5 Minutes For My Nurses 💗
How about some Pearls of Wellness Wisdom for a Nurse’s Busy Day (or Night!)? I mean seriously, you spend all of your waking hours caring for others-you DESERVE a quick 5 minutes to rejuvenate yourself, dontcha think?
Put up your achy feet and let’s get to talking about The Importance of Creating Margin.
Everyone has their own level of tolerance for how much BS they can navigate and still be productive.
Everyone has their own operating system for how many things they can take on and still be productive.
Whether it’s BS or busy-ness, you’re dealing with a lot.
That weightiness and heaviness actually shifts your body into Survival Mode. I’ll spare you all the geeky scientific details today and give you the pearls of what this means:
• Your peripheral vision turns into tunnel vision.
• You lose the ability to receive and process information logically.
• Your ability to communicate clearly and articulately goes out the window.
• You lose your softness and often default to a rash, harsh and irrational human being.
• You become reactive rather than responsive.
I am writing this on a Sunday, because for me, Sundays are a day of refreshment. They help me restore myself after another week of High-Intensity/High Productivity, and also to help me return to being a normal (lol) human being who shows up with kindness and love in her relationships.
Sundays allow my body, mind and spirit to chill out, “come down” from my adrenaline highs and allow my adrenals to rest.
Sundays are my day to withdraw from the public, have some quiet time and get ready for the week.
Personally and Professionally, I am in a New Season of life and am in public nearly 18 hours a day, 6 days/week. It's no joke. For me, that quiet alone time is a requirement.
When it comes to scheduling that time; It’s a priority-not an afterthought.
Now how I structure my time may be different from how you structure yours. We both have different goals and different lifestyles.
The point is this: it doesn’t matter the DAY. It doesn’t matter what your day to day entails.
What matters is that you take dedicated time to chill out, refresh yourself and allow your receptors to clear (as in your adrenergic receptors).
I hear it all the time from people (and by people I mean NURSES) who report that they’re too busy to take any time-much less an entire day to refresh themselves.
It makes me laugh because these are also the same people who complain about how crappy they feel, how they’re body “is falling apart,” how they keep getting sick and how many problems they are having in their relationships both at work and at home.
So where do we begin, Ladies? (Yes I know there are men in our profession-this typically affects women more than our male counterparts)
OMGosh, I can’t keep it to myself any longer...GUESS WHAT?
I kinda duped you into taking the first step already.
It’s called “Creating Margin.”
Creating Margin means to “make time out of no time.”
Simply by reading this, you’ve already created 5 minutes of margin in your day. 5 minutes for yourself. You did it and it didn’t take an Act of God to do it. It was simple and effortless.
You’re laughing right now because it’s true.
So for my Nursing Gals who are plagued with guilt of needing to be going and going, and serving and serving all day/every day; I invite you to remember one thing: You are a human, not a robot.
I look at it this way: Regardless of the traditional Nursing Culture of giving until your eyes bleed, your life is in your relationships. They deserve the best version of you.
If for no other reason you begin practicing Creating Margin in your day it's so that you show up better in your relationships at work and at home.
5 measly minutes is all it takes to begin
transforming your life (literally) from the inside out.
For all my fellow Nurses...May the love that you give be the love you receive. Happy Nurse’s Week! Let’s start it off in the right state of mind and with a calm, centered heart ❤️
XOXO,
Nichole
