February 15, 2021

Shimi Kang, MD, prescribes daily downtime, social connections, and play to help people return to “being human.”

Dr. Kang said those activities help optimize brain function and move people from a stress-induced survival mode into calmer conditions that allow for personal growth. She is a psychiatrist, author on mental health, and clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia, and she delivered the keynote address in a prerecorded video for the AVMA Veterinary Leadership Conference, held online Jan. 7-9.

“We’re not meant to sit in front of a desk, staring at a screen all day,” she said. “We’re meant to move our bodies, be in nature.”

As deer freeze in the headlights of an oncoming car, humans respond to stress with procrastination, indecision, perfectionism, and anger, she said. They find distractions through drinking, playing video games, and shopping.

“If you can understand your own stress response and that of the people around you, you can come from a place of understanding and not judgment,” Dr. Kang said.

In the 48-minute video, Dr. Kang described the roles of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in people, as well as the activities that release beneficial amounts of endorphins, oxytocin, and serotonin versus those that only produce short bursts of pleasure through dopamine.

Exercises to slow a person’s breathing can help alleviate physical responses to stress, as can focusing on unclenching one’s jaws, she said. A cognitive mantra that states what is happening and acknowledges it will be OK helps shut down a survival-based internal alarm and move into an optimistic state. A person could say, for example, “I’m feeling really anxious right now” followed by “I know I’ll be OK. This, too, shall pass.”

Dr. Kang recommended being firm but flexible in personal relationships, knowing others’ roles and what is happening in their lives, and communicating with empathy and optimism. All relationships should be collaborative, she said.

She also said play is a mindset involving being comfortable with trying new and different activities, as well as being comfortable with mistakes and uncertainty. Those activities include reading, gardening, sculpting, cooking, coloring, visualization, and daydreaming.

In a workplace, encouraging play behaviors can include encouraging team members to attempt a task before giving them the solution, praising efforts rather than performance, using brainstorming, and otherwise encouraging healthy risks.

And she recommends bringing more of nature into people’s lives, whether through imagery, houseplants, or cuddling with animals.

Dr. Kang also noted that people became more reliant on technology during the pandemic to connect, create, or consume entertainment, including media equivalents to junk food. She encouraged people to watch how they use technology and make sure they consume content in healthy ways.

Dr. Kang provides more information on her website and her YouTube channel, Mental Wealth with Dr. Shimi Kang.