Participate in High-Conflict Meetings? Here are 7 Action Steps to Reduce Your Emotional Hangover

I hate it when my meetings give me a headache

As an ethicist, high-conflict meetings are my bread and butter. I spend many hours every week addressing goals of care around death and dying, conflicts between clinicians, and moral distress among staff. I love this work. I’m also really good at it, which means I get asked to help with harder and harder cases.

In healthcare spaces, we may encounter high-conflict in so many places - the clinic, the bedside, care conferences, clinical decision discussions, and organizational meetings. By acknowledging the residue these meetings can leave on us, we can plan to recover more effectively.

With years of experience, I’ve learned to plan for and respect the emotional hangover that can follow a high-conflict interaction.

Photo by jean wimmerlin on Unsplash

I’ve learned a few strategies to recover from these meetings, and I hope they help you, too.

Recovering from an emotionally exhausting conversation at work involves several steps that can help you:

• regain your composure

• process your emotions, and

• maintain your professional well-being

Here are Seven Actionable Steps:

1. Build In Transition Time: Immediately after the conversation, if possible, step away from your work environment, creating a cushion between the conversation and your next task. This could be a short walk outside, a quiet moment in a break room, or even a few minutes alone at your desk. The goal is to physically and mentally distance yourself from the situation. I know how important this is for me, so I do my best to block off a minimum of 15 minutes after a known high-conflict meeting.

2. Practice Deep Breathing or Mindfulness: Engage in deep breathing exercises or a brief mindfulness practice. In just a few minutes, this can help calm your nervous system and reduce the immediate stress and emotional responses. I’m a fan of Box Breathing because it’s so deceptively simple, yet effective.

3. Hydrate: While you may not think of high-conflict conversations as exercise, they take a lot of energy from our bodies. Our bodies need water to function well. During my transition time, I like to drink some water or herbal tea for hydration to fend off malaise and headaches. (If it’s a particularly high-stress encounter, sometimes I’ll even take some acetaminophen or ibuprofen prophylactically.)

4. Reflect on the Conversation: Once you’re feeling more settled, spend some time reflecting on what was said during the conversation. Try to do this objectively, focusing on understanding the key points and your emotional responses. Writing down your thoughts can be helpful. This step is not about finding solutions but about acknowledging and understanding your feelings.

5. Seek Support: Talk to someone you trust about the conversation. I’ll often reach out to one of the other ethics consultants I work with to debrief about the conversation. This could be a colleague, a mentor, a friend, or a mental health professional. Sharing your experience and feelings with someone else can provide a new perspective, emotional support, and advice on how to handle similar situations in the future.

6. Develop a Plan to Address Any Ongoing Issues: If the conversation highlights ongoing problems, think about ways to address them. This might involve adjusting care plans, setting/maintaining boundaries, having a follow-up conversation with the involved parties, or seeking advice from other resources (risk, ethics, HR, senior leaders). The key is to approach these solutions calmly and professionally, ensuring that you are advocating for patient care and safety, and a healthy work environment.

7. Throw The Stress In the Trash - Literally: Write down the stresses of the meeting on a scrap of paper. Reflect on what you want to leave behind. Take a deep breath. As you exhale, crush the paper and throw it in the trash. If it contains any protected information, make sure to dispose of it in the appropriate place. 🗑️

6. Give Your Loved Ones a Heads Up: This one has been tough for me to learn, but it’s invaluable. If you are leaving work to see someone else (family, friends, community group), give them a heads up that you’ve had a stressful day. You don’t need to rehash the whole situation or disclose any private information to prevent them from guessing why you might be distracted or cranky. Simply acknowledging that I’ve had a tough day also helps me avoid unwittingly bringing that negative energy and dumping it on someone else. Letting them know how I’m doing helps us co-regulate.

7. Rest Deeply: Rest is not a reward for doing a hard thing, but you do need extra rest after doing a hard thing. If you have a high-conflict conversation and you’re feeling more tired, honor that and give yourself the time to recover. If replaying a conversation is keeping you from sleeping, repeat a few of the steps above to re-set your mind and prepare for sleep.

Remember, it's important to take care of your emotional and physical well-being, and seeking professional help is always a viable option if you find these situations overwhelming or recurrent.

If you’re interested in deepening your skills in high-conflict situations, please reach out. I’d be happy to share my thoughts on training opportunities.

Warmly,

Alyssa