Self Care

Health behaviors, defined by the course book as, “behaviors undertaken… to enhance or maintain … health,” is an important aspect of healthy living (pg 39). As a Public Health Policy undergraduate student at the University of California, Irvine, the rigorous education I receive often results in high stress. In previous years to counteract the copious amounts of stress, I would engage in regular relaxation such as unwinding for a few hours at the beach. Now in the third year of my education, beginning upper division courses required for my major, I found it increasingly difficult to manage the balance between my workload and the amount of time personally needed to relax. I acknowledged I could no longer spend hours of my week at the beach when

Almost everyone is preoccupied with happiness but yet the population seems to be increasingly unhappy. As society and human experience changes we can’t help but ask ourselves how can we fix an increasingly unhappy and dissatisfied society? Mindfulness meditation is a progressively popular solution to this issue. Mindfulness meditation stems from Buddhist tradition and is a practice that includes focusing one’s attention. Does mindfulness meditation have real psychological effects? And if so can they help improve quality of life? Many studies have been conducted proving that mindfulness meditation does have real psychological effects and can help individuals live a more meaningful and happy life. This can be proven through research related to neuroscience, depression and happiness.

Self-Care. Self-care is a crucial part of holistic nursing. As holistic nurses in practice, we should protect our personal health and safety in order to have the sustenance to be able to effectively and therapeutically care for others. Coping mechanisms are an immense help when it comes to preventing burnouts. A study published in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing (2015) examined 38 Pediatric ICU nurses who participated in a 5-minute mindfulness meditation before each work-shift for one month to investigate change in nursing stress, burnout, self-compassion, mindfulness, and job satisfaction. This exploration found that brief interventions that support on-the-job self-care and stress-reduction might prove useful in critical care hospital settings. Death and dying is something that is experienced throughout the human experience, yet in a beautiful twist everyone’s experiences with the process are different. On a stroke unit death sweeps the census on a regular basis. As a leader on my unit I have to be in tune with the nurses I am working with as well as the families who maybe struggling with the decision to change a code status to DNR, to cease escalation of care, or maybe to participate in organ donation, to ensure that my nurses remain professional and empathetic and the families are accommodated appropriately. It is important for

The profession of nursing requires a capacity and joy for caring and healing others both mentally and physically. Nurses spend their careers caring for patients and their families often in the worst and most frightening periods of their lives. Nursing responsibilities can be lengthy, stressful and physically and emotionally demanding. The demands of the nursing profession coupled with the nursing shortage and longer work hours put even more stress on nurses. Despite these extreme demands, many nurses do not fully appreciate the importance self-care. Yet without proper care for themselves, nurses are not able to provide the best care for their patients.

Self care is essential to the nursing profession because it is a reflection on the quality of health care nurses provide to their patients, it portrays an image to the patients on what’s necessary towards healthy living and can help nurses battle with stress and personal health. Self care can be expressed as taking care of ones self’s health and overall wellbeing. This can be shown through eating healthy, exercising daily, getting enough sleep and completing weekly activities to reduce stress. Improving your overall health can benefit nurses from overworking themselves and help minimize the affects certain stressors can have on them. By doing so, the overall atmosphere in the workplace and the quality of healthcare provided to the patients will be greatly improved.

The world of nursing can be stressful yet fulfilling at the same time. After passing the licensure exam and securing a job, new nurses’ next journey is transitioning to practice. Mixed feelings and emotions are evident as they are about to enter a new phase in their careers and step out into the “real world”- Along these lines, new nurses will encounter colleagues who are helpful and who are not, as they transition to become competent nurses. The aim of this paper is to identify a stressful situation experienced by the author, provide examples of how this stressful situation affects nursing care, incorporate the use of Lazarus and Folkman’s stress theory, examine mindfulness as a psychosocial stress mediator, describe how mindfulness can help in the stressful situation mentioned, and consider how to incorporate this mediator in daily life.

