5 Things We’ve Learned Running A Ketamine Clinic During The Pandemic

COVID-19. Never in a million years did we think that we’d be faced by a pandemic in our lifetime. Let alone have to deal with it for almost 2 years now. It is indeed a challenging time, and running a ketamine clinic has allowed us to see how this has affected people mentally. In this blog post, we talk about some of our learnings as ketamine clinic owners amidst the pandemic and why there actually is a silver lining to all this.

Healthcare workers are experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety during the pandemic because they’re too busy taking care of others to focus on their own mental and physical health.

Learning #1: People whose profession is to help others are getting hit hard emotionally and physically.

According to a study, more than 400 physicians die by suicide every year. This is the highest suicide rate of any profession! And unfortunately, most of these doctors have untreated or undertreated depression. In the midst of errors and unwanted outcomes, doctors tend to blame themselves, especially in a no-mistakes-allowed culture.  

With the pandemic, we’ve noticed an increase in the number of healthcare workers and providers, like doctors, nurses, and therapists taking time out to take care of their own health. Those who work in healthcare are already experiencing burnout and you may have even experienced this yourself. Due to the increase in the number of patients, many healthcare workers are too busy taking care of others. Because they are unable to focus on themselves, their mental health deteriorates.

We’ve also noticed for some, that if they are in a place where they can’t fully express themselves or feel blocked emotionally, this could cause somatization of their emotional pain. As you are probably already aware of, headaches and other forms of pain can also be a manifestation of stress and sadness.

We are grateful to be helping our fellow healthcare workers take care of themselves by providing ketamine infusions. 

If you believe that starting a ketamine clinic is your calling, check out our blog post for more reasons why you should start your own clinic HERE.

Isolation has led us to become stressed, resulting in finding ways to cope through unhealthy behaviors such as binge eating and alcohol consumption.

Learning #2: Social distancing can lead to unhealthy coping behaviors.

Humans are social creatures. We need each other. Social distancing – while necessary to prevent spread of a disease – is not natural for humans on a day-to-day basis. We need touch. We need time conversing with each other and being with each other. We need to feel a connection with our loved ones. 

As a result of having to isolate, unhealthy coping behaviors such as overconsumption of alcohol or overeating have resulted. 

The social distancing and resultant isolation forced many to sit with issues or problems they had brushed under the rug. Instead of going out with friends or using other activities as distractions from their deep seated problems, now they were alone with these problems. They are now forced to brood over their negative thoughts, further pushing into unhealthy coping behaviors

Many of us would rather accomplish healthy activities such as yoga classes or meditation in a group setting. Without these social activities, healthy activities decrease as well.

Lesson #3: People really need community and isolation can be quite harmful to our health.

Similar to the point made in #2, we have observed that some rely on a more social setting to accomplish healthy activities. Like going to a yoga class with friends, attending a meditation circle with like minded-individuals or religious service. The isolation, driven by the COVID pandemic, not only caused an increase in unhealthy coping behaviors but also a decrease in healthy behaviors. This makes sense since this was such a life-altering, dramatic event in all of our lives. Habitual actions were suddenly altered, and some resultant compensatory actions have been on the more harmful side. 

As a result, not only has our lack of healthy habits affect us physically, but mentally as well.

When the whole world became stressed due to the pandemic, we as individuals felt the stress as well.

Lesson #4: Community stress leads to individual stress.

As much as we like to think we are independent thinkers, we are heavily influenced by those around us. Whether you like to admit it or not, you are affected by the thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes of those around you. You probably have noticed this, like how being around negative or rigid people makes you feel a certain way as compared to humorous, lighthearted people. 

When the pandemic threw us all into a stressful situation, we all individually became stressed. And our stress got worse because we were also feeling the stress and sadness of those around us. We all just wanted a way out of this situation, but we knew that the entire world was “trapped” as well. And that made us all the more anxious.

Despite the hardships during the pandemic, many of our ketamine patients were still able to successfully find the good in everything.

Ketamine therapy can help ground people through the stressful pandemic experience. 

Despite the difficulties, whether it be physically, emotionally, or financially from the pandemic, we have seen some of our patients do very well despite all these challenges. We see that those who had gotten themselves to a good place emotionally with the aid of their ketamine infusions prior to the pandemic, had more inner resources to positively deal with the challenges. 

Plus, those who had continued or started to receive ketamine infusions during the pandemic were able to create new social connections like with us. Not only that, but they also have an opportunity to deal with the difficulties they have newly faced or address the issues they had yet to address prior to the pandemic. The stress that they have faced due to the pandemic has allowed them to grab the bull by the horns and actually deal with their problems firsthand. 

In fact, did you know that there was a study that showed that ketamine can possibly act as a vaccine to prevent depression and anxiety? Mice were put into stress-inducing situations and those that did not receive prophylactic ketamine demonstrated depression-like behaviors. While those who did receive seemed to have been protected against those behaviors! So if there’s a vaccine for COVID-19, wouldn’t it be great if there was a vaccine for depression as well? Ketamine might as well be the answer…

Experiencing a pandemic is indeed no walk in the park, but there is a silver lining to all of this, especially if you choose to see it.

The Silver Lining

It’s no secret that we’ve all been affected by the pandemic, some more than others. And we’re so lucky that we get to help people in this time of need by helping them get the treatment they deserve. We’re amazed at how strong and brave people are despite everything that’s happening around us. Indeed the pandemic has made each of us stronger in our own ways. 

If you want to learn how to start your own ketamine clinic and help our fellow human beings in these challenging times, join our email list and be notified about the next free webinar and open registration for Ketamine StartUp.

We’ve all had our own learnings during this COVID-19 pandemic. Lessons that we’ll never forget even long after the pandemic is over. As ketamine clinic owners, we’ve had our own learnings which we talk about in this blog.

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