Self-Care Journey
Self-care can be defined as the set of actions thathelp an individual to reach optimal physical, psychological and emotional health. Self-care undoubtedly is a very important aspect forthe patients.However, the care professionals also have a pressing need for self-care as the exhaustive physical and emotional burnout due to the job roles often leads to considerable strain on the mental and physical status of the care staff (Raab, 2014). Most importantly,the health care staffoften have to go through extensive physical and mental burnout along with compassion fatigue. Hence, in order to safeguard the competence and resilience, it is very important for the health care staffto maintain self-care optimally. As a nursing student, I have attempted to develop a self-care plan for myself to be able to handle the burnout and stresseffectively; and it had been an exceptional journey for me to complete. This essay will reflect on the journey of developing this self-care plan, the support I received and how it helped me improve, taking the assistance of the Gibbs reflection framework.
The self-care journey involves thorough planning and implementation; it had beentime consuming but had been very systematic(Bible, Casper, Seifert & Porter, 2017). My preliminary focus for the self-care planning activity had been on exploring and addressing the exact impact of the stress that I have been encountering and the impact of the stress on my competence. From the first activity of my self-care recovery planning, it was discovered that irritability, anxiety, impulsiveness and breakdown had been frequent manifestations of the stressand as an aspiring student myself it is very important for me to have understanding of how to overcome the stress. Two major objectives that I developed for my self-care plan had been firstly to implement mindfulness based interventions, which is a very common mental health intervention and other was keeping a distinctive balance between my personal and educational life. The strategies for the first objective included reflecting on practice, engaging with an occupational therapist, learning different relaxing and meditating techniques, making a routine for implementing the activities in the day and documenting the progress (Khoury, Sharma, Rush & Fournier, 2015). These set of activities helped me tremendously in reducing the impact of the stress that I have been suffering from and also helped in eradicating the detrimental impact of the stress on the behaviour and my performance as auniversity student. For the second objective, the strategy had been to focus on personal health and wellbeing and maintaining enough time for personal life as well as dedicating enough effort and time in the professional responsibilities that are needed to be completed(Trotter-Mathison&Skovholt, 2014).
Importance of Self-Care
First and foremost, this had been an excellent opportunity for me to understand the exact importance of the self-care activities and how it should be and can be incorporated in the daily living so that the physical and mental health of the individuals can be optimally enhanced and protected (Gauthier, Meyer, Grefe& Gold, 2015). It has to be mentioned that for diseases or illness, the concept of recovery is multidimensional and incorporates a more holistic understanding of health and wellbeing that can be adequately managed by the self-care activities. Hence, in order to successfully implement the self-care activities adequately, it is very important for care staff to understand the importance of the self-care activities and how it can be incorporated by empowering the individuals. Therefore, I believe this is a very important activity that helped me understand the advantages of having a self-care plan and how it can be executed in real life situation. I felt nervous and anxious throughout the experience afraid that the time I am required to invest in the self-care will somehow affect my competence and performance as a student as well. However, I also had to take the aid ofa number of support networks such as my peers, supervisors, professional occupational therapists and fitness experts along with my family and friends which helped me overcome the challenges and issues effectively (Jacob, 2015).
On evaluating the entire experience, I have realised there are several factors that worked for my benefit and helped me complete the journey successfully. Though I did encounter several challenges which restricted the successful integration of the self-care plan into action, I was determined I could overcome the same.The self-care activity for me was mainly focussed on how the stress was affecting my behaviour with my peers and my family. Hence, I focussed on mindfulness-based interventions,which have been proven to have a significant impact on addressing the behavioural changes facilitated by stress. As mentioned by Virgili (2015), mindfulness-basedinterventions havebeen known to help individuals deal with not just stress but also helps in calming down individuals and enhancing focus and dedication. Hence, the choice of mindfulness-based interventions had been one of the helpful factors in the entire journey which prepared me to cope effectively with stress and focus on the task at hand with calmness and composure.
Although, peer feedback collection on a regular basis had been difficult as not all peers had been open to share honest feedback regularly as it is a very time-consuming procedure. Although the supervisors and mentors had been a tremendous support tome as they helped me cope with the challenges effectively. The sessions with the occupational therapists have also been extremely time consuming and it involved various challenges that restricted the success of the self-care plan. The support from family, my mentor and my supervisor had served as ultimate support networks which helped me overcome the challenges and issues that emerged during the experience (Ruotsalainen, Verbeek, Mariné& Serra, 2015).
Factors Contributing to Successful Self-Care
First and foremost, it has to be mentioned that the burnout and fatigue is a very important challenge faced by university students (Moen et al., 2016). The patients often have to undergo strenuous treatment procedures and the pain and suffering is often a great emotional burden which can leave a significant mark on the lives and psyche of the individuals that encounter them. As the nursing staff are the first point of contact for the mental patients, they have to spend a long period of time with such patients which affects their mental health and impacts the competence and performance statistics of the patients as well.I had been given the opportunity to choose what I want to incorporate in the planning which helped me achieve the goals more effectively (Kwok, Cheng & Wong, 2015).
This exercise helped me understand that providing the patients with the opportunity to have the decision making opportunities will have a strong influence achieving the desired outcome.Avery important aspect of recovery oriented approach is the emphasis on the individuality of the patient care needs and the empowerment of having the decision making abilities to the patient (Slade et al., 2014). The stark difference between the biomedical model of care planning and recovery oriented planning is the fact that biomedical model only focuses on the biological factors eliminating the psychological, environmental, and social influences completely (Strand, Gammon &Ruland, 2017). My experience of the self-care journey enlightened me of the exact feelings and thoughts of the patients while they embark on their recovery oriented care planning program. I have understood that decision making, independence, and the support networks such and friends and family are facilitators of more patient centred and personalized care planning, which I will be implementing in my life as well.
From this experience I discovered that time management, confidence and assertive communication had been my weaknesses which also added to the challenges that I experienced while completing my self-care journey. Hence, I will be enrolling in online courses and workshops to enhance these soft skills. Hence, I will be taking additional efforts to ensure implementing these practices in my future practice. Along with that, I will also keep utilizing the mindfulness based interventions to help cope with the stress as well.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, this experience had been a great opportunity for me which not only helped me identify the flaws and strengths of my professional competence as well as personality traits but also helped me understand the impact of shared decision making, impact of self-care, empowerment, and support networks in recovery planning for mentally ill. I gained the opportunity to understand the importance of having the decision making choice for the patient while making the recovery oriented plans. Along with that, I also understood how having the decision making power helps the patients achieve the recovery goals more easily and effectively. I believe that I will be successful in implementing the knowledge gained in my future practice while planning the recovery journey of a mental patient.
References:
Acker, G. M. (2018). Self–care practices among social workers: do they predict job satisfaction and turnover intention? Social Work in Mental Health, 1-15. doi: 10.1080/15332985.2018.1494082
Bible, L. J., Casper, K. A., Seifert, J. L., & Porter, K. A. (2017). Assessment of self-care and medication adherence in individuals with mental health conditions. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, 57(3), S203-S210. doi: 10.1016/j.japh.2017.02.023
Gauthier, T., Meyer, R. M., Grefe, D., & Gold, J. I. (2015). An on-the-job mindfulness-based intervention for pediatric ICU nurses: a pilot. Journal of pediatric nursing, 30(2), 402-409. doi: 10.1016/j.pedn.2014.10.005
Jacob, K. S. (2015). Recovery model of mental illness: A complementary approach to psychiatric care. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 37(2), 117. doi: 10.4103/0253-7176.155605
Khoury, B., Sharma, M., Rush, S. E., & Fournier, C. (2015). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis. Journal of psychosomatic research, 78(6), 519-528. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2015.03.009
Kwok, S. Y., Cheng, L., & Wong, D. F. (2015). Family emotional support, positive psychological capital and job satisfaction among Chinese white-collar workers. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(3), 561-582. doi: 10.1007/s10902-014-9522-7
Raab, K. (2014). Mindfulness, self-compassion, and empathy among health care professionals: a review of the literature. Journal of health care chaplaincy, 20(3), 95-108. doi: 10.1080/08854726.2014.913876
Ruotsalainen, J. H., Verbeek, J. H., Mariné, A., & Serra, C. (2015). Preventing occupational stress in healthcare workers. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 4. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/LAPTOP_MP0251/Downloads/Preventingoccupationalstressinhealthcareworkers.pdf
Slade, M., Amering, M., Farkas, M., Hamilton, B., O’Hagan, M., Panther, G., …& Whitley, R. (2014). Uses and abuses of recovery: implementing recovery?oriented practices in mental health systems. World Psychiatry, 13(1), 12-20. doi: 10.1002/wps.20084
Strand, M., Gammon, D., &Ruland, C. M. (2017). Transitions from biomedical to recovery-oriented practices in mental health: a scoping review to explore the role of Internet-based interventions. BMC health services research, 17(1), 257. doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2176-5
Trotter-Mathison, M., &Skovholt, T. (2014). The resilient practitioner: Burnout prevention and self-care strategies for counselors, therapists, teachers, and health professionals. Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135858018
Virgili, M. (2015). Mindfulness-based interventions reduce psychological distress in working adults: a meta-analysis of intervention studies. Mindfulness, 6(2), 326-337. doi: 10.1007/s12671-013-0264-0
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