RWL Newsletter #131
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! Sadly no travel this week. Just grinding away on research - trying to get several papers out before its time to go back in the fall. It’s hard to believe how fast the summer is passing. So much kayaking to do, so little time! Had a beautiful morning paddle earlier this week - the water was like glass because the tide was in and had not yet begun to turn. Small things make me happy.
Here’s a variety of interesting links for this weekend’s perusal. Let me know what you think - I appreciate feedback.
Read
What: HBR, Why Talented People Fail Under Pressure
https://hbr.org/2019/06/why-talented-people-fail-under-pressure
Why: Who hasn’t gone to do some task in front of a crowd - a task you should totally be able to ace - and totally froze, unable to even remember your own name? So there’s a reason for it:
Your prefrontal cortex, found in the part of your brain situated right above your eyes, is the epicenter of our cognitive horsepower, powering our ability to focus on the task at hand. When we are performing our normal, practiced tasks everyday, we often are – counterintuitively — not paying attention to all the little details of what we are doing; our prefrontal cortex is running largely on autopilot. But in times of intense stress, like a playoff game, major presentation, or a job interview, your prefrontal cortex can go into overdrive. When the pressure is on, we often start focusing on the step-by-step details of our performance to try and ensure an optimal outcome and, as a result, we disrupt what would have otherwise been fluid and natural.
This made me think of the Japanese phrase mushin which means roughly mo mind. Mushin is a state of flow where you are acting entirely on instinct and your gerbil wheel of a prefrontal cortex is completely quiet. It is a state of being that Japanese swordsmen trained to achieve before battle so that they wouldn’t choke when facing the enemy. To practice getting into mushin, these same swordsmen used to paint and write poetry. Those art forms required the same state of flow to accomplish.
Watch
What: TED, Why the hospital of the future will be your own home (12 min)
Why: During one of my first interviews for Health Leader Forge, I was talking with a hospital CEO who told me home health was the future of healthcare. In this video, healthcare futurist Niels van Namen talks about the trends and opportunities for transitioning more and more healthcare from hospitals to the home. My interactions with the nursing home community indicate this is affecting their business as well. How will this work, particularly in rural areas? This is an interesting talk with more questions than answers for me, but good for sparking thought.
Listen
What: CBC, Writer Esmé Weijun Wang on life with the 'collected schizophrenias' (30 min)
Why: I have a good friend from high school who suffers from schizo affective disorder, so I am tuned in to articles like this one. Wang talks about what it is like to have this disease from both a personal and social perspective. The audio link is at the top of the article.
Here is a snippet from her talking about involuntary hospitalization:
That's part of the reason the patients are so eager to talk to the doctor every day, because the doctor is the only person who can who can sign off on you getting out. But sometimes the whole day passes and you have not gotten to talk to the doctor. In the meantime, you're expected to behave in certain ways that are seen as appropriate — like a group activity like colouring, or like making paper snowmen. You can't be pouty about it. Otherwise that's a check against you, and will get you further away from being checked out. So you have to be smiley about it, even though you're a 36-year-old adult and you're expected to make glitter snowmen.
She is very articulate about her challenges.
If this interests you, I would also recommend my friend Eric’s book - which is a first person account of the process of the disease. You can purchase it here: https://www.amazon.com/Hearing-Voices-Madness-Eric-Coates/dp/1481271806/
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
Have a great weekend and do amazing things!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau