Many people view sleep as just something the do at the end of a long day. But it’s important to think of sleep as an important investment in your wellbeing. Every hour of sleep that you bank each night will give your body and mind valuable returns in the future. Similarly, losing 90 minutes of sleep in a night can cost you up to a third of your productivity the following day. Think about how important that is for a dental practitioner who must be able to remain alert and focused all day.

Up to 60% of people with a mental illness will not seek help, often because of the stigma associated with mental health. The view that mental illness is a sign of weakness, or that it’s not a real disease. So people suffering with a mental illness feel ashamed, they hide their symptoms and don’t talk about it. And most importantly, they don’t get the help or treatment they need. We need to have open and honest conversations about mental health so that people will seek help when they need it.

Oftentimes, self-efficacy, or confidence, is misunderstood as something that we’re born with. You’re either a confident person or you’re not. The research paints a more nuanced picture, and shows self-efficacy to be a developable skill,

Feeling anxious is a normal response to keep us safe from danger - it’s fight or flight in action, and it’s a feeling we all experience at some time in our lives. But persistent worry or distress can be difficult to control. Anxiety can interfere with how we go about our everyday lives and make it hard to cope with ‘normal ‘challenges. Anxiety disorder is one of the most common mental health issues in Australia, affecting up to one-third of women and one-fifth of men at some point in their lives.

Burnout is being increasingly talked about across the community, and particularly in the health professions. Research shows that 1 in 4 dental practitioners have symptoms consistent with burnout. It’s common to hear people now talking about how they have burned out or are feeling burnt out. So we need understand what burnout is, and what it is not.

Research shows that mental health issues are more common in the dental profession than the general community, and it’s likely that we work with colleagues who might be struggling with their mental health. One thing that we can all do is strive to creating a supportive and mentally healthy workplace in order to support our colleagues. It also helps to support our own mental wellbeing.

Learned Optimism is a strategic way of thinking that can be taught and developed in individuals. It focuses on disputing or challenging those thoughts to better serve us, our wellbeing, and our careers. If you find yourself thinking, “This is ruining my whole life”, ask yourself, “Really? Is this event really ruining my whole life or is it just impacting a specific part of my life, my work, my day?”.

It is often reported that dentists have a high rate of suicide, and this is linked to the stress of working in dental practice. Research conducted by the Black Dog Institute has identified people working in the veterinary, dental, medical and legal professions at higher risk of suicide. Research in Australian dental practitioners found that around 1 in 6 reported thoughts of suicide in the previous 12 months, nearly 1 in 3 had thoughts of suicide prior to the previous 12 months and 5.6% had ever made an attempt to take their own life.

Dentistry is a stressful profession, with stressors including time and scheduling pressures, striving for perfection, fear of litigation, anxious patients, demanding and unrealistic patient expectations (particularly meeting aesthetic needs), business pressures, staffing problems, regulatory demands and negative perceptions of the dental profession. It can also be an isolating profession despite there often being a large number of staff in the workplace.

Many new graduates will be embarking on their first weeks in dental practice, with a range of emotions – excited, scared, anxious and hopeful. It’s important to remember that this is a path well-trodden – every dental practitioner who supervised you at dental school, acted as a mentor or who is now your employer – embarked on this same journey.

The new year is often a time for reflection on the year that has passed, and a focus on the year ahead. The transition from one year to the next is more than just turning a page in the calendar – it can be a strong symbolic moment that acknowledges the passing of time and the capacity for our continued growth and improvement.

Whilst the holiday period is an opportunity for people to unwind and relax, for many people it can be a period of great stress and anxiety. Rather than an opportunity to release the pressure valve, some people put additional pressure on themselves to create the perfect Christmas dinner or holiday experience.

Comparison is the thief of joy. So said Theodore Roosevelt. And he’s got a point. When we compare ourselves to others, using them as a yardstick, it literally steals away the satisfaction we should feel in our own life.

If we consider resilience to be the capacity or ability to recover from difficulties, proactive resilience – or ‘prosilience’ – is the steps we can take to develop, deepen or embed our emotional and mental capacity to recover, before this resilience is needed.

Perfect is the enemy of the good. but knowing when something is good enough can be a challenge.

No-one at the end of their life ever wishes that they had spent more time at work. So don’t.