take action resilience means getting
through
the change so i have to do something
the stress hormone that gets released
when we encounter change is cortisol
most people have heard of that as the
fight or flight hormone and it can cause
either of those reactions
the most common reaction to cortisol
though is actually
freeze we get so overwhelmed by change
that we get
stuck when i knew that second city
improv wasn’t the right place for me
i faced such a wide open unknown did i
want to
change theaters try to get work in
television
wait tables become a firefighter or a
teacher or run for office
or make the obvious move and be a doctor
it was too easy to just keep listing
possibilities instead of picking one
and moving forward knowing how to act on
my goals to choose one or more of the
options i identified
keeps me out of option overload and
number eight
persevere this last one
the ability to try again when what i
tried didn’t work
that’s the one that takes the most
practice i think that’s why it’s the
skill that most people credit
when they finally achieve success
the goal of handling everything i was
facing felt impossible
but these were actions i could take any
time to strengthen my resilience
so that i could keep doing too much
without hurting myself for others
because we believe that stress is the
most dangerous villain
we fear taking on too much we blame
ourselves or accept blame when our
circumstances
hand us more than a full plate i have
never been busier in my life
than i am as a single mom raising four
kids doctoring
and building my own business i’ve also
never been happier
or healthier adults are torn
between doing too much and taking care
of ourselves
and what i finally learned is that these
are not opposing concepts
handling everything that comes at you
while building the life you want
doesn’t have to be dangerous or
impossible we all have some resilient
skills and we can develop more
so don’t waste your time fearing
stress don’t worry about doing too much
you’re the expert on you only you know
what you can handle
it’s your obligation to notice when it’s
harming you and it’s your right to
decide when it’s helping you
say no when you can or minimize or share
with someone else
the stressors that cause you damage and
take on every
busy thing that serves your purpose do
exactly what you need to do to be
whole that’s not too much for you
thank you