Showing posts with label self-care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-care. Show all posts

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Self-care and Breathing Practice Resources for Fellow Clinicians

 keywords: self-care, mindful leadership, breathing practice


www.thehospitalhandbook.com
photo credit Megan


Self-care

Peace & time to breathe/pause to all of my essential worker colleagues and those who are also making space for positive change in their workplace or community. 🦋

"To mindfully pause is to interrupt your automatic reactions to life’s events and the stories that flow from those reactions. Pausing allows your mind to take a break, so you can be with life as it is vs. how you’d like life to be. Pausing is also part of a larger cycle of work and renewal, a rhythmic flow of life. Pausing’s not merely a good idea. It’s a required nutrient like air or water." 
Source: article from Mindful Leader 

 

Breathing Practice Resources

If you need a quick breathing break, there is a short breathing practice and 30-60 second videos on our YouTube playlist, like this one:

Autumn at Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park 



Or, Quiet evening on the Sound 



See more videos with a short guide to a basic breathing practice at The HHP's Breathing Practice playlist. Videos by Megan Kingsley Gale.


If you found this content useful or insightful, please support this community work. You can support with cups of virtual coffee, sponsor a newsletter, or sponsor a project via the website.

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Saturday, November 16, 2019

Self-Care Saturdays: The Autumn Roundup

keywords: self-care, practitioner resilience, wellness, mindfulness practices

The Autumn 2019 Self-Care Roundup

Some inspiration from the Self-Care Saturdays theme over at our public Facebook Page


Beware of burnout when you are a caregiver—more in this article in Mindful by Jerome T. Murphy, “Caring for Yourself While Caring for Another: Three unhelpful habits to watch out for when you’re taking care of a loved one, and three ways to overcome them with mindfulness”

"Training your brain to learn resilience", an article by Linda Graham in Mindful.
“Resilience—the capacity to bend with the wind, go with the flow, bounce back from adversity—has been pondered, studied, and taught in tribes and societies, in philosophical and spiritual traditions, and through literature for eons. It is essential to the survival and thriving of human beings and human societies.“We now also know that resilience is one behavioral outcome of a mature, well-functioning prefrontal cortex in the brain. Importantly, whether we’re facing a series of small annoyances or an utter disaster, resilience is teachable, learnable, and recoverable. It takes practice, and it takes awareness, but that power always lies within us."

For more on the self-care themes of movement, reflective reading, spending time outdoors, breathwork, nutrition, recreation time, and connecting to your community, see this HH Project blog article. 


A mindful meditation for dealing with the side effects of cancer and cancer treatment.
https://www.mindful.org/cancer-becomes-identity-meditation

Community Health & Public Health
As an integrative health professional, East Asian medicine specialty, I know public health and community health are intrinsic to our paradigm of patient care.

  • The Blue Zones community certification is taking the basic tenets of what makes a healthy environment and community more accessible. Learn about how they are implementing this work in "Good Health is a Community Effort".
  • “Huge Study Confirms Purpose and Meaning Add Years to Life” from BlueZones
  • Blue Zones published books are available at your local library or on Amazon. If you follow the link on this post to Amazon and buy with a few hours, a few pennies of your purchase go toward the HH Project.
  • And, you can support your local library by checking out a physical item at your local branch. Or use your library card to access Overdrive and the Libby app for e-books and audiobook versions on your phone or other portable e-device.
  • More about Blue Zones in our “Practicing Philanthropy: Positives for You and Your Community”

Blue Zones Books


If you are interested in community health and nutrition, you may be interested in Teaching Kitchens. or Nutrition Learning with Your Family.


Review on "What is Self-care?"

