Episode 20: Dr. Michael Blackmore talks about his personal story around drug abuse as a Doctor in the UK and how he returned to life, now as a Faculty Chair & GP with a compassionate story to share

Can I just tell you what I do in my life to try and make things easier? When I wake up in the morning, I try and meditate for at least 15 minutes.

What does that mean? I try and quieten the monkey mind because when I wake up, my head's going off like fireworks.

I try and sort of calm myself down.

And I find that if I meditate, I'm more productive through the rest of the day and less reactive to situations.

Mm-hmm.

If I've got a really busy day, however, I'll try and meditate for 30 minutes because that way I will calm myself down

a little bit more.

There's a lot of good research about meditation.

I try and make sure I've got an airlock to my day, to my work.

So I've got 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes after work where I can just switch off and I don't have to think about anything.

I don't have to take my work home or my stresses from home to work.

So that's your commute to work? That's my commute to work.

I try and keep a gratitude list, write down all the things I'm grateful for.

There's a lot of positive research about if you write down what you're grateful for, then you won't be so negative in nature.

I try as best I can to switch off my busy head at work and try not to interrupt too many times because I'm really bad for that.

I try and adopt a different persona.

Sometimes I'll still jump in too quickly when someone's still talking.

Some of my patients have called me abrupt and arrogant and I'm not.

I'm just, this is the way I am.

You know, I'm neurodiverse.

Patients put doctors on pedestals and sometimes I think they dehumanise us, think we should be perfect and we're not.

We're all human.

Thank you for sharing that.