More than 52% of Americans report experiencing burnout at some point over the past year. And yet, it’s a safe bet that the vast majority of Americans have not discussed their symptoms or underlying causes with their primary care physician. Unfortunately, burnout and stress can take a significant physical and emotional toll, negatively impacting your long term health and wellness. This makes stress and burnout a very treatable but very stubborn health issue.
Compounding this issue is the fact that many Americans tend to think of stress as something to persevere through or tough out. There are cultural and social rewards for ignoring stress for long periods. But doing so can exacerbate the long term health consequences.
So why don’t more primary care doctors bring burnout up to patients? They probably do. But in most traditional primary care settings, there simply isn’t time to investigate root causes or work with patients on long term solutions. That’s not the case in Direct Primary Care settings, however. With more time available and more familiarity with their patients, Direct Primary Care physicians can offer greater understanding, more effective treatments, and long term help managing the symptoms of stress and burnout.
Stress Takes a Physical Toll
Stress is a physical and emotional response that your body can have in reaction to a wide variety of situations. When you’re stressed, your body allocates resources to help you manage the short term situation. This is great if you’re being chased by a jaguar, as this reaction will help you run, hide, or fight. Even though most modern stressors are not jaguars, your body still utilizes those same powerful hormones and processes. When experienced for short durations this is fine. But chronic stress can have a negative impact on your physical and emotional wellness.
As with any ailment, there are typically physical presentations associated with chronic stress and burnout. Those presentations will often include the following:
- Upset stomach and nausea
- Trouble sleeping
- Headaches
- Irritability
- Muscle tension
- Changes in social behavior
- Trouble thinking and focusing
- And more
Burnout and chronic stress have very similar presentations. Typically, burnout is also associated with depression, exhaustion, and apathy, among other mood changes. Burnout can also alter neural circuits in your brain, which can cause long-term changes in thinking and mood. It can take a long time to recover from this, but with changes to behavior and environment, it’s possible to address the symptoms of burnout.
Direct Primary Care is Often Better at Treating Stress and Burnout
So, if stress and burnout are such significant drivers of poor health outcomes, why are they not treated more often, especially in a primary care setting? Unfortunately, it often comes down to time. A typical wellness visit in a traditional healthcare setting is usually only 10 – 15 minutes, and that just isn’t enough time to identify and address the root causes of stress and burnout.
That’s why Direct Primary Care provides a generally better venue for understanding and treating burnout and stress. Direct Primary Care visits tend to be longer and more thorough as a general rule, allowing your primary care physician to dive deeper into your symptoms. There are several ways this can help you manage stress:
- Proactive discussions: During these longer visits, you’ll have time to discuss healthy ways to manage the symptoms of stress before that stress turns into burnout. This can help prevent the longer lasting, more damaging impacts of burnout.
- Your doctor has a better understanding of your health: The patient-doctor relationship in a Direct Primary Care setting tends to be deeper and more developed than in traditional settings. This means that your physician will likely have a better and more thorough idea of how stress is impacting your day to day health and steps that you can take to mitigate this impact.
- You can talk about root causes: Because appointments in a traditional primary care setting tend to be so short, doctors will often quickly reach for the prescription pad. Which means you could be taking medications that address your symptoms but do nothing about the root cause of your stress. In a Direct Primary Care setting, your physician is more likely to have the time to talk about those root causes, which means you can find relief without necessarily needing to start taking new prescription medications.
- Everything is confidential: In theory, all communications between patients and physicians are confidential. But in a traditional setting, the insurance company will always be there to weigh in on your treatment. At a Direct Primary Care clinic, insurance is not usually involved in care decisions. This is because all of your care is covered by your monthly dues. As a result, insurance companies do not typically weigh in or have oversight of care decisions. This means that everything is strictly between you and your doctor.
Don’t Ignore Stress
Stress can have a significant emotional and physical impact on your body and, as a result, your health. That’s why it’s important to talk to your physician about chronic stress, make life changes to protect your work-life balance, and watch for the early signs of burnout.
Talk to your doctor about stress and burnout during your next regular wellness visit. If you’re already a member at Progressive Health Primary Care, you can schedule an appointment today!
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