Hello and welcome to pursuing health. I'm Dr. Julie Foucher, family physician and former CrossFit Games athlete.

Here I bring you information and inspiration to help bridge the gap between

fitness and medicine and support your journey toward your healthiest self. Thank you so much for

joining me. Now let's get started with this week's episode. Today, the story that I wanted to share

was about one that I learned personally, the impact of the physical behaviors that I do on my mental and emotional health.

And I learned it in a big way.

So just to give you a little bit of background, for me, exercise has always been something that I have loved and then has felt really good for my body.

So whether it was running around in the backyard as a kid or playing early sports like soccer

and tennis or then really competitive gymnastics and track and field in high school and after that,

I went on to do CrossFit and compete in CrossFit at a high level. I've always been really active and I've

known that that's something that my body just loves to do. But there's nothing better than a stress

test, right, where you take away one of those behaviors and see how your body responds to really

understand the impact that it's having. And that happened for me during my first two weeks of

medical residency.

So I had just graduated from medical school and I was beginning my residency in family medicine.

And family medicine is really a jack of all trades. So we gain experience in every place from

labor and delivery to pediatrics to in the hospital, the office,

even the nursing home. And my very first two weeks as a resident, I was going to be on labor and

delivery. Now, I loved this environment and this rotation as a medical student, but as a resident,

it comes with a lot more responsibility, a lot higher

expectations. And it was my first experience as a resident in general. And so I was really nervous and I

really just wanted to do a good job. Now, this is also a rotation where there are long hours.

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