Taking time for self-care in your day and week, from a few minutes here to 30 minutes to several hours at a time, are drops of water into your resilience bucket.  A full resilience bucket makes it easier to weather the storms of life and work.  A half-full or empty bucket provides little defense or support when the storms hit and make it easy to get swept away or feel like you are drowning.  Fill your bucket, minutes or seconds at a time. Make regular drops or cups of self-care into your bucket part of your daily and weekly routine (habits) to keep it closer to full.  Consider the following categories of self-care when you are filling your bucket:

  • Movement:  any movement from walking, hiking, dancing, tai chi, bicycling, swimming, or other forms of active movement and exercise
  • Mindset/inspiration and reflective reading:  any activity that encourages you to slow down and self-reflect.  Forms this may take include journaling, qi gong/nei gong (inner-work qi gong), several types of mindfulness practice, reading poetry, some forms of prayer.  
  • Spending time outdoors in nature:  going outside into fresh air and "green space" whether it is your backyard lawn, working in the garden, the local town park, pond, or creek, time at the beach, the botanic garden/arboretum/conservatory, doing chores at your friend's farm, or a trip to a state park or national park/federal lands.
  • Breathwork:  practice basic diaphragmatic breathing.  It can be a simple breathing exercise, like the one below. Or maybe your breathwork self-care practice takes the form of any of the following:  yoga, mindfulness meditation, qi gong, or tai chi
  • Nutrition/Food as fuel:  everything in moderation.  talk with your health care provider before making any major changes to your food intake (diet), especially if you have a chronic health care condition.
  • Time "having fun", socializing, connecting to your community.


    Breathwork exercise, "belly breathing"
      • Breathwork is the conscious control of your breath.  "Belly breathing" is practicing diaphragmatic breathing.  This type of breathing induces the "rest and digest" phases of our nervous system, the parasympathetic response.  This is an important practice because, in our modern world, we are often going about our day rushing, in a full or partial sympathetic (fight or flight) state.
      • Practice (self-care):
        • Take a few moments to check in our breathing.  One hand over your heart, one over your belly.  Practice belly breathing (where your belly hand moves more with each breath than your heart hand does). 
        • Breathe in for a count of 5 and out for a count of 7.  Repeat 20 times.
      • If you want, you can watch one of these videos while you practice:





    May you have some peace in your day.  Remember you can come back to this breath-centering practice at any time.


    Related blog posts
    More self-care resources at 



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    Monday, April 22, 2019

    Happy Earth Day and National Parks Week!

    keywords:  spending time outdoors (nature) and health, environmental health, self-care, supporting kids and their adults to connect with nature, integrative healthcare paradigm, recommended books and resources
    updated December 2020


    Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better.  It's not.  -Dr. Seuss

    In the U.S. we honor today as Earth Day and the following week or so as National Parks week.  My school-age kid loves Earth Day and the variations of school-sponsored activities she's participated during the last several years.  If you've been following the blog and the HH Project newsletters, you know I love an excuse to get outdoors with the kids.  Growing up in the northern Midwest, I was taught that we can be outdoors in most weather, as long as we prepare for it (proper clothing, changes of clothes, etc).  Exceptions, of course, for dangerous-to-health weather conditions like skin-freeze warnings (cold weather) or the black flag days (hot and humid), etc.

    I feel that building confidence in kids (and adults!) to enjoy the outdoors (and feel safe doing so) helps foster a sense of wonder.  And, there's nothing quite like wonder and finding wonder in the natural world, from backyards to local parks, to national parks. I am sure there are personal health benefits to feeling wonder and awe.  In fact, this is one of the many areas of nature research Florence Williams writes about in The Nature Fix.

    If you are looking for ideas of how to get outdoors with kids of all ages (or need some fresh ideas for your list), check out Richard Louv's Vitamin N:  The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life or the website for the Children and Nature Network.  I recently started reading How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott Sampson (who my kids know as the paleontologist from the PBS show, Dinosaur Train).

    There has been a trend in "natural navigation" lately.  An old way of understanding our environment and direction that has been lost to some in the past generation or so requires practicing your skill of observation and pairing it with some farmer's almanac-style facts mixed with modern science.  Tristan Gooley has a full set of resources to learn more about this on his natural navigation website.

