Stress in Dentistry: Are You Freaked Out or Cool as a Cucumber?
Stress is an inevitable part of working in dentistry. The daily pressures of dealing with anxious patients, running behind schedule, coping with limited resources, or working with a skeleton staff can quickly take their toll. Add to this the lack of time for team meetings, overbooked diaries, or the financial pressures of practice ownership, not to mention the NHS rules regulations and fears of complaints, and it’s easy to see why stress levels in dental practices can soar. How you respond to stress can be the difference between thriving and burning out. It’s essential to remember that there is no right or wrong way to react to pressure, Instead, it’s about understanding your habitual stress response and recognising whether it supports or sabotages you.
Research shows that there are three psychological stress response, and this is one of the 13 thinking patterns that we analyse for clients when they what to be a better version of themselves.
There is good news.
If your response is holding you back, you can develop new more effective ways to respond.
The Three Stress Pattern responses when faced with the demands of dentistry are,
- Feelings,
- Choice, or
- Thinking.
Let’s explore these patterns and how they are likely to show up in your practice.
1. Feelings If you respond with the Feelings pattern (around 15%, )stress triggers strong emotional reactions that can linger, you will get stuck, find it difficult move out of your feelings. To others they may perceive you as hypersensitive, and unwilling to let things go. Emotional triggers draw you into their vortex and you will find it difficult to disassociate andsee the situation for what it is. While your emotions may drive passion and creativity, they can also lead to overwhelm and even stress-related health issues over time. You may find rejection or conflict especially challenging.
By team leaders, practice managers and principals, you may be perceived as over emotional or unrealistic, yet it’s vital to for you to feel supported and for them to be sign posted to a therapeutic coach who can help help you understand your thinking patterns, learn to disassociate and defuse your stress triggers to conflict resolution and tasks that ignite your passion. Colleagues will need to keep an eye out for you, watching out for and for signs of burnout.
If your stress response is feeling, you could be the canary in the coal mine and the early warning alert to toxicity, stressors and cultural incongruancies. It is useful that your feelings are listened to without you expecting that all your demands are met. You are not broken, mentally ill, you have a feeling response to stress.
2.Choice The majority of people (around 70%) fall into the Choice pattern. You experience an initial emotional reaction but can choose to move past it when needed, disassociating from your feelings, taking an objective view. This adaptability makes you effective managing the normal day to day stresses in the dental environment. The choice pattern will also make you effective at managing people. Within the team, an ideal thinking pattern profile for everyone especially practice managers and Principals who manage the HR in the practice. If you’re a practice owner or manager, you can assist choice pattern people the feeling people to shift their perspective more quickly, defusing emotional intensity when emotions when they are running high, you will naturally be questions such as, “How will we view this in two years?”, or “How would our patients perceive this?”
3. Thinking (around 15%) Thinking pattern individuals remain calm and composed even under pressure, superb at making rational decisions; you rarely have an emotional response to stress, making you excellent in high-pressure roles that require a cool head. However, you may struggle to empathise with others who are more able to access their emotions. If you are responsible for managing a Thinking individual, you will need to rely on your rationality during crises. If you are a Thinking pattern person, the big challenge is you won’t be able to connect emotionally with distressed colleagues or patients and this has the potential of escalating and already charged situation, because they don’t feel seen, felt, or understood.
Understanding the stress response patterns of the individuals in your practice will enable you to create a more harmonious and productive workplace.
Moreover, It is essential you are able to recognise your own stress response.
Does your personal pattern support you or sabotage you?
Does it help you stay focused and effective, or does it lead to frustration, overwhelm, or even health issues?
If your habitual reaction isn’t serving you, your career, or your team well, be reassured that change is possible.
Stress is a normal part of life as a dentist, but it doesn’t have to control you. By understanding your stress patterns and learning to manage them effectively, you can create a healthier, more balanced work environment for yourself and your team. As soon as you are ready to make the change or want to understand how stress impacts your practice, get in touch. We offer a personalised bespoke thinking pattern analysis tool so you can clearly see and grasp how your unconscious thinking is controlling you day. Let’s explore your thoughts turning stress into a tool for success.
If you are a practice manager or principal and would like to learn the questions that you can ask in interviews that are an accurate predictor of stress response patterns, we can assist you in choosing the right candidate.
Contact Jane today to find out more. Jane@IODB.co.uk
