The Ritual Nurse

Mindfulness Unmasked: the science behind WHY the DBY methods WORK

• Riva - The Ritual Nurse • Season 1 • Episode 4

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What if you could transform your nursing career by embracing mindfulness as your ally against burnout? That's exactly what we're unpacking in this episode of the Ritual Nurse Podcast. Join me as I share a pivotal moment from my nursing school days that changed the trajectory of my career. We dive into the science of mindfulness, revealing its powerful role in bolstering resilience within the nursing profession. This isn't about buzzwords; it's about the practical understanding of evidence-based practice and current research in the field; ensuring you walk away with actionable strategies to support your well-being and nurture a community of support and care.
 
 Coffee, Crystals, Divination: This week, along with the science, we're embracing the comforting warmth of our featured healing beverage, the "medicine ball tea". As cold season looms, let this mint, lemon, and honey infusion be your soothing companion. Additionally, we seek wisdom from aquamarine, our stone of the week, guiding us toward emotional depth and serenity. And don't miss our tarot reflection with the Four of Pentacles, as we explore how to maintain balance and break free from a scarcity mindset in challenging times. With practical tips on setting boundaries and embracing gratitude, this episode is your resource for maintaining health and wellness, even when resources are stretched thin.

Hey! Make sure you subscribe to stay connected. Love a nurse? Who doesn't! Share with all the nurses you know. The more we reach, the more we help. We feel like no one deserves center stage focus more than nurses and our mission is to reach the millions of superstars out there. We'd love to hear your stories, your adventures, your wins, and especially your needs and questions! Email us at hello@ritualnurse (dot) com. Also, you can send us fan mail! Use the link at the beginning of the show notes. Resources, classes, blogs, and podcast info can be found on our home site at TCTH.org. The Ritual Nurse Podcast is part of The Code Team educational platform.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Ritual Nurse, where healing meets humor, science and a touch of magic. Hi, welcome to the Ritual Nurse podcast. My name is Reva, I am your friendly ritual nurse and, if you are just joining us, this is episode four of the Ritual Nurse Podcast. If you've been listening along with us this entire time, welcome back, so excited to have you.

Speaker 1:

So today's focus is going to be on the science behind mindfulness as it relates to its impact on resilience. And I know mindfulness and burnout and not so much resilience, but I think it's kind of getting there Really kind of feel like buzzwords sometimes, especially if you're on websites like LinkedIn or like nursingcom. And I don't necessarily think that it's intentional. I think maybe it might be just the natural consequences of social media kind of diluting the impact due to oversaturation. Maybe I'm not sure. But today we're going to focus on the science behind it. In episodes one, two and three we went through a series of skill building activities, if you will, to focus on building intentional space for yourself to begin the process of debriefing with yourself, kind of like the first step of the platform really to do some pretty deep inner work and self-healing and increase your personal resilience. So if you haven't listened to episodes one, two and three already have a listen to them. Listening to them after you listen to this one is just fine. The good thing about the Ritual Nurse Podcast format is that it's short form content, so you don't have to have a bunch of anxiety or overwhelm in feeling like, oh man, I have three whole episodes to catch up on, because the podcast is only about 30 minutes. So it's really easy to consume the material and the short form content makes it perfect for nursing schedules. All right, so first, some housekeeping. New episodes drop every Wednesday morning. Those are the regular series episodes. There are going to be some special episodes that drop intermittently and I haven't figured out yet what day of the week I want to launch those. So as those start coming up, I will let you know ahead of time, either on our socials or the website or, of course, the podcast itself, when those are going to be dropping. And definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1:

I encourage you guys to email me your stories about your experiences, your first year of nursing, and which experience, basically, you'll never forget, like it was such a core experience that it really changed your nursing, maybe even changed you. I'm going to share one in a little bit. That happened when I was in nursing school. That actually changed the trajectory of my nursing. Yeah, it was really. It was really impactful. So email me your stories about that to hello at ritualnursecom.

Speaker 1:

Or if it's something that you want to fire off in text or just have feedback that you want to give me in text, you can use the unique link that is at the top of the show notes and it's on all. It's on Spotify, it's on Apple, wherever you get your podcasts from, at the top of the show notes is an included link that you can click and send us a text message. And then we use the hashtags heal first, nurse better and heal thrive nurse on most of our posts. So if you guys are sharing content or stories or just want to be included in the community hashtags, those are two phenomenal ones that you can use, and also, you know, hashtag the ritual nurse, of course, as well. But that's just some basic housekeeping and make sure you subscribe and please share with all of the nurses that you know.

Speaker 1:

The information in these podcasts is designed to focus on the nurse first and nothing else, and there's not really much out there content wise. That's designed to focus on us first and foremost and put our well-being first above anything else. So if you know other nurses, love other nurses which I know we all do then share this podcast with them. Other nurses which I know we all do then share this podcast with them. I guarantee that there's going to be stuff in these podcasts that impacts their life in just such an amazing, incredible way. So, housekeeping over, I did mention that I was going to, you know, share a personal antidote.

