Simple Way To Overcome Burnout - Sadhguru (Yale university)

To those 54% of physicians who are burned out,

What would you say to them?

Particularly in a profession like this,

Where it's a question of life and death for somebody else.

Seven days of the week,

20 hours a day,

365 days,

This is our schedule.

You will not see me burned out.

Maybe I'll die of exhaustion one day,

But definitely not of burnout.

A big study came out,

54% of physicians in America meet criteria for burnout and nurses are in the same boat and you're here at a medical school and we're looking for answers and we're looking for hope.

And so to those 54% of physicians who are burned out and the nurses and PAs and nurse practitioners,

All of us in healthcare,

What would you… what would you say to them?

If you have to bring health either to ourselves or to others,

One fundamental thing is you bring a very profound sense of wholeness into you.

The various dimensions of life that we are,

All of it is in sync and functioning well.

It's sad to hear that physicians are in a state of burnout.

How would they cause health?

They could sell more medicine,

But they cannot cause health if they are in a state of burnout.

Now we're seeing as modern medicine progresses,

Comes out with miracle after miracle,

Research,

All kinds of things.

But people are not getting healthy.

More people are getting sick than ever before.

A country like United States,

Which is the most affluent country on the planet,

Which essentially means you have a choice of nourishments.

Every human being has a choice of nourishment.

Most of the ailment that you see in other parts of the world are nourishment related in some way,

Because the needed nourishment is not there at the right time for a whole lot of people on this planet.

But in a country where there is a choice of nourishment,

I would say an excessive choice of nourishment,

A nation is spending three trillion dollars on health care.

This is bigger than the budgets of major nations in the world.

India's economy is around three trillion dollars.

You're spending that much on health care of a quarter million people.

This shows somewhere we have missed health.

Maybe we have an industry going,

But we have missed health.

Well,

We can explain it in so many ways,

But doctors being under burnout,

I see this in every profession.

Everybody thinks their profession is the most difficult one.

If any individual human being is creating something that they really care for,

There would be never any kind of burnout.

Myself and a whole lot of people around me,

We are seven days of the week,

Twenty hours a day,

Three hundred and sixty-five days.

This is our schedule.

You will not see me burned out.

Maybe sometimes I'll get physically exhausted.

Maybe I'll die of exhaustion one day,

But definitely not of burnout or boredom.

Those two things will never happen to me.

Why I'm saying this is,

The fundamental reason why this is happening is,

Particularly the physicians,

Because there are various kinds of professions,

But particularly when people go to a doctor,

In some way they're placing their life in his hands.

So,

When somebody is willing to place their life in your hands,

You must treat it as a sacred duty.

It's not just a job.

It's not just a business.

When somebody is willing to place their life in your hands,

I'm telling you,

Even people who live with you,

Your own wife and children or husband is not willing to place their life in your hands completely.

But somebody,

An unknown person comes and places his life in your hands,

I think it's a greatest privilege that somebody trusts you at that level that they're willing to trust you with life.

You could do right things or wrong things,

Knowingly or unknowingly,

Because nobody has figured the human body absolutely,

All right?

We know it to some extent.

So,

You may do any number of wrong things,

But they place their life into your hands.

I think traditionally it was said like this in India.

In any given society,

If education,

Medicine and spiritual process,

If it gets commercialized,

That society will go down the drain.

I think we are doing this to the entire modern world,

All three are becoming commercialized.

There is nothing wrong with commerce.

Commerce is a transaction of give and take.

You give me this,

I'll give you that.

But there are some things which cannot be handled as just give and take.

If you bring this aspect of transaction into spiritual process,

Into education and into medicine,

Then it turns ugly.

And that ugliness will definitely burn you out one way or the other.

Above all,

What people are experiencing is burnout is,

First of all,

They're doing something that they don't care for.

If they were genuinely doing something that they truly care for,

There would be no burnout.

The more opportunity you get to do it,

The better it would be,

Isn't it?

Everything is towards a certain end.

The joy of doing what you're doing is not there in one's life.

This is not just for any one profession,

It's for all professions,

But particularly in a profession like this,

Where it's a question of life and death for somebody else.

When it's a question of life and death for the person who is sitting in front of you,

It can't be a transaction for you.

Well,

There is a business end to everything,

Because to make anything sustainable,

There has to be a business end to it.

We are not against the business end of it.

But within yourself,

If you don't do it as a great offering to the person who is sitting in front of you,

Of course they will pay their fee.

But within yourself,

If you're not like this,

Definitely you will burn out doing this kind of work.

Otherwise,

Every day,

If you helped a person,

If in some way you made somebody life… their life better,

By the end of the day,

Should you be ballooned into a joyful state or should be in a state of burnout at the end of the day?

It should not be a burnout.

If you genuinely experienced,

You have enhanced many lives around you,

This is not about service,

This is not about ideas of I served this,

I did this.

No.

There is a joy within a human being when they're able to touch another life.

Why you're holding a few people dear to you as family is because you believe you can touch their life in some way.

You can make a difference.

That is what is most important for a human being.

In every activity that we perform,

Whatever the nature of the activity,

How profoundly we can touch someone else,

This is what makes the big difference.

If you make a movie,

You don't want to make a movie which nobody wants to watch,

Would you?

You want people to watch this movie and come to tears,

Isn't it?

You don't want to build a house that nobody wants to live in.

You don't want to cook something that nobody wants to eat.

These things you can do only because in some way you are able to touch another life through your activity.

This is most fundamental need within the human being.

And as a physician,

You have a phenomenal opportunity of touching lives like very other,

Very few other professions can do.

And this should not lead to burnout,

But this is happening so because we are trying to treat it like a transaction.

And the most fundamental thing that we have not understood in this process is that human experience is caused from within,

Not from outside.

Your joy and misery,

Your pain and pleasure,

Your agony and ecstasy,

Even light and darkness right now is happening only within you.

It never happens around you.

What happens within you,

If you try to fix it by fixing what is around you,

You will go bonkers in no time.

I'm surprised why only fifty-four percent.

Because if you don't understand human experience is caused from within,

Especially medical professionals who in some way have delved into the nature of human physiology and I believe to some extent the mind,

We must know that every aspect of human experience comes from within.

And today,

Modern medicine especially,

Unlike the traditional medicine,

Is entirely chemical fixes for everything.

So you understand that both health and illness is happening because of chemistry.

Joy and misery is a certain chemistry,

Different types of chemistry.

Ecstasy and agony are different types of chemistry.

Or in other words,

We are a chemical soup.

The question is only,

Are you a great soup or a lousy soup?

Now if I give soup making ingredients to all of you,

Do you believe all of you will come with the same kind of soup?

You will come with hundred different varieties of soups.

So there is something called as the skill of soup making.

I can teach you a way of making your chemistry into a blissful chemistry.

That means you're blissful by your own nature,

Not because of something that happened around you.

This is exactly what I'm saying.