Day 1 keynote recap: Natalie Stavas encourages attendees to change mindsets, run toward chaos

CDI Strategies - Volume 13, Issue 21

This morning, Natalie Stavas, MD, took the stage to kick off the 12th annual ACDIS conference in Kissimmee, Florida, by sharing her story of running toward chaos. On April 15, 2013, Stavas was running the Boston Marathon when two bombs detonated at the finish line. With only a moment’s pause, Stavas ran into the fray and began to treat those who were wounded in the attack.

“The first thing I thought when I looked down was, ‘How am I going to bring this woman back to life?’” she told the audience.

Stavas’ experiences that day led her to consider how humans deal with chaos, stress, and challenges. Building on the research of Novel Prize Winner Elizabeth Blackburn, AC, FRS, FAA, FRSN, who discovered that people in challenging situations who view their situation as an opportunity, rather than a stress, can actually prolong their lives, Stavas encouraged attendees to embrace challenges and run into the chaos. 

“When we’re faced with adversity,” she said, “we only really have two options: We can run toward it, or away from it.”

But the important question, she says, isn’t why we should run toward challenges, it’s how. The key, she told attendees, is in our neurochemistry. The amygdala—the part of our brain that activates when we run toward chaos and releases massive amounts of dopamine, according to Stavas’—and the prefrontal cortex—where we make decisions (at least in part)—need to be connected and interacting actively.

“People who choose to take actions have strong synapses between these two areas of the brain,” she said. “If you seek out these opportunities [to run toward challenges], we know you’ll be the kind of person who takes action when called upon, or better yet, when you’re not called upon.”

In order to be that kind of person who embraces adversity, avoids burnout from excessive stress and chaos, and lends a hand when someone needs it most, we have to change our mindsets, she said. While something may seem impossible, Stavas told attendees that changing your perspective on things shrinks seemingly insurmountable challenges to a scalable size.

Instead of seeing your next challenge, a chaotic environment, or extensive stress as an impossible situation, try changing your mindset, she suggested. While you may not see the immediate effect of your actions—much like the many first responders at the marathon bombing, working on individual victims, unaware of the many lives saved in their midst—your actions will make a difference, both in your own life and the lives of others around you.

“Never underestimate how important you are,” she said in closing. “Never underestimate how important your actions are.”  

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