    Nature time and Your Health
    Connecting with nature, whether it is a walk in the town park, gardening, or a trip to your state or national park, is healthy for us.  Health benefits are myriad from movement to the air we breathe to the scenery (see Nature Fix for the details and research citations).  Also, hopefully, it keeps us mindful of our impact on our environment, on both local and regional/national scale.  From gardening classes in schools or your local Master Gardener county extension community courses, you can learn how to grow plants in your area from veggies to local flora.

    Our connection and stewardship of our environment is integral to our health and the health of our community.  In traditional Chinese medicine, we talk about the body as a garden, affected by both internal and external factors.  Our environment is an essential piece to the integrative health paradigm. 
    Rachel Carson, known for her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, also wrote a book of poetry-prose of her time with her nephew and mentoring his sense of wonder.  If you are interested in this poetry-prose book of hers, The Sense of Wonder, I recommend the audiobook version narrated by Kaiulani Lee for the lyrical style.


    How are you and your healthcare practice connecting to the environment/nature/Earth?
    So, how are you connecting nature in your healthcare practice?  Does your healthcare system already have environmental stewardship, nature-mentoring, or other sustainable-environment health practices in place?  Maybe you have a nature area nearby for easy walking or a hidden sitting garden?  Are you connected to a Teaching Kitchen? Or maybe you have a gardening program with your county's Extension Service and Master Gardener resource? How are you working with your patient population in developing a healthy connection to nature?

    More resources and ideas below.  And, please add a resource in the comments if it is not listed here and you think it may help others!  Thank you.
    Note: if you follow a link directly from this article to Amazon and buy something, a few pennies of your purchase goes toward the Hospital Handbook Project (HHP), a nonprofit community resource.

    Reflective reading and poetry

    Resources for Parents, Grandparents, Educators (for kids)
    Get Outside and Learn More 

    Books/Audiobooks

    Gear and Games


    Related Blogposts

    If you follow one of the Amazon links above and buy something from Amazon within 12 hours of clicking the link, a few pennies go toward the project.  
    The most direct way to support the project?  
     If you love supporting your local library system, most of these books are available through Overdrive or through the Libby app via your library card.  :)

    Happy Earth Day from the Hospital-practice Handbook Project!
    www.thehospitalhandbook.com
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    Monday, March 18, 2019

    Self Care: Self-Reflection for the Lenten/Early Spring Season

    key words:  self-care, self-reflection, mindfulness, poetry, qi gong / nei gong, tai chi, finding your current calling, clearing physical clutter and Marie Kondo's books, journaling with James Pennabaker's books or journal prompts from Wayne Jonas, MD and the Samueli Institute, and a couple self-reflection prayerwork traditions


    Self-Care:  Practicing Self-reflection

    Background
    If you could use an opportunity to renew your self-care, whether it is your new year resolution or just the spring-cleaning vibe, the Lenten season is as good a time as any.  Lent is 40 days before Easter from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday.  It coincides with the turning of the season from late winter to spring. 
    The Christian observance of Lent focuses on self-reflection and discerning your path to your best self—to discerning your path/your calling.  It is about clearing out the (internal) debris and clutter between you and God and turning your path back toward the Light.

    You don’t have to be Christian for these timeless ideas to sound familiar.

    So, in your self-care practice, pick what is true to you and your path.  This blogpost is only my ideas from my limited experience.  If some of this is helpful, great!  If it’s not for you, that is okay; just let it go.

    Where Self-Reflection Fits Into Self-Care Habits
    So, in self-care practice, you should have some element of self-reflection.  I discussed this briefly in an earlier blogpost about different categories of self-care to include movement, self-reflection/mindset/inspiration, nutrition/food, spending time outdoors, breathwork, and recreation/socializing and connecting to your community.

    How to Start Your Self-Reflection Habit
    As we move from winter to spring, take quiet time to be with your heart.  Quiet, heart-listening time.
    What comes up for you?  Peace or restlessness?
    If it is restlessness or discontent, can you identify where this is coming from?
    The energy of spring is about forward movement and new growth.

    Is there a change you need to make in your life?  In self-reflection, slowly work to discern, what this discontent or restlessness is connected to.
    Is this leading you forward on your life path toward the best-version-of-yourself?  Or is something in your current life or your lifestyle that has you stuck in a rut or leading you to something you do not want to be?

