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Royal North Shore Hospital Nursing and Midwifery
WELLNESS AND STRESS
Can wellbeing and stress be balanced or coexist? When we focus on our ability to manage stress in a positive and empowered way, it can be a real boost as it helps release endorphins and we gain a mood boost. However where stress is experienced as negative, acute or unrelenting, it can have a profound impact including sleep disturbance, weight gain, anxiety and fatigue. Feeling you have lost control and of not fully enjoy life are also consequences. To improve your stress resilience firstly take the time to STOP - stop, tune in, observe and then develop a plan of action. Prioritise well by assessing your demands and planning how to use your time and resources. Before you agree to taking something new on also consider if this is the best use of your time. Tasks that are both urgent and important should be addressed first. Keep an eye on these as a day filled with only urgent and important tasks can be a crisis day and you may be left feeling depleted. Next devote your time and resources to what is important but not urgent . Plan and be strategic so that you feel in charge of your role and get to what will add value to your day. Urgent but not important is a harder area to deal with but needs attention. Examples of item that fall into this group are calls, meetings, some emails etc. Consider saying no, being unavailable if there are important tasks to get to. Perhaps someone else would like the opportunity to extend their skills by attending to something for you so that your time is freed up. Any Items on your list that are not urgent and not important should be delegated or dropped. Don’t multi-task. Multi-tasking involves moving your attention from one thing to another without being very effective or productive. It is also distracting, stressful and anxiety provoking with the unfortunate impact of reducing our happiness level as well. Prioritise and delegate so that you can devote your attention fully and feel calm and in control. Boost your self-care with a healthy sleep patter, regular nutritious diet, exercise and most important strong connection with the people who are important in your life – family, partner, friends and colleagues. Mindfulness helps train our brains to be in the present and observe what is happening so that we can influence our lives in a goal directed way. A helpful exercise to train your attention is using the GLAD approach. Each day identify one thing to be grateful for, one thing you have learnt, one thing you have achieved and one thing that delighted you. This approach keep you on the lookout for the GLAD foursome and trains you to be more positive and optimistic as well. Strengthening your strengths and adding useful approaches to your daily living will help you manage your stressors more effectively and help build your wellbeing one step at a time.
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