“Sometimes the biggest reason you feel exhausted at the end of the day has nothing to do with how much you're doing,” Jennifer Edwards, DVM, ACC, CPC, ELI-MP, said in this episode of The Resilient Vet: Mind and Body Strategies for Success.
In this episode of The Resilient Vet Podcast: Mind and Body Strategies for Success, hosts Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, and Jennifer Edwards, DVM, ACC, CPC, ELI-MP, discuss the impact of catabolic energy on veterinary teams. Edwards explains that the exhaustion many veterinary professionals feel is often tied less to their workload and more to the breaking-down, draining nature of catabolic energy. Although useful for short-term survival, this state becomes a primary driver of burnout when it becomes a long-term default.
Edwards: When you think about your days, did you know that sometimes the biggest reason you feel exhausted at the end of the day has nothing to do with how much you're doing? It’s actually the energy that you are bringing to your day—the energy in which you are performing your tasks.
Shaw: Great point. This is something that you talk about all the time, so I’m interested to hear more about it, especially for those on the vet teams who feel stretched really thin. I think that there are a lot of vets and vet teams [who] are super strung out on their wits' end right now. So, Jennifer, for people who don't know this term, what exactly is catabolic energy, and how can someone tell when they're actually in this state?
Edwards: Catabolic energy is something that we all experience. It is the energy that is associated with some of the more unpleasant emotions that we experience. A lot of people call it "negative energy," and I don't like to use that term because it's actually not negative. All the different emotions and energies [or] feelings that we experience are useful and helpful at certain times.
But in general, catabolic energy—just like catabolic hormones or catabolic enzymes—has more of a breaking-down effect. It’s draining. It doesn't feel good. And in the long term, it is not going to be associated with a great deal of productivity, success, good relationships, or feeling good in any way. So when we feel contracted or reactive—we want to fight, we're competitive, we're feeling sad or disengaged, resigned—all of that is catabolic energy. It is…in some forms, the nervous system trying to protect us. It’s survival mode. Again, in the short term, it can have really big benefits, which is surprising to some people, but it is not a good long-term strategy.
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.