    What do you need to do to be closer to the best-version-of-yourself?  Journal about it.  Find mentors who can help you on your path.  Keep working on it.  5 minutes/day minimum is better than no time at all.
    Identify (to yourself) the clutter you are clearing out to make space and peace in your heart and in your life.

    There are so many ways this can manifest, as many ways as there are individuals.  And, as an individual, you may find one pattern of clearing/de-cluttering/cleaning that works best for you.  And you may notice you have familiar ruts you get stuck in.
    You may need to change up how you do your clearing/de-cluttering/cleaning when you “best way” is no longer working as well as it used to.

    Change is uncomfortable.  And, change is constant.
    “Often when you’re at the edge of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” -Fred Rogers
    “Nobody else can live the life you live.  And even though no human being is perfect, we always have the chance to bring what’s unique about us to live in a redeeming way.”       -Fred Rogers
    “Our lives change when our habits change.” –Matthew Kelly

    Self-reflection—discerning your current calling
    Sister Joan Chittister, in her book Following the Path: the search for a life of passion, purpose, and joy, says an individual rarely has just one calling in life.  In fact, we are called to different things throughout our lives.  But we must practice self-reflection and discernment to hear those calls and recognize what they are.  And, have the courage to follow them.  Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a calling-within-a-calling. 




    Steven Pressfield and Tim Grahl talk about “shadow
    careers”.  That we are following what we feel is “best fit” and “right at the time” careers that help us develop the skills we need for our “true calling”.  But that everything eventually becomes a shadow of what your next calling is. 
    Links to Stephen Pressfield’s books:
    The Artists’ Journey: The Wake of the Hero’s Journey and the Lifelong Pursuit of Meaning (2018) 
    The War of Art: break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles 

    Concluding Message
    We should be always listening to our hearts, discerning in our self-reflection practices, and taking stock of where we are in our path toward what we are called to be, the best-version-of-ourselves, and what that looks like, in that time and space.

    Ideas and resources
    If you are looking for ideas to renew or start your self-reflection practice, here are some resources to learn more about mindfulness, clearing physical clutter, journaling, tai chi and qi gong, prayerwork, and poetry.


    Mindfulness


    Informed Mindfulness:  The Power of Awareness and Choice in Effective Leadership by Michael Aquilino, Bonnie Horrigan, and Adam Perlman


    Related blogposts and websites


    Clearing the Physical Clutter
    Clearing the clutter.  For clearing out the physical space to help make room in your internal (mental, emotional, spiritual) space, I recommend the book by Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  She also has a follow up book, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up 




    Journaling
    Journaling, proven by James Pennebaker and colleagues (published in peer-reviewed scientific journals) to be useful in processing emotions and ideas in a healthy way.  Journaling helps process experiences to find clarity.  Journaling has proven health benefits.  





     Tai Chi and Qi Gong
    Work with your local certified instructor or NCCAOM board-certified acupuncturist.   

     If you are also interested in a book about these practices for self-care, look up Dr. Roger Janke’s The Healer Within: Using Traditional Chinese Techniques to Release Your Body’s Own Medicine ,Movement, Massage, Meditation, Breathing 







     Prayer work

    • Work with a spiritual director in your faith.  The oldest Christian monastic order, the Benedictines, have a tradition of outreach to community in spiritual direction from one-on-one sessions, group sessions, and retreats that are non-denominational or Catholic. 
      • For example, see the St. Placid Priority programs in Olympia, WA, at the Priory Spirituality Center 2019 programs include art (felting, enneagram), music-facilitated imagery for the soul, and seasonal programs (Lenten retreat). 
    • Or maybe other monastic traditions in your area may offer some form of spiritual direction.
    • If you enjoy mindfulness practices and quiet contemplation, you may be interested in learning centering prayer.  The old tradition of lectio divina that leads to the practice of centering prayer is both peaceful and healing but requires a mentor due to its complexity and depths.