Since 1990s, many scientists agree that exercise has positive impacts on people’s physical health and mental health (SIME WE, 1987). From Morgan and O’Connor’s research, people can reduce stress and state anxiety by doing physical activities; also gain emotional pleasure from the process (Morgan and O’Connor, 1988). Later in 1997, Landers states that physical activities can reduce people depression after weeks of regular and routine exercise. In addition, people can benefit from more

This paper perpetuates to expand fortifying major health benefits of conventional physical activity and exercise. However, there is withal a growing body of erudition that substantiates that physical activity withal amends psychological salubrity. The following literature attempts to review the various effects of physical activity and the mental health variables. It will especially focus on the psychological effects of exercise

399). Investigations on the chronic effects of exercise have involved programs which last approximately 2-4 months consisting of two to four sessions per week. Most research on effects of acute exercise has focused on the reduction of state anxiety. Recent studies, (Focht & Hausenblas, 2001; Ekkekakis, Hall & Petruzzello, 1999) showed that aerobic exercise resulted in lowered state anxiety and higher tranquility scores. In addition to this, other research has revealed that moderate-intensity exercise produced the greatest positive effects in affective responses implying that the anxiety reduction following exercise occurs regardless of the intensity, duration or type of exercise (Berger, Pargman & Weinberg, 2002, pp. 399-401). Raglin and Morgan (1987) found that state anxiety was reduced for 24 hours after the exercise bout, whereas participants in a control rest condition returned to baseline levels within 30 minutes (Berger, Pargman & Weinberg, 2002, pp. 400). Although acute exercise is no more effective in decreasing state anxiety than quiet rest of distraction, the effects last longer. According to Breus and O’Connor (1998), the decrease in state anxiety after exercise lasted several hours, which was more than in the distraction and quiet rest groups. This implies that positive effects may be gained after a few weeks of training, but enduring effects may only be achieved through continuous exercise.

Before I became a registered nurse, I never really thought it would be this stressful and hard of work. Now as a 4 week brand new nurse to the medical surgical floor, I am exhausted by the end of my day shift. I was amazed after reading Maureen Iacono’s Nurses’ Self Care: A Question of Balance article regarding how nurse’s health is affected physically, personally, and mentally due to the lack of neglected self-care. As a result of insufficient self-care and the consequences of fatigue and mental tiredness of poor judgment can lead to dangerous patient bedside outcomes. Iacono explains how it is imperative to take certain measures of self-care such as eating healthier, take a vacation, prioritize sleep, and exercising in order to improve nurses’

Mindfulness meditation consists of skills and methods to unplug from the busy world around you and from the busy 'monkey brain ' so often experienced in today 's life and particularly in ADHD, anxiety and depression. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness meditation trains and reinforces the ability to pay attention to the present moment, on purpose which helps to increase concentration, decrease anxiety, improve sleep, improve mood, decrease the stress response, and improve physical and emotional health. The studies are compelling about the health benefits of mindfulness meditation. In fact, studies show that mindfulness meditation actually changes the brain in positive ways. The cortex of the brain is thicker in certain areas of the brain in those who practice mindfulness meditation. And brainwave patterns are changed in healthy ways as well.

Nowadays life of people has become quite stressful. To reduce stress people are getting addicted to things like alcohol, tobacco and drugs. People are searching numerous ways to reduce stress. The best way to reduce stress is through meditation and yoga. Meditation and yoga is the complete package through which you can make your life fit, healthy and stress-free. Yoga and meditation when practiced together strengthen the body and mind connection, improving overall fitness and well-being. Both yoga and meditation, when done regularly, has proven to be highly beneficial. Though the practices of yoga and meditation have their roots in ancient cultures, both have become modern day movements.

Self-care management of a male patient between the ages 45-50 who is newly diagnosed with diabetes, in the prevention of long term complications.

In today’s environment, many people are suffering with the stress and anxiety of day to day living and are finding themselves unable to cope with life’s little emergencies. Prescription drugs are on the rise due to the increasing need for people to deal with their stress and anxiety. However, many people are searching for ways to be less stressed and live a happy and healthy life without drugs. If stress and anxiety are getting the best of you, then think about grabbing a mat and giving yoga and meditation a spin. With that in mind, this paper will take a look at the benefits of yoga and meditation to create a more peaceful and healthy lifestyle.

Exercise may be one of the most important influences on your overall health to date. While the only benefits that are mainly focused on are the physical benefits, significant psychological impacts can also be linked to exercise. Although some of these benefits aren’t viewed with much enthusiasm, studies have proven that exercise can actually improve one’s quality of life greatly by increasing not only their physical health but their mental health as well. It is because of this that exercise is a