Did you know that April is stress awareness month? Public Health England have a great quiz to help you explore routes of our stress and provides some suggested interactions, I had a go and it got me thinking https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/ Why not have a go and share with others?
A recent Barts Health Twitter chat about well-being got me thinking about about personal well-being plans, and I’ve been pondering if can they help us become more intentional in promoting our own well-being? Could they encourage us to pause and reflect on where we are now and what we need to do more of? We’re used to creating ‘Care Plans’ for patients, but perhaps we can adopt the nursing process of ‘Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation’ for ourselves when it comes to reviewing where we’re at personally and what we need to ensure we keep flourishing.
There are many reasons why we may not prioritise this, why we do allow ourselves to focus on ourselves? Perhaps some of our thinking includes …I don’t have enough time; I don’t have enough energy; I have more important things to do; I have to take care of everyone else first; it’s too hard; it’s not going to make a difference; I don’t know how to do that; I’ll have more time tomorrow; it’s going to be to uncomfortable or painful; I’m not worthy, important enough to focus on …
As managers and leaders in health and care, our actions can encourage others to address some of these thoughts. Perhaps through role modelling and encouragement we could nudge others to develop their own personal plans too just as we expect people to have continuous professional development plans?
Self Care isn’t selfish, we need to apply our own oxygen masks before helping others
Leigh Kendall of NHS Horizons blogged on the subject https://nhshorizons.passle.net/post/102gnwb/creating-a-wellbeing-action-plan and signposts us to Mind UK who have developed resources to support us in proactively considering the actions that support our Mental Health https://www.mind.org.uk/workplace/mental-health-at-work/taking-care-of-your-staff/employer-resources/wellness-action-plan-download/.
Promoting well-being supports us to address lots of different areas in our lives, this graphic highlights that our self-care plans can cover a whole range of interventions to help us feel better about things, take control …
Then yesterday a colleague tweeted about a very tough day and another colleague responded suggested watching a Ted Talk by @drlucyhone on resilience, I have to admit it blew me away, if you can please invest 16 minutes in watching it https://www.ted.com/talks/lucy_hone_3_secrets_of_resilient_people Lucy shares that rubbish stuff happens to us all, focus on the stuff we can change and find things to be grateful for. And importantly ‘Ask yourself, is what I am doing helpful or harmful?’ Do more of what is helpful to you, stop doing what’s harmful to you. Thank you @researchnursed 💫
Kath Evans Connecting 