    Poetry and Poetry-Prose
    Tao De Ching
    (on the Reflective Reads post)

    • Ideas for inspiration at the Reflective Reads blogpost include the following authors: John Muir, Lao-Tzu, Mary Oliver, Benjamin Franklin, William Butler Yeats, and John O’Donohue



    poetry is a useful vehicle for self-reflection

    If this post on self-care was helpful to you, please support this work via our website and share with a friend.  Peace to you in your self-reflection practice.  
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    Wednesday, February 27, 2019

    February Self Care Saturday summary: ideas for your home self-care practices

    keywords:  self-care, practitioner resilience, wellness, mindfulness practices, movement (walking, tai chi, qi gong), spending time outdoors, nutrition for health, the quadruple aim research paper

    The February Self-Care Roundup

    Some inspiration from the Self-Care Saturdays theme over at our public Facebook Page

    Taking time for self-care in your day and week, from a few minutes here to 30 minutes to several hours at a time, are drops of water into your resilience bucket.  A full resilience bucket makes it easier to weather the storms of life and work.  A half-full or empty bucket provides little defense or support when the storms hit and make it easy to get swept away or feel like you are drowning.  Fill your bucket, minutes or seconds at a time. Make regular drops or cups of self-care into your bucket part of your daily and weekly routine (habits) to keep it closer to full.  Consider the following categories of self-care when you are filling your bucket:


    • Movement:  any movement from walking, hiking, dancing, tai chi, bicycling, swimming, or other forms of active movement and exercise
    • Mindset/inspiration and reflective reading:  any activity that encourages you to slow down and self-reflect.  Forms this may take include journaling, qi gong/nei gong (inner-work qi gong), several types of mindfulness practice, reading poetry, some forms of prayer.  
    • Spending time outdoors in nature:  going outside into fresh air and "green space" whether it is your backyard lawn, working in the garden, the local town park, pond, or creek, time at the beach, the botanic garden/arboretum/conservatory, doing chores at your friend's farm, or a trip to a state park or national park/federal lands.
    • Breathwork:  practice basic diaphragmatic breathing.  It can be a simple breathing exercise, like the one below. Or maybe your breathwork self-care practice takes the form of any of the following:  yoga, mindfulness meditation, qi gong, or tai chi
    • Nutrition/Food as fuel:  everything in moderation.  talk with your health care provider before making any major changes to your food intake (diet), especially if you have a chronic health care condition.
    • Time "having fun", socializing, connecting to your community.


    Self-care practice could include more than one of these categories in just one activity

    • Depending on what you do for your self-care, it likely fits into more than just one of these categories, or it could.  For example, practicing Tai chi outdoors is "movement", "outdoor", and "breathwork".  Stretching exercises at your desk could be "movement".  Or, if you add a breathwork exercise to it, it could be both "movement" and "breathwork".  


    Ideas from the Self-Care Saturdays theme on the public Facebook Page from February

    • The Research--the Quadruple Aim study
      • "quadruple aim" added the 4th component to the well-known "triple aim".  What is the 4th component?  clinician well-being and resilience.  The triple aim doesn't work when the system is burning out clinicians.  Adding the 4th aim, focus on a healthy workplace environment for clinicians, provides a compass for implementing the ideals of the triple aim.  Read more in the research paper.
    • Nourishment/Food
      • Breathwork exercise, "belly breathing"
        • Breathwork is the conscious control of your breath.  "Belly breathing" is practicing diaphragmatic breathing.  This type of breathing induces the "rest and digest" phases of our nervous system, the parasympathetic response.  This is an important practice because, in our modern world, we are often going about our day rushing, in a full or partial sympathetic (fight or flight) state.
        • Practice (self-care):
          • Take a few moments to check in our breathing.  One hand over your heart, one over your belly.  Practice belly breathing (where your belly hand moves more with each breath than your heart hand does). 
          • Breathe in for a count of 5 and out for a count of 7.  Repeat 20 times.
        • If you want, you can watch one of these videos while you practice:




      • May you have some peace in your day.  Remember you can come back to this breath-centering practice at any time.


