When you need more than a stress ball

People have different ways of reacting to stress, so a situation that feels stressful to one person may be motivating to someone else. This emotional, physical and mental state is much talked about in relation to dentistry – more often than not about dental phobic patients in whose welfare you have an integral part to play. Your job is to alleviate their fears of the sights, sound and smells of a surgery, realigning their perception of dental care to a more positive level. But who's caring for the carers? A dental professional does not operate in a void and private lives affect the day-to-day running of a practice just as work can spill over into home life. You work in a complex and challenging environment and deliver dentistry with many constraints – financial, particularly key here – that sometimes seemingly conspire against the team to do this effectively and without stress.