My guest this week is paramedic and podcast host Eoin Walker. I really loved this conversation. Eoin has an incredible amount of wisdom to share from both his professional and his personal experience, especially around managing stress and taking care of ourselves. We talked about ways to care for our bodies, minds, and spirits, especially through times of high stress, like many of us are experiencing now. I got so much from this discussion, and I think you will, too.  

Topics we explored together included:

• The toll of stressful medical work and long hours
• Examining our unhelpful coping behaviors
• Transitioning from work to downtime
• Taking advantage of breaks to unwind and pause from a constant state of alertness
• Neglecting our well-being until things start to break
• Deficits in self-care in the caring professions
• What finally got my guest’s attention and forced him to take care of himself
• Bringing unconscious habits into conscious light
• The concept of minimalism
  • See the book Minimalism that Eoin mentions (affiliate link)
• Creating “white space” around the critical activities in our day
• Paying attention to what we (over)pack into our luggage when we go away
• Having our mechanisms of coping tested by the current COVID crisis
• Moral injury in the time of COVID
• The toll of witnessing medical trauma as providers
• The value in talking with others about our difficult experiences
• Specific ways to keep ourselves as healthy as possible during times of high stress
• Intentionally seeking out the community you want to be a part of
• Being mindful of the cadence of our digital communication

Check out Eoin’s excellent Restore with Eoin Walker Podcast.

Eoin has generously provided his email if you would like to contact him (eoinwalker at hotmail dot com).

Eoin Walker has been a Paramedic in London for twenty years.

He has also worked on multiple expeditions in jungle environments and for a number of global NGOs.

Eoin currently works for the Red Cross (ICRC) in Cairo, Egypt, as a pre-hospital delegate working with the Egyptian Government.