What should you be worried about?

This is “a common question in medical school or residency,” said Austin Wesevich, MD, MPH, MS, a specialist in young adult oncology and research at the University of Chicago Medicine in Chicago.

But Wesevich questions the medical preoccupation with worry. “Why do we always need to be worried?” he said. “Why is that the verb that is so commonly asked? Worry to me is different than concern or paying attention.”

Healthcare workers are investigators, “trained to think in terms of risk and vigilance to do their jobs well,” says Annia Raja, PhD, a clinical psychologist who specializes in providing therapy to physicians. Things like anticipating complications or problems before they happen and running risk calculations on whether a given intervention will be effective are some of the most critical aspects of clinical practice.

Sometimes, however, this mindset becomes impossible to shut off. Call it what you will: eternal vigilance, chronic problem-seeking, or even micromanagement. It can have an impact on the nervous system, which slowly adapts to become more alert, reactive, emotionally shut down, and prone to anxiety, according to a 2022 Frontiers in Neuroscience article.

“Many doctors tell me that they feel disconnected from joy, happiness, fulfillment, and even purpose, not so much because they don’t have good things in their lives, but because their attention is habitually getting drawn to what’s missing, what could go wrong next, and what needs ‘fixing,’” Raja said.

How the Process Is Supposed to Work and How It Breaks

When things go wrong with a patient, ideally, healthcare workers learn from that experience without living in a fear spiral. But even the anticipation of something going wrong can become a chronic trigger. The brain’s threat-detection center, the amygdala, becomes hyperactive and can be overly responsive to possible dangers, triggering weaker emotional regulation and decision-making.

All of this points to why the ability to compartmentalize is an important skill in medicine. But emotional processing, which is often overlooked, is a necessity, too. With so much emphasis on what could go wrong, you may lose sight of what’s going right.

And then it follows you home.

“Physicians can become more vigilant about their personal life because they’ve seen firsthand what can happen,” said Wendy Dean, MD, a psychiatrist, CEO and cofounder of Moral Injury of Healthcare, and host of the healthcare podcast 43cc. For example, maybe they worry about their own teens’ driving when they’re being inattentive because they’ve seen the consequences of distracted driving, Dean said.

This reaction doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Physicians carry significant stress into their personal lives, including high rates of anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and burnout, according to a 2024 study. These pressures can heighten a person’s natural tendency to worry, not because they’re healthcare workers, but because the field both attracts and reinforces traits like responsibility, hypervigilance, and conscientiousness.

“This isn’t about blaming individuals for their responses,” Dean says. “Instead, it reflects the reality that clinicians’ perceptions of risk are shaped by lived experience, professional stressors, and, for some, early-life adversity. Research shows that many physicians enter the workforce with more preexisting challenges than we often recognize, and these experiences can also contribute to resilience and strong clinical judgment.”

Compartmentalization by Itself Isn’t Enough

Physicians are trained to become master compartmentalizers — an adaptive coping tool that allows them to temporarily set aside heavy emotions, giving them necessary mental clarity. “It’s an essential skill that we learn from day one of medical school, to try to separate our work and our nonwork lives,” Dean says. “Along with dispassionate analysis and deep empathy.”

Dean emphasizes that if a doctor starts to panic during surgery, they quickly learn they can freak out later. Right now, your patient needs a confident surgeon. While this approach is helpful in high-stress moments, it can be harmful when it’s the only mode of functioning. After all, the nervous system requires integration to remain healthy.

“In the workplace, we are trained to look for problems and move on to the next patient, the next treatment place,” said Lillian Lennox, LMHC. Lennox is the founder of LifeBreath Institute, a program that addresses accumulated stress, moral injury, and PTSD in frontline providers due to the high-stress, high-stakes nature of their work environments. “The system squeezes people,” she said, “and our extractive economy works against connection.”

With a dysregulated nervous system that is constantly on high alert, even outside of work, healthcare workers learn to chug along and accumulate stress, never getting back to the parasympathetic state, Lennox explained.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a quick reset button or immediate solution to the problem of worry. But psychologists say the process involves allowing the mind and body to register safety again.

“In therapy, I sometimes help my physician clients identify what safety feels like in their bodies, since for so many of them, it’s become an unfamiliar experience,” Raja said. “They’ve spent years overriding their own needs to stay functional.”

Things like mindfully slowing down enough to notice a breath, a quiet moment, or a sense of connection with yourself or someone you trust are good places to start, Raja said.

Safety in your body is a focus of Lennox’s work with healthcare workers as well. Lennox’s approach involves the deep relaxation meditation practice of Yoga Nidra, which she says “has the superpower to fast track us into interoception, awareness of our body’s sensations and signals.”

A strong body of evidence supports mindfulness and meditation practices to develop the capacity for reflection and manage anxiety. This can help to reduce worry both in your practice and your personal life, Lennox said.

A way we stay out of our body’s signals is through numbing and disconnection, she added. “We may seek out false resetting, such as a few glasses of wine or scrolling our phones, and the system remains in stress.”

Kristin Ramsey, MSN, MPPM, RN, NE-BC, chief nursing officer and senior vice president of quality at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, Chicago, uses movement to get back into her body, calm worry, and regulate her emotions.

“I find that I could literally sit all day in virtual meetings,” Ramsey said. “For me, moving and breaking up my day refreshes and renews me. Whether it is a 15-minute walk outside or moving around the facility and departments, moving regenerates me.”

Stop Minimizing Your Wins

Raja finds that the most powerful shifts for healthcare workers happen through an active gratitude practice and relationships with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as therapy. When people connect to themselves and others, they start to notice what’s good, what’s meaningful, what’s working, and what’s not. It’s the ability to cultivate a genuine reconnection to their lives.

Slowing down enough to let pleasure and pride come online is also key. “Sadly, in my practice, I really see how doctors are masters of minimizing their own wins,” Raja said. “Pausing to take in a moment of competence or connection can gradually retrain the mind to hold both awareness of risk and appreciation for what’s going well.”

Supporting reflection at the institutional level is important, too, and having opportunities both local and system-wide to recognize the work of providers. In Ramsey’s health system, “we recognize in many ways,” she said. “Good Catch Awards, MLK Humanitarian Awards, Daisy for nurses, Star Award for supportive personnel, and note cards for writing kudos to your colleagues. Gratitude and thankfulness are part of my daily routines,” she added.

Prioritize Processing and Genuine Connection

Besides celebrating wins, it’s important to take the time to process difficult clinical encounters. If you never revisit the traumas you compartmentalize, that’s a cause for concern and, in severe cases, can result in PTSD. The Frontiers in Neuroscience paper explored the connections between PTSD and sensory hyperresponsivity, causing frequent overwhelmed states. Allowing traumatic experiences to be felt in a controlled way and acknowledging distress can facilitate healing and alleviate the need to constantly problem-solve.

There are many ways to process workplace concerns and prevent them from intruding on your life outside of work. Peer support services, mentorship, informal debriefing, and even starting team meetings with a brief check-in can provide a psychological safety net.

Of those ideas and most of the solutions presented, do you notice a common trait? They all involve actual human interaction and connection.

However, this is far from standard practice. “Instead, it’s click in, listen to the online meeting, and click out.” Dean says.

She points to technology preventing some of the former human connection in the medical field. “We don’t call each other anymore and say, I have a tricky case. Things like EMR [electronic medical record] are useful, but we’re losing the connection. With the technology between us, it’s dehumanizing relationships in the workplace.”

Finding oh-so-human ways to shift that mindset and appreciate those positive things is how you show up, not only for others but for yourself as well.