Speaker 1:

And so when I was a nursing student, you know you go through your regular clinical rotations in the different genres, subject topics, however you want to phrase it, and we were in pediatrics at the time and I actually was able to do a rotation in the pediatric intensive care unit or PICU, and I remember gosh, this. It fundamentally changed the trajectory of my nursing. I remember being on the floor. It was a. It was a pretty smooth shift at the time low patient census, thank goodness. The nurse that I was assigned to was fabulous, very personable, compassionate. They got a notification that a trauma was coming in and I began to feel apprehensive. I went to nursing school a little bit later than some of my cohort. I was, I think, about 30, 31 when I started, so a little bit older than the traditional student, I was a single mom and I had two kids at home and I began to feel a little anxious knowing that this trauma was coming in and the trauma that arrived was an infant I will never forget.

Speaker 1:

My mind has kind of blurred out everything before this particular memory and everything after it, which is a common occurrence when something traumatic is experienced. But the memory that I have starts with me realizing I'm standing in the middle of the hallway facing this patient's room. The way the hallways were it was kind of like a T intersection and of course it's the PICU. So the walls of the hospital rooms are usually glass, you know, for observation of the patients, et cetera. Most ICUs are like that.

Speaker 1:

I'm looking at this hospital bed with an infant in the middle of it and two healthcare providers on either side of the bed looking down at the patient. One of them put his hands on his head, kind of in that body language position of emotional overwhelm or frustration, perhaps Just a lot of emotion. The patient wasn't moving. I didn't know at the time. I know the story of the patient. Of course I'm not going to say anything whatsoever because that would be HIPAA. But I didn't realize until the nurse that I was precepting with gently touched my arm and motioned for me to you know, come with her that tears were streaming down my face. And if I could share with you the story of the patient, you would understand why and the heartbreak behind it.

Speaker 1:

But that image stands out in my brain of that little tiny body laying in the middle of that bed, motionless at the end of that hallway, and suddenly realizing that I had been crying enough, that just soundlessly apparently, that teardrops had dropped on the top of my scrubs. And the most unique thing about that, I think, is that when the nurse, kind of you know, brought me with her to the nursing station, they also had tears. And there was no one, not a single person, that shamed me, that made fun of me, that was irritated at me or that acted like my display of emotion was untoward in any way. They all felt the same emotions and were unabashed about it. And I thought, when I think back upon it, that was really unique, because sometimes it's not like that on nursing floors. And the compassion that these nurses had, not just towards the patient but towards each other and towards me as a nursing student made such a lasting impact on me.

Speaker 1:

Now I do have to say that I have never worked in pediatrics or PICU or NICU as an ICU nurse. I've always been on the big people side of it. I know that it's because I had that experience and realized not because anyone did anything negative but I realized this is not an area that I think I'm equipped to be in. Emotionally I'm okay with that. So I have never worked in the little people side. So when I worked in the ER I did not work on the peds ER side, I worked in a large enough you know facility that they had them separated and triage, would you know, separate peds from adult ER. So I have just worked with the, with the big people for emergency and critical care. But that memory was a really foundational, core memory and it revolves around emotional response and physiological response to the exposure to secondary trauma. The psychomedical speak for describing the memory that I just atmospherically, visually, descriptively related to you and that has a lot to do with how our experience as nurses, and like the context around us that surrounds us every day when we are nursing, affects us. I've had other experiences, you know, of course, along the way as a nurse that impacted me.

Speaker 1:

But part of my research, when I started focusing on burnout in nurses, really took a look at the surroundings. What specifically was causing the burnout in nurses that was then impacting their resilience and lowering their resilience. It's kind of a chicken and the egg situation in terms of how much resilience is present first and how much resilience is impacted by continuous exposure as to how the individual nurse is able to cope with the challenges and adversity. So in research I said we're going to talk about the science behind this.

Speaker 1:

In research, a lot of the contemporary research that focuses on resiliency of course needs a validated and verified tool of measurement. It's not enough to compare qualitative data and qualitative data is more so the lived experiences or subjective data that's collected about the lived experiences expressed by the participants in the study. The quantitative data is the math stuff, the statistics stuff, that kind of thing, and neither data is more important than the other. That's not what I'm driving at and neither data is more important than the other. That's not what I'm driving at, it's just more so how the data is used in an analytical sense and what the purpose of or what the focus of the research is at the time and a lot of their studies on resilience use a tool called the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Now, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was developed by Dr Catherine Connor and Dr Jonathan Davidson. Dr Connor is a psychiatrist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina. Her research heavily involves looking at stress, social anxiety, broad anxiety and resilience itself. Dr Davidson is a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral science, also at Duke University, and his studies focused heavily on PTSD as well as a host of other psychiatric topics.

Speaker 1:

However, right now we are getting close to our 15 minute break point. So when we come back from break we are gonna talk about what the data actually showed in the research from using that tool and more of the science behind what we're doing and why it works. So if you, as a nurse, are on the clock and you are headed back from a break, have a great rest of your shift and if you're on lunch, then continue listening with us and enjoying the rest of the podcast. Otherwise, we will see you when you get back or on the commute. All right, welcome back. So what did the data show in the research? Well, when they looked at the Connor Davidson resilience scales before and after, the nurses did the mindfulness techniques and develop the skill sets, they found an absolute increase and I don't mean absolute as in a mathematical sense, but I mean a