      Mindset/inspiration and reflective reading
      Outdoors/Time in Nature
      • You can read more about the health benefits of spending time outdoors in the book, Nature Fix. You can follow the link to the Amazon store for this book in paperback or audiobook at our gift ideas page under "outdoor fun and health benefits of nature".   It is packed with scientific study references!
      Mindfulness

      Related blog posts


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      Friday, February 1, 2019

      January Self-Care Saturdays: inspiration for your home self-care practices

      key words:  self-care, practitioner resilience, wellness, mindfulness practices, movement (walking, tai chi, qi gong), spending time outdoors, nutrition for health

      The January Self-Care Roundup

      Some inspiration from the Self-Care Saturdays theme over at our public Facebook Page


      Breathwork, the basics of breathing for self-care
      • As an east Asian medicine practitioner (acupuncturist) I have been teaching my patients diaphragmatic breathing on day one and reinforced practice throughout treatment course with related self-care homework. This breathing practice often also called "belly breathing" has been known for a long time to help us consciously switch our breathing state into the parasympathetic state (rest and digest). Because, in our modern world, most people go about their day in sympathetic state of breathing (fight or flight). Breathwork, the conscious control of your breath, is the foundation of qi gong and mindfulness practices.  More recently, research has been conducted to test these age-old practices, such as this article available on PubMed.      --Megan
      • Now, practice (self-care):
        • Take a few moments to breathe. Check in on your breathing. One hand over heart, one over your belly. Practice belly breathing. Breathe in for a count of 5 and out for a count of 7. Repeat several times.
        • If you want, you can watch this 1 minute video of a sunrise over a bay of the Salish sea while you practice.   
        • Have a wonderful day! Remember you can come back to this breath-centering any time.


      Food as Fuel, everything in moderation

      • Everything in moderation.  Coffee is more than just caffeine.  There is wisdom to consuming foods in the traditional way.
        • For example, a cup of warm black coffee (traditional) vs. iced, extra sugar, etc (modern).
        • Water is the best liquid to drink. If you drink caffeinated beverages, you need to be drinking more water than coffee. Drink less coffee than water. Stay hydrated. See your licensed and board-certified acupuncturist for more specific advice. www.nccaom.org
      • Note on coffee research from NIH:
        • “Two substances from coffee, acting together, may protect against nerve cell damage and improve behavior in animal models of Parkinson’s disease and a related disease called dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). This is according to a new study funded by NCCIH and conducted at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
        • "The two coffee components, eicosanoyl-5-hydroxytryptamide (EHT) and caffeine, were evaluated separately and together in mouse models of the two diseases. Both diseases are associated with abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. The two substances administered together for 6 months, decreased the buildup of alpha-synuclein and led to better nerve cell function, less nerve inflammation, and closer-to-normal behavior.
        • "These findings may help to explain the link between coffee consumption and reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease; however, other components of coffee—a complex mixture of more than a thousand different substances—may also be involved."
      • You can read more about nutrition for health at our Nutrition Learning with Your Family post.


       Mindset/inspiration and reflective reading
      • Setting your new year resolutions--know your "why"
      "Why? It’s a small word, but a mighty question, especially when it comes to setting a New Year’s resolution.... When you get right down to it, your why is about authenticity. And authenticity falls in lockstep with trusting yourself. What do you need this year and why?" Go to the Chopra.com article.
      • Poetry
      "Snow was falling,
      so much like stars
      filling the dark trees
      that one could easily imagine
      its reason for being was nothing more
      than prettiness."
      -Mary Oliver

       Movement:  Tai Chi

      • The health benefits of regular movement practice, particularly practicing Tai Chi, includes improved balance and strength.  More at the NY Times article, "Using Tai Chi to Build Strength".

      Outdoors/Time in Nature

      • You can read more about the health benefits of spending time outdoors in the book, Nature Fix. You can follow the link to the Amazon store for this book in paperback or audiobook at our gift ideas page under "outdoor fun and health benefits of nature".  I have been listening to the Nature Fix as a audiobook throughout January.  It is packed with scientific study references!

      Mindfulness

      Related blog posts



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