Personal Wellness: The Reduction Of Stress

1. Some health care professionals recommend a 3-minute reading to help caregivers relax and focus before starting their work. Some consider this a waste of time, but others consider it an essential ritual to promote successful work. How do you respond to this idea?
2. How realistic is it to expect health care workers to model mental, physical, and spiritual health? If Americans tend to be overweight, underactive, workaholics who experience burnout, why should health care workers be any different? Base your response from the introduction and the textbooks. Cite references from your reading to support your answer.
The Introduction:
Spiritual Self-Care, Burnout, and Combatting Compassion Fatigue
Introduction
Preventing burnout or compassion fatigue is the goal, but the reality of suffering bouts of exhaustion at some point while giving care may be inevitable. Suffering from continual fatigue and hopelessness, however, is avoidable. It is a battle that must be fought with a commitment to personal health and well-being (Chapman, 2007). Health care professionals and others who give care must be determined to seek balance and health in their own physical, emotional, and spiritual lives in order to deliver the kind of care their patients need and deserve. No one is superhuman, so all must seek help.
Caring for Self
Although some people would consider caring for self a type of selfishness, it is in many ways the best way to also prepare to care for others. What good are caregivers who are so tired that they cannot determine the needs of the patient, or so sad that they feel hopeless? If caregivers are so weak that they are unhealthy physically, emotionally, or spiritually, they in essence have become patient themselves and are also in need of care. Caregivers need to see themselves as people who may also need help, and they should seek help before these needs become liabilities when caring for patients. In order to be sure they are healthy enough to serve others, caregivers must look for opportunities to make good choices for themselves. They need to eat healthy food, take breaks, get good exercise, listen to music or play and sing their own music, read, avoid unhealthy habits, and find some opportunities to laugh and cry. Everyone needs balance and the ones who are caring for others in stressful situations especially need to make sure they are pursuing balance in their own lives.
Being Physically Healthy
One of the first ways for a caregiver to increase or promote health and balance is to add a personal commitment to regular exercise. Many people feel they do not have time to add anything to their busy lives. The problem with their perception is that without wellness and balance, their lives are not as productive, nor as happy, as they could be. Busyness is creeping into people's lives to such an extent that it is almost becoming a badge of honor to be too busy to do something. The challenge that busyness poses, however, is the diminishing of health. Without proper nutrition, proper activity, and proper rest, a body rebels with decreased immunity to common illnesses. Taking the time to walk outside for half an hour or an hour over the lunch hour would add productivity to the rest of the day because the body would have been recharged by the change of scenery and cardiovascular exercise. By the same token, a trip to the grocery store for some healthy foods would be much healthier than a quick stop at a fast food establishment or even a popular restaurant. Making a few good but initially inconvenient choices would improve one's outlook and overall happiness.
Being Spiritually Healthy
Another area of life in which good choices are often avoided is spirituality. People feel they do not have time for spiritual things, but failing to address spiritual needs causes a spiritual version of an unhealthy body. It may not be immediately visible, but a life lived devoid of spiritual health will suffer. Although human beings were created with a mind, body, and soul, the soul receives very little attention from many people. They may be interested in having healthy bodies, but give no thought to their souls. Just as the physical body needs rest, recuperation, and healthy nutrition, the soul needs time for spiritual restoration, encouragement, and faith-building. Taking time every morning, for example, for spiritual nourishment and meditation adds health to the soul. Stopping on the weekend to rest and focus on God is essential to overall health. That is not to say that if one works on the weekend, one cannot lead a healthy spiritual life. Those who work on the weekend need to find their own "weekend" during the week and take comparable time to rest, worship, and refuel spiritually. Although spirituality includes a community aspect and interaction with others who give and receive encouragement, when schedules do not mesh, one must take the time to recharge alone with God.
Being Emotionally Healthy
As previously mentioned, human beings are made up of mind, body, and soul. An awareness of the need for protecting the mind would help many people live healthier lives overall. Just as it is essential to exercise and rest the body and the spirit, it is essential to take time for mental stimulation and time for relaxation. After running a marathon, a runner knows that it is essential to do certain things to restore balance and health to the muscles that have been overused. By the same token, health care workers who have given care for extended periods of time or experienced traumas during their workday need to allow themselves time and consideration for recovery and a restoration of emotional health. They may need a significant emotional outlet. They may need time to cry or time to laugh. They may need comfort or they may just need time and space. Each person needs to make careful choices to recover emotional health after expending the kind of energy required in health care.
Conclusion
Personal health care choices are essential, but by their very nature they are personal. No one can make decisions for anyone else about these matters. Each person needs to decide how to find balance, energy, and wellness in all important aspects of life. The physical, the spiritual, and the emotional all require care, especially for one who is providing care for others. Finding others who will participate in the healthy exercise of mind, body, and soul would be greatly beneficial, but ultimately everyone decides for themselves and chooses whether to be healthy and balanced.
References
Chapman, E. (2007). Radical loving care: Building the healing hospital in America. Nashville, TN: Vaughn Printing.