Strategies to Decompress After Long Days Working From Home

P Priyanka, MD

PSYCHPEARLS

Medical Director for California-based Community Psychiatry, Dr Priyanka shares tips for winding down after working from home for extended periods of time. Community Psychiatry is an outpatient psychiatric care company with over 120 clinicians in over 40 locations across California.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing the most unusual crisis of our modern life. It is forcing all of us to figure out a completely new way of functioning as a country. For psychiatry, where in-personal contact is valued greatly, this is a very significant change. In the early days of this crisis, many if not all of us switched to telemedicine services to continue providing uninterrupted care for our patients.

As we see a growing need for psychiatric services, we have found ourselves in front of computers for long hours, talking to patients on a screen, and typing our notes into a computer. We rely on our phones, devices, and TV for any relevant information about the pandemic. This is even more overwhelming in the time of social distancing with less ability to engage in our usual activities and decreased ability to use our routine coping mechanisms. We are at an even higher risk of burnout in these times.

As we progress further into this current way of functioning, it is even more important for us mental health professionals to take care of ourselves, so we can be available to provide a much needed service in the best way possible to our patients. More in this podcast.