relaxation techniques for match week?

[medichumanity]

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I have been silently observing posts this match season. If you read my posts from the past you see I have had stress in getting a spot in the match before because of academics and personal hardship.

Can you help on relaxation techniques for match week? Both days will be difficult to check e-mail and this weekend before will be difficult to sleep. Louvi and lychee postings will be hard to read too 🙂! I have much in life to be happy about but this is a big step too.

 

[drknockboot]

I'd start by closing your browser and vowing not to revisit SDN until after March 18.

 

[HIJay]

a 6 pack with a bottle of tequila

 

[hellonewman]

I usually find the best comfort comes from within. You have done your best to this point. You can not change anything, and by now it has already been decided. I know this may seem funny, but try to experience life from a different perspective. Go to a museum and learn about an ancient culture who doesn't exist anymore. This can help put into light how silly a few days of waiting may take. Get up early and watch the sun rise and then the sun set, know this has happened and will happen long before and after we are gone. 🙂

 

[Speculatrix]

How about some biofeedback? I'm sure that would help.

(does anyone actually know what biofeedback is?! It's been an option in every psych/usmle text I've ever read and no one seems to know.)

 

[md2010sgu]

How about some biofeedback? I'm sure that would help.

(does anyone actually know what biofeedback is?! It's been an option in every psych/usmle text I've ever read and no one seems to know.)

Haha interesting enough the VP of medical affairs just gave us a lecture and he talked about biofeedback that he used to do while he was in med school some 20 odd years ago at NYMC. He didn't give us too many details but it entails a form of meditation, and he was able to get his heart rate down into the 40's and keep it there. It sounded like a mind over matter thing that you can actually monitor your progress with using an EKG TBH.

 

[MCYan]

Exercise is the way to go.

 

[thedrjojo]

How about some biofeedback? I'm sure that would help.

(does anyone actually know what biofeedback is?! It's been an option in every psych/usmle text I've ever read and no one seems to know.)

We actually have a full day dedicated to biofeedback in a health beliefs and behaviors course... biofeedback is essentially like meditation, and with good balance you have rhymic acceleration and deceleration of your heart rate with breathing, with what looks like a sin wave. how you achieve this calm depends on you as a person, but can involve deep, fluid breathing (breathing in and then immediately out at a smooth even pace with equal time breathing in and out)... etc.

 

[Ludicolo]

How about some biofeedback? I'm sure that would help.

(does anyone actually know what biofeedback is?! It's been an option in every psych/usmle text I've ever read and no one seems to know.)

[Puts on PM&R professorial tweed jacket with patches on the elbow]

Biofeedback is simply using some sort of external sensor (feedback) to help a patient control an internal body (bio) function. Examples include using surface electromyography with audio/visual feedback to facilitate volitional muscle relaxation or contraction, or using a cardiac monitor to help a patient to try to slow down his/her heart rate. Meditation is but one application of biofeedback. In PM&R we will sometimes use EMG biofeedback to facilitate muscle relaxation in patients with painful spasms or tension headaches, or to teach patients - who’ve undergone procedures like tendon transfers or nerve grafts or limb amputation - new synergistic muscle firing patterns.

Try this: take your carotid or radial pulse. Now see if you can slow it down a little – physiologically you guys should know how. May take a little practice, but you’ve just utilized tactile biofeedback.

Class dismissed.

 

[medichumanity]

Thanks SDN! Exercise, biofeedback, shut down SDN (maybe 😉) , the museum! Much better than worrying about the match. Will give it a try (but will save the tequila and six pack for some other time)!

 

[indo]

How about you just keep your anxiety all bottled up and slowly take it out on your girlfriend or boyfriend? You're going to break up in residency anyway, why not end it violently?

 

[md2010sgu]

You can always go on a date with Palmela Handerson 😛

 

[drknockboot]

You can always go on a date with Palmela Handerson 😛

...for the win.

 

[oreosandsake]

i'm getting on a plane monday morning, 5am pst to miami en route to the bahamas. 😀

can't promise i wont be thinking about it once in a while, but the beach, rum, and sun will go far in keeping me occupied.