Mindfulness seems like a lovely, and potentially unattainable, state of being, especially when you are busy working in healthcare. It sounds so zen, and in complete contrast to the reality of the busy work environment.
This wouldn’t be a problem if mindfulness wasn’t one of the crucial building blocks to resilience, and resilience wasn’t one of the crucial protective factors against burnout.
The first step to solving this is to understand what mindfulness is.
Mindfulness is being present and intentional in each moment.
OR
It’s paying attention to the details of what is happening right now.
That’s it.
No yoga retreat or meditation necessary.
Paying attention is a skill practiced daily by healthcare professionals so it’s not even a matter of learning how to do it, it’s just learning how to do it better.
When faced with an emergency or intense patient interaction at work, we don’t worry about all the other things we have to do that day, we hunker down and focus on the task at hand. This is true with major events at home as well, we delay thinking about the little things while we deal with the “important” things.
The secret is to start paying attention more often, with the things that aren’t as major. It starts with paying attention to the things that AREN’T a crisis.
When you wash your hands, pay attention to the feeling of the water, the sounds, instead of the next 12 things you have to do. Pay attention to the present, and “unimportant” moment.
When you feel stress creeping up your body, pay attention to it. Take 30 seconds to relax your shoulders, take a slow deep breath and feel your chest rise, unclench your jaw. Do this BEFORE opening the door to the next patient room.
When sitting in traffic, really listen to the music you have playing or experience the feeling of your heated seat across your back. If you are stuck in traffic anyway, you may as well feel peaceful. Intentionally focus your mind on being in the car and drown out the catastrophizing mental chatter about how being delayed is going to cause huge problems. You can focus on the huge problems when, and if, they actually happen.
When you have that first sip of coffee, really taste the flavors, feel the temperature.
When you are waiting in line at Marshalls for 20 minutes, take in all the colors, think of the people you are buying gifts for and how much you appreciate them. Direct your thoughts to the good things.
The simple awareness of the mundane creates safety in your nervous system. If you were actually in some type of danger you wouldn’t be focusing on coffee or the temperature of the water as you wash your hands. It helps you recuperate from the other hypervigilant moments in your life. It’s a way to stack the odds in your favor for the days when everything goes wrong.
It’s a way to actually break up the idea that “everything” is going wrong. There are plenty of opportunities on these days to calm your nervous system, even on the worst day.
Take a deep breath of the freezing air when you finally step out of the office for the day. Let it signal to your body that it’s ok to relax.
If we don’t take the opportunity to be mindful of the mundane, our body stays in fight or flight. This is when we start saying things like “I don’t know how much more I can take today” or “I’m never going to get everything done”.
Those statements are the red flags, the indicator lights for service needed.
Mindfulness doesn’t have to be hard. Take control of the racing thoughts and actually direct your brain to focus (you do this all the time with hard things). You will figure out dinner when dinner time comes. None of us have starved yet. You always figure out a way to do what you need to. Taking a break from ruminating, to just experience the NOW is not just restorative, it is proactive coping for the next difficult event.
We can’t just keep winding up and never wind down.
This is what overwhelms us.
Proactive coping is so much better than reactive coping. It allows us to build the skill in little ways when we aren’t in full blown panic. It makes reactive coping that much more effective.
I care about you, I care about us. I care about the patients we serve and the families we affect through the care of those patients.
Mindfulness is a way for us all to keep doing this work without sacrificing our own happiness.
Try it. Even taking 3 deep breaths and just listening to the sound is an awesome way to start.
Still not sure about all this? In anticipation of the holiday, I am going to be offering my workshop again, Debunking Mindfulness for Type-A Personalities.
This is for you if:
You a Type A personality.
You hear about mindfulness and have a visceral response that it's not for you.
You can't turn your brain off...and maybe don't want to.
You really just want to enjoy the holidays but it's highly unlikely because you have so much to do.
You are just curious and feel like seeing what this is all about.
Please join me for this free workshop, Debunking Mindfulness for Type-A Personalities, happening on Wednesday, December 11th at 6pm EST. You can register here
Not a nurse but still intrigued? You can come too :)
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