The mind-body connection in veterinary practice

In this episode of The Resilient Vet: Mind and Body Strategies for Success, hosts Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, and Jennifer Edwards, DVM, ACC, CPC, ELI-MP, explore how tuning into the body’s signals can strengthen resilience in veterinary practice. They discuss how physical sensations, like tension, fatigue, or even excitement, can serve as valuable tools for self-awareness, balance, and performance in and outside the clinic.

Partial transcript:

Shaw: Welcome to The Resilient Vet Podcast: Mind and Body Strategies for Success. Thank you for joining us. My name is Aaron Shaw. I am an occupational therapist, strength and conditioning specialist, and lover of healthspan and vetspan: making sure that vets are healthy and active and have a long, vibrant career. And this is my co-host, Dr Jennifer Edwards.

Edwards: Hi everybody. I'm Jennifer, and I am a 25-plus year veterinarian who now is so excited to bring value to you as a leadership, mindset, and energy coach. We are here today to discuss yet another way we can bring more resilience to the practice in veterinary medicine.

We all have body sensations, right? Throughout the day, we feel tired. We feel maybe a little fluttery in our belly, or tightness in our chest if we're upset or nervous—maybe fatigue and lethargy, like, Oh, I'm so tired I just can't keep going. And the list goes on—even some excitement, like what does that feel like in your body?

So today, we are going to talk about what you do with those bodily sensations—how you can actually use them as a tool to increase your energy, to increase your experience of life, versus sometimes having them detract. So, let's get into it.

When we are going through life, and particularly in veterinary medicine, we are so busy, and it's hard to find time to really focus on ourselves. We are holistic beings, meaning we have our mind, we have our body, we have our spirit or energy, or however you like to think of that aspect of us as human beings.

And very often, what we will do is compartmentalize that. We'll think, Well, I'm working on my mind, I'm intellectually stimulated. Maybe I'll take a little rest and close my eyes for 10 minutes, but I don't have time to work out. Or, I work out all the time. I go, go, go, go, go, but I don’t ever just pause and be and connect with my higher self.

It's so important to think and to realize that we are holistic beings. Every aspect of who we are is equally as important.

When we are physically depleted, we do not function intellectually very well at all. Think about trying to write records when you're exhausted—when you're so tired. Or the opposite—when we are mentally not well, when we're stressed and overwhelmed and guilty—we get sick. We have a hard time healing from a surgery.

I mean, think about high cortisol. We don't want to give a lot of prednisone to a dog before a surgery, right? Why? It inhibits healing. High cortisol levels endogenously built in our own body do the same thing. So we need to address all of it.

And the most amazing thing is: You have all the tools you need right within you.