EP200: Preventing Burnout: Exercise and Mindset with Dr. Oksana Babenko

Exploring Wellbeing, Motivation, and Lifelong Learning with Dr. Oksana Babenko

In this episode of The Girl Doc Survival Guide, Christine welcomes Dr. Oksana Babenko, an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, to discuss themes of wellbeing, motivation, and lifelong learning. Dr. Babenko shares her personal journey from the Soviet Union to Canada, her academic inspirations, and how her experiences in sports have shaped her approach to challenges and burnout. The conversation delves into her research on the importance of exercise in managing burnout among medical students and professionals. Dr. Babenko emphasizes individualized approaches to maintaining psychological needs, the significance of a mastery mindset, and the value of staying curious in a complex world.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:35 Personal Anecdotes and Academic Journey

02:36 Path to Canada and Research Interests

04:19 Wellbeing, Motivation, and Lifelong Learning

05:09 Exercise as a Preventive Measure for Burnout

10:27 The Importance of Consistency and Intentionality

12:19 Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness

14:36 Mastery Mindset and Need Crafting

15:42 Final Thoughts and Staying Curious

Transcript

Christine Ko: [00:00:00] Welcome back to The Girl Doc Survival Guide. Today, I'm very , to be with Dr. Oksana Babenko, Dr. Oksana Babenko PhD is an Associate Professor of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, at the University of Alberta Canada. She studies and writes on wellbeing, motivation and lifelong learning. I've been very interested to see what I can learn from her. Welcome to Oksana. 

Oksana Babenko: Thank you, Christine. I'm delighted to be here and learn with you and from you and have this conversation. 

Christine Ko: Yes. Thank you for your time. Can you first share a personal anecdote?

Oksana Babenko: My personal anecdote or a story that I like to tell is that I'm the first in my family to go to the university, not to mention having a doctorate degree. And I remember I had to explain to my mom the difference between a PhD and an MD, medical doctor, degree, because both are doctors, right? [00:01:00] I still have to remind her that I'm not that type of doctor when she asks me about particular symptoms? Maybe we should ask a medical doctor. But that's my story. And, my personal trivia that I had the privilege of studying at the University of Vermont for a one year fellowship, and it was one of the best years of my life and the friendships I made. So that was very, very warm and welcoming environment. 

Christine Ko: That's amazing. I'm always impressed with people who are the first in their family. Did you always wanna get a doctorate or it was something that happened along the way? 

Oksana Babenko: Actually, I didn't even know that such a thing exists such as a PhD or a doctor of philosophy. But because I'm a very curious person, I always ask questions. And that led me into this field of research where we ask questions and ask honest questions, direct questions, and expect an answer [00:02:00] because we like to interrogate data, interrogate the things that we learn. But because I was born in the Soviet Union and then my formative years were in the independent Ukraine where thinking was more open and encouraged and welcome, I started applications to see where I can pursue my education because at that time, post-secondary education, and even graduate school, was not the same in Ukraine. And that led me to apply for a fellowship in the States. And I landed in Vermont.

Christine Ko: Wow. And how did you end up in Canada?

Oksana Babenko: That one year of fellowship in Vermont was just before I started my master's. I finished my bachelor's degree in languages or linguistics and translation. I did one year of fellowship in social linguistics and psycholinguistics in Vermont. And just working with one particular researcher, Julie [00:03:00] Roberts. She inspired me to do research and then it was just a springboard and I thought, Oh my goodness, I can really do what I want in terms of studying and learning. I applied for the University of Alberta in Canada because it was known for a Ukrainian community here, and I applied and was admitted for my master's degree and then pursued my PhD after in a different area. It was in measurement evaluation and cognition, which is very quantitatively oriented. In my professional career as a researcher, I like to think that I draw on both text language and numbers to make me more rounded in my thinking, and my approaches, and in the way I ask questions. And just to be open to other people's opinions, experiences, and ideas. 

Christine Ko: That's cool. I think it's true that a lot of times [00:04:00] there's one or several people that really influence the path that we end up taking. They inspire us a certain way. 

Oksana Babenko: It was certainly true in my PhD journey and my late supervisor used to say, Simplicity is elegance. Elegance is simplicity. So that's the motto of my life. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. You have been studying and writing papers on wellbeing, motivation and lifelong learning, and I'm very interested in those as a person but also as a physician, because I think that when you're in a high stress career, which a lot of people are, it is hard to remember how to keep up your own wellbeing. I find sometimes, if you're highly motivated, motivation's not a problem, meaning you love what you do. And there's tons of things you can do. It's hard not to sometimes just keep doing. I end up sacrificing my wellbeing, I guess is what [00:05:00] I would say, in the focus of doing what I love doing. So I'm highly motivated, but in a way it's bad because I lose wellbeing. You wrote about exercise as a , measure for burnout, and I was wondering if you could talk about that.

Oksana Babenko: I cannot agree with you more, Christine, that I have a privilege of working with highly motivated people. Colleagues, trainees, such driven people. It's very inspiring. And as you also mentioned, it can be detrimental to these individuals because they forget that they have needs, right? Those needs can be physical, psychological, emotional needs. Burnout is a pandemic in health professions right now, right? Or has been for a while. But what is also interesting is not everyone will experience burnout in severe forms, or there are individuals who will not experience [00:06:00] burnout maybe at all.

And that's made me think like, why is it, why? People differ in their burnout experiences, and started to think, okay, as these highly individual people enter medical school, they do not enter the school with a completely blank previous history behind them or background. Serving as an interviewer of medical school admission also prompted me to think maybe there is an association between what people have done prior to entering into medical school and how they continue functioning in medical school in terms of how they think about challenges, how they approach challenges, how they challenge themselves even in high stake situations. Or maybe they avoid certain situations. So we designed a small cross-sectional study. We asked these students who were [00:07:00] in various stages of their medical training what type of sport they pursued and at what level of intensity, like whether it was recreational or more like competitive pursuit. And then we measured self-report measures about their experiences and feelings of exhaustion and engagement or disengagement, as well as how they perceive their medical school learning environment as well as achievement goals they pursue. We observed interesting associations that people who said that they were in competitive sports prior to entering medical school, their mindset or motivation was more adaptive in terms of how they viewed challenges and dealt with them. They saw it as more an experience to grow, to develop, versus those who didn't have that background, didn't have that experience during formative years, they were [00:08:00] more likely to show avoidant type of response, procrastination; which actually was shown in other studies to contribute to burnout. Exercise is not only physiological response or physical that they feel great about a workout, but also we exercise our brain in our head, how to think about challenges and view them and approach them and deal with them.

Christine Ko: Great. So you're saying that exercise as a preventive measure for burnout is more related to a person's attitude on challenges. That people who had a sports background versus individuals who didn't, the people with a sports background seemed more, This is hard, but it's a challenge. I'll still keep moving forward and learn from it, versus people without a sports background would be more like, Oh wow, this is a challenge and it's really hard and I wanna avoid it. Or, just procrastinate. And [00:09:00] not confront it and face it. And that latter group didn't really have a sports background and had more symptoms of burnout, is that what you're saying?

Oksana Babenko: Yeah. It's also being aware that, once the first day of medical school starts, I forget everything about what I learned in other domains of my life, right? Rather than, Okay, I have this background, and I have developed approaches how I can compartmentalize something or be more proactive about how I view feedback, right? That it's not a personal attack on me. It's more how I can grow and improve, right? Based on this feedback. 

Christine Ko: It's more your background and what you've been exposed to in the past and not so much oh, just like exercising three times a week prevents burnout. It's more the background that you had. 

Oksana Babenko: Yeah. In another study actually we asked a simple question like, tell us how much you [00:10:00] exercise. And we observed that yes, indeed, in that study people did report less burnout in terms of exhaustion, and they reported more engagement with their studies. But what we also observed that over the years, people have great intentions when they enter medical school. They have great intention to exercise and such, but their involvement in exercise decreases as they progress through the school. The key point is, be consistent and intentional.

Christine Ko: Yeah. That goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning, that for people who are motivated and in high stress careers where you are time limited, they're motivated to do the work they have to do. Things like exercise, which is good for us, fall by the wayside. It's that same thing that medical students early on would exercise and then progressively as they continued on and on in their training, exercise less [00:11:00] and less. I would say that's true for me. There have been times in my life when I was really busy with training, and so I hardly exercised. 

Oksana Babenko: Yeah. At some point we need to stop and think, Okay this is something which is non-negotiable for me, right? If this helps me with dealing with symptoms of burnout, right? Because at the same time, my burnout is different from your burnout. In the sense that how I arrived at my burnout and how you arrived at your burnout is a totally different story, right? Yeah. And the response should be more individual, right? Not like one size fits all. Maybe for someone, it would be a walk in nature. To disengage from the computer and constantly reply to emails, right? Or for others, it could be spending more time with the family, right? And feel that you're valued and appreciated. And then that will spill over into the [00:12:00] professional life, right? Where you might feel lack of accomplishments or feeling ineffective or being emotional exhaustion.

Christine Ko: So exercise then should be a non-negotiable, it sounds like, in terms of the long term. We should make it a non-negotiable because it helps us. Are there other things that you recommend?

Oksana Babenko: It's very individual, right? But for me, for example, I bike to work. And when I bike, I remind myself that this is my choice. I experience the sense of autonomy that I made a choice, right? It's not that someone told me to do it. A sense of autonomy. I'm biking and I feel competent, self efficacy, that I get from point A to point B. I do not depend on my friends taking me somewhere or this schedule of the bus. So I'm competent. And relatedness that when I'm out and about cycling, I see other people cycling. I feel relatedness to that [00:13:00] community. I feel relatedness to nature, to the surroundings that I'm part of a bigger something. And these three needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are basic psychological needs. They're like nutrients. If we do not support consciously and intentionally these needs we will not experience psychological wellbeing. The example I gave with this bicycling to work. It's not in the work settings per se, right? But. I feel that it spills over into the work domain, right? Because I experienced this satisfaction of these three psychological needs. I arrive at work already with the sense of achievement, right? I have a full tank to start my day. So it's not only physiological or physical response, right? I had the workout and sweating a bit but it's also knowing that we have this three psychological needs and they need to be supported and fulfilled somehow, [00:14:00] be it in the work environment, personal relationships, education and then it starts spilling over, and eventually you will maybe start experiencing these needs in the work environment, right? It's not the approach everything or nothing, but more strength-based approach that the glass is half full and how I can add more. 

Christine Ko: I like it.

Oksana Babenko: I'm sure everyone can find an example in their personal life that they can draw upon and think how something like this can work in their life and then try to apply in a professional spheres. 

Christine Ko: The biking to work that you do, that sense of autonomy and competence and relatedness, is that related to a mastery mindset? 

Oksana Babenko: It's more related to need crafting, right? We have needs, and if we're intentional in terms of knowing that I have the needs and what steps I can take to fulfill those needs. There's quite a lot of research [00:15:00] in positive psychology about need crafting. In terms of mastery mindset, basically it's a focus on development, right? It's not destination. We are focusing more the process of development, of growing growth mindset; often contrasted with fixed mindset which is, as the name indicated, seeing things in set in stone, that they're not changeable or will never change and shouldn't be changed. Mastery mindset shines the light on where I would benefit from developing and growing and supporting that competency need.

Christine Ko: I like the way you put that. Do you have any final thoughts? 

Oksana Babenko: Final thoughts? Let me see. Recently I have started conversations with my colleagues who have been learning about complexity theory. The world is increasingly complex, right? My colleagues remind me that rather than [00:16:00] running to solve the problem right away, we need to take time to understand the space because the world is complex. The problems we are dealing are complex. We need to take the time to understand the space, stay curious and open-minded, not to take things for granted, ask why, and talk to people in other fields because they have wisdom or can see things from other angles. So that's my final thought, stay curious. 

Christine Ko: I like it. I like it a lot. Stay curious. Thank you so much for your time and spending it with me. 

Oksana Babenko: You're very welcome. And really appreciate the opportunity.