Metabolizing Stress: A Dentist’s Guide to Resilience and Recovery Burnout, anxiety and physical fatigue are common in dentistry, a profession that demands unrelenting attention to detail, long hours in static postures and the emotional labour of patient care. Dentists are often admired for their precision, technical expertise and resilience. Yet behind the clinical mask, a quiet storm may be brewing. Dr. Kristin Yont, a general dentist in Calgary, experienced this firsthand, balancing the pressures of running a busy downtown practice, managing staff, dealing with the emotional fallout of a divorce, and feeling increasingly disconnected from herself. Running a dental practice—managing staff, debt loads and the daily pressures— was undeniably stressful, but she coped, drawing on the resilience shaped by her rural Saskatchewan upbringing. What ultimately overwhelmed Dr. Yont wasn’t the workload, it was the emotional fallout of a divorce. For the first time, her usual problemsolving strategies failed her. The chronic strain tipped her into allostatic load—a state where stress disrupts physical and mental function. She found herself unfocused, tearful at work, increasingly angry Dr. Kristin Yont 34 | 2025 | Issue 5
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