In this special episode of the podcast, Rachel is joined by Dr Caroline Walker – The Joyful Doctor. Caroline is a Psychiatrist, therapist, specialist in the wellbeing of doctors and host of The Joyful Doctor Podcast. This is the first in a new series of podcast episodes and videos – COVID-19 Supporting Doctors: How to manage our stress and anxiety through the crisis.

In these very difficult times, Caroline and Rachel are working together to bring you as much support as they can. We’ll be tackling various different topics as they emerge in order to help doctors keep their head in the game and stay focussed and resilient. 

In this episode, we talk about the huge amount of anxiety that doctors are experiencing right now and recognise that this is normal. We chat about the different sorts of threat that we are all experiencing and how we can make things worse for ourselves if we get into particular patterns of thinking. 

We discuss some of the ways in which we can proactively manage our anxiety and stress, and suggest tips and techniques which will make a practical difference wherever we work. 

Finally we share some books, resources and website which we think will be useful. This is an ongoing project so we’d love to hear what would be helpful to you. Please contact us if you have any comments or suggestions or have any useful resources to share, or just want to say hello!  

Doctors – we need you more than ever. Keep up the good work. Keep your heads. Keep caring. 

Contact Rachel – [email protected] Twitter - @DrRachel Morris

Contact Caroline – [email protected] Twitter @@joyful_doctor

We’re going to be sending out a weekly email with new resources, tips and useful content especially for doctors and healthcare professionals throughout the COVID-19 crisis. If you’d like to receive this and other resources about thriving at work then please sign up here

Podcast links

Watch the video on YouTube https://youtu.be/j2LQEpJPfcM

The Joyful Doctor Website www.joyfuldoctor.com 

Shapes for Doctors Website www.shapesfordoctors.com

You Are Not A Frog website www.youarenotafrog.co.uk 

The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living by Russ Harris

The Power of Vulnerability TED Talk by Brenee Brown

BMA Wellbeing Service

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme for Confidence, Success and Happiness by Prof Steve Peters

Calm app

Headspace app