Sleep

Sleep
Glorious, restful, refreshing sleep
I certainly haven't had enough recently
Strange how I push the limits every so often & conduct my own social survey to see exactly how little sleep I can survive on
When will I learn!!!

Awareness

In retrospect I should have known the minute I squirted toothpaste on my black shirt it would be one of those days. However coming from an approach of your day is what you make it I continued on unsuspecting despite a twenty minute search for the car keys which were where I left them (if only I could have remembered where that was twenty minutes earlier). A nanosecond after closing the front door on my way into work I had tripped down the front steps (well OK step as there is only one) and without a drop of alcohol past my taste buds. The ‘trip’ proved quite spectacular not the least that it was in full view of several neighbors and on a day when I had given up my preference for wearing trousers and gone all girlie with a skirt. A skirt that made me look the epitome of a professional woman when worn vertically, when worn horizontally well that was a different matter. All this was before 7am. I’ll let your imagination wander through what the rest of my day looked like as I try and explain where I am heading with all this. Perhaps if I backtrack a little and share some pearls of wisdom Carol a friend and mentor of mine gave me many years ago. Her view was that there are no accidents. Carol’s view was that it was about loss of awareness. The busier we become the less aware we are. We hurry through life, ‘wired’ for speed, like a headless chook packing as much as possible into our day; weighed down by the multiple responsibilities of life, family and work. We become less aware of our feelings and less aware of what is going on around us. As a consequence we often don’t pick up on our stress levels as we push onward. This can result in what we commonly refer to as ‘accidents’. Using Carol’s perspective however the cause is more about loss of awareness and certainly for me when I start having days like I describe above it is past time for me to slow down.

According to Henry Miller ‘the aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware’.

Where is your awareness?

Focused on the million things you think you have to accomplish by noon?

If this is so for you….focus your attention inward, take a deep slow breath and slow what you are doing.

Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings.

Center yourself and proceed with a slow steady speed with increased awareness of yourself and the world around you.

You will feel and be better for it…

Personal responsibility

Our last post was about personal power

Wanted to share with you a quote from Stephen Covey which sums it up nicely:

"Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide

how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us."

Exercise your personal power today, the more you exercise it, the stronger it will become

and the more confident you will be in using it

We would love to hear about your challenges and successes

The team at Nurses Self Care

Personal power = less work stress

A sense of control is one of the main factors in determining work place stress
Feeling in control minimizes stress
The interesting point here is that we are all capable of feeling in control, often however we choose not too
As a consequence we give our life over to others
Switch your personal power switch on
Its not about what others think about or say about you
Other people's opinion of you is none of your business
Don't get caught up in something you can't control
Take back your life today!!

Do you have examples of when you have exercised your personal power?
The team at Nurses Self Care

Support

Support and a sense of connection is one of the very best self care strategies. How's your support system?
There are many nursing communities out there.
The internet is increasing the options of support.
Check out www.codeblog.com
or www.pixelrn.com these are just two of many on line nursing communities available

The team at Nurses Self Care

Work stress - doing the impossible

I walk with a group of friends each weekend. We chat and laugh and get to experience the great outdoors together. This week I had a text from one of my friends saying they couldn't make it because they had to go into work. I got to thinking about this and started to wonder why...especially considering statistics in Madeleine Bunting’s book ‘Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives’, that reveal: the number of people working over 48 hours has more than doubled since 1998, from 10% to 26% and unbelievably one in six workers are working greater than 60 hours per week. These are scary statistics given that both American and Australian studies link extended work hours with an increased risk of a range of health consequences including: fatigue, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, fatigue, stress, depression, musculoskeletal disorders, chronic infections and diabetes.^1,2

So...why do we do it? Why do we put work before our own health care needs? Why do we put work before the basic practices we need to care for ourselves?

The team at Nurses Self Care

1. Dembe, A.E., Erickson, J.B., Delbos, R.G., & Banks, S.M.(2005). The impact of overtime and long work hours on occupational injuries and illnesses: new evidence from the United States. Occupational and Environmental Medicine; 62: 588 - 597.

2. Dawson, D. McCulloch, K., & Baker, A. (2001). Extended working hours in Australia: counting the cost. Centre for sleep research University of South Australia.

Eating well

Does this sound familiar?

You struggle out of bed, grab a quick caffeine fix as you head out the door for the early shift. Work is as busy as usual and in no time at all it is break time. You head to the café to pick up a meal, to be faced with endless choices of sweet, greasy delicacies. As you make your purchase you remind yourself tomorrow will be different and you will pack your own lunch….
Three o’clock rolls around and you are ravenous, so ravenous the vending machine is looking like your long lost lover. Seconds later you have consumed something sweet, something salty, and a bit of fat for good measure all washed down with a diet soda. Clearly this type of lifestyle is not conducive to good health. However how do you turn this around given the time commitments….?

Here are a few tips on how to break the cycle

• Put yourself first, remember you are important enough to take care of
• Think about it the day before, plan ahead
• Eat breakfast, everyday, start by quick on the run breakfasts like a smoothie if you don’t think you have time to sit down
  
• Take fruit and a handful of nuts for a healthier snack option
• Batch cook so that you have a freezer full of delectable delicacies
• Stay hydrated by keeping water close by to drink throughout your shift
  

How do you ensure you get the nutrition you need?
The team at Nurses Self Care

Life essentials

Do you feel torn between the competing demands in your life?
Nurses are known for their compassion...
to others; however we often have to learn to be compassionate to ourselves
Start by implementing the skills of compassionate self care on a daily basis.
A good place to start is simply to treat yourself as you would treat others
then practice, practice, practice until it becomes a habit

The team at Nurses Self Care

Are you your number 1 priority?

Do you feel you neglect your own needs in preference to those of your family, friends and patients? You can't be a good nurses without caring for yourself...
Much as we like to get rid of statements like "you can't" in this particular instance its true
We need to put ourselves at the top of our care list
Make sure you are your number 1 priority today

The team at Nurses Self Care

Hello & welcome

Hello and Welcome to our very first Blog.This has been a dream of ours for some time, and so the level of excitement here is palpable!!

We created this blog to help YOU put yourself first in YOUR life

In 2006 we foundered www.nursesselfcare.com with the intent of providing information, tools and support for nurses based on a core belief that it all starts from a place of self care.

Let us know what you think are the issues in nurses lives and your thoughts and questions in ensuring that Nurses Care for themselves with the multiple demands they face

The Team at Nurses Self Care