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Every day, we face a lot of challenges that affect the way we care for our patients. When not addressed properly, these challenges can affect even our personal lives,too. Metta, or loving-kindness meditation, consciously invites feelings of love and kindness to us and others to arise, be held in awareness, and be felt in the body while repeating a series of simple phrases. Some people like to begin by offering these phrases to themselves, then going outward to include other people they know or even strangers.
You can take a 5-minute break and ask another nurse to cover for you while you cool down. Once you are calm enough, you can explain your side and hear what the other person has to say. However, instead of responding negatively, it’ll be helpful if you can use meditation to control your anger and frustrations.
Seeing the person, not the patient
While there are definitely more complicated meditation styles, starting the practice is relatively simple! The activity requires few resources beyond a quiet and comfortable space, and a smartphone/speaker if you’d like to play soothing music or a guided meditation. Take a moment to send gratitude to your hands for how they have served you and so many others. As you do, see if you can receive gratitude, love, and care for all you have carried—from all who are known, unknown, and those who will never be forgotten. New research from the University of California Davis is now giving us clues to the value meditation truly brings to the aging brain. The sharpest, most focused person I know is the grandmother of one of my longtime friends.
There are dozens of meditation techniques though, with guided imagery and deep breathing as two of the most popular methods. While it may be easier to find solace at home, nurses can employ these tactics virtually anywhere, especially with the proliferation of smartphone meditation apps. At work, an unused patient room or the hospital’s chapel may provide a suitable setting — even sitting in your car, in the restroom, or at the nurse’s station can work, too. Empathy for sick and injured patients is certainly a positive attribute of a nurse. However, it can also weigh heavily on your mind and body long after you clock out. Nurses may find meditation helpful in working through these feelings, especially since they are twice as likely to suffer from depression when compared to the general public, according to a 2012 study published in the Clinical Nurse Specialist.
Top 5 Benefits of Meditation for Nurses
Meditation boosts the release of serotonin, which is considered as your body’ feel-good hormone. Aside from this benefit, it can also balance out your stress hormones so you can have clear and calm thoughts. Proper breathing techniques can help you relax and unclench your tired and tensed back muscles. You can do them while sitting, standing or even walking around your floor. One of the easiest ways is controlling your breathing time, such as making sure that your inhales are equal as your exhales. The breathing technique is one of the most effective techniques you can use to get better sleep.
Alternatively, seniors with no cognitive issues can experience unpleasant feelings, whether they be sad about the past, or feel anxious about the looming future. Meditation and mindfulness teach participants to focus on the current moment, not to dwell in the past or worry about the future. In nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, loneliness, depression, and anxiety are considerable risk factors for residents.
Classical Feng Shui and Mindfulness Meditation
Most nursing homes limit the number of Medicaid patients they’re willing to take because of the deficit in Medicaid reimbursement. Taking in more Medicaid patients could spell disaster for surviving facilities as increases in residents leads to increased costs while Montana’s Medicaid reimbursement fails to cover those costs. Come December, Cardin will run out of money to pay the $7,000 monthly rate she’s been paying since residing in the nursing home. She is in need of care 24 hours a day from trained providers, and soon she will become completely reliant on Medicaid to cover the costs of living in a skilled nursing facility.
Even the anxiety about said exposure can result to physical symptoms and the vicious cycle continues. Turn off your thoughts and bring your attention back to your breath if your mind wanders. Although I’ve been a long-time advocate of meditation, I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that a practice I considered great for relaxation, could actually have the power to keep someone out of the nursing home. Your holidays includes all meditation classes, 3 times a day and all the meditation sessions during the hikes. Walkandmeditate.com offer you an exclusive authentic meditation and walking retreat, set amid astonishing landscapes, relaxing sounds and the flavor of the mountains of Southern Germany, which will completely reboot your body and mind. “Challenges are alluded to making sure hospitals are able to take high-acuity patients.
For example, Buddhists use meditation for the realization of interrelatedness with the cosmos; Hindus meditate to become closer to a higher being; and Muslims use breathing controls and repetitions of Allah’s 99 names. Christians and Jews use meditative and repetitive approaches in praying, perhaps with physical postures included. The physical stressors include frequent bending, lifting and walking during the course of a shift; changeable rosters and shifts; long hours oftentimes stretching to 12-hour shifts; and noisy work environments. Nurses not only experience sleep deprivation and its symptoms but also a high degree of exposure to injuries and illnesses (i.e., from infections, chemicals and toxic substances) while at work.
But in most areas of nursing, we spend our entire work days working directly with others who are in need of our professional skills, as well as our awareness and compassion, to help them out of their suffering. Nursing has often been described as an “art.” Having been an RN for over 30 years, I’d have to agree with this description. There’s the job of being a nurse, and then there’s the art of nursing. The art of nursing involves taking one’s job and applying one’s heart and mind to it, connecting with those who we serve and applying our heart and mind to that services. Spend 10 minutes on deep and controlled breathing while also concentrating on your task, such as writing on the patients’ charts. Perhaps best of all, meditation aids in slowing down the signs of aging.
Instead, these services fall under the Medicaid waiver program, which is made up of state funds that are carefully divided up. We conclude that problems with medications in the elderly will continue to be important and represent a major safety issue, especially in countries such as Japan, South Korea, the UK and the USA, which have increasingly ageing populations. Nonetheless, there are multiple strategies as we have outlined, which we believe are likely to be helpful in improving care for this group. Ongoing evaluation of which of these strategies are most impactful and how they can most effectively be implemented is essential. One major improvement is likely to keep patients at home for longer than has been possible previously, by leveraging technology. Patients with cognitive impairment tend to do best in familiar environments.
This is because a relaxed mind and body reduces the risk of chronic degenerative diseases, such as heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes – and that’s why your doctor always adds effective stress management when you have high risks for these diseases. Nurses aren’t saints, far from it, so when workplace stress gets the better of them, professional and personal relationships can suffer, such as when snapping at a patient. With meditation, you can get a better handle on your emotions because you can understand what they are and why they are present. You can then become more detached from your stressors while still maintaining your compassion. But meditation isn’t just limited to Buddhism and Hinduism, contrary to popular opinion. Instead, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity also have their own forms and function of meditation, as is the case for Buddhism and Hinduism.
