“You know, getting down to brass tax here, something isn’t going to help your work unless you put the effort in, unless you make a commitment and that’s hard. So one thing you have to realize is there is going to be days when you really don’t feel like sitting down and doing this but you’re going to try and make yourself do it anyways because you know it’s going to help you.”-Antonia Stephen MD, Surgeon, Massachusetts General Hospital 

Tune in this week as we dive into all things dealing with meditation and mindfulness with Dr. Antonia Stephen MD. 

In our first episode on meditation and mindfulness we learned how it can make you a better physician. That sounds great, so now let’s delve into how to fit meditation and mindfulness into a busy schedule. Dr. Stephen is a surgeon and Surgical Director of Wellness at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In this episode, Jill sits down with Dr. Stephen to discuss how to make time for meditation and mindfulness.

Dr. Antonia Stephen received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School, completed her general surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and her surgical fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, before joining the surgical staff at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Division of Surgical Oncology, where she specializes in surgery of the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands.

Books mentioned in the show:

“There’s Not Enough Time: …and other lies we tell ourselves” by Jill Farmer 

https://amzn.to/3fJaVwB

“Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life” by Jon Kabat-Zinn  https://amzn.to/3dFdD3x 

“The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action” by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton  https://amzn.to/3wGdohx

Excerpts from the show:

“We can learn about it all we want. It sounds really good and all that but really to see the benefits and make it happen you absolutely need to start a regular practice. It’s hard when you’re really busy and it’s hard when you have a million other things that you feel like you should be doing. So I would say that the number one thing, which we touched on a little bit in our prior podcast, is to start small. Start real small. What if you challenged yourself to do five minutes once a week? It sounds so absurdly small that it’s kind of almost silly not to do it. But I think you know setting a really small goal and then having somewhat of a plan to keep you on task with it. A small journal or a little reminder on your phone. I would say the second thing, which is a relatively new thing, meditation and mindfulness has been around for a while but having an app on your phone and having a guided meditation where you fire up the app and it’s ten minutes or it’s five minutes, it’s whatever you know it is and that way it’s sort of all set up for you. Then you don’t have to worry about setting your own time or worry about keeping yourself on task because somebody is there sort of helping you do that. So I would say that those are two of the the things that I think are most helpful for busy people when they’re starting this type of practice. Number one, start really small and have an accountability system and download an app on your phone.” Dr. Antonia Stephen

“Can you give us the simplest explanation of the difference between meditation and mindfulness and how those two things are either different or similar to each other?”- Jill Farmer

“Yes, that’s a great question. Mindfulness is really the ability to be present in the moment of being here. Not in the runaway train mind. Not in the past thinking about what happened yesterday and what you would have said differently. Not thinking about your plans for the future. Not thinking about all the things you have to get done. Not thinking how angry you are at a colleague or a family member. It’s actually just being, and sometimes being present is feeling angry or whatever it is but you’re here, you’re in the moment. And when you’re that, you can really be anywhere but caught up in your thoughts. So you can feel your toes, you can feel your breath, you can look at the person in front of you and really look at them. You can hear the sounds coming from outside. That’s really being mindful.”- Dr. Antonia Stephen

“To be mindful, that’s the practice and that’s the meditation practice. The way that it was put to me, and this was actually directly from Jon Kabat-Zinn, is that you know obviously being present and being focused is a great thing. We all want to do that. I think that’s great but just calling upon yourself to do that when the stakes are high and when the pressure’s on and when you’re tired or sleep deprived or stressed or feeling threatened in any way, it’s too strong, you’re not going to be able to do it. By sitting and practicing meditation so that meditation is the practice so that you can be mindful that you are actually forming new neural pathways in your brain that are going to allow you to be mindful throughout your day and your life. Another way I’ve heard it described, which I absolutely love, is that our brain has ruts. We fall into those ruts because they’ve been there for many many years and reformed over time and to try to climb out of those ruts can be very difficult and even demoralizing and discouraging. So you have to form new ruts and those are the new neural pathways that you’re forming when you’re practicing meditation for those ten or twenty minutes or even that one minute and then those new ruts are there for when the time gets tough.”- Dr. Antonia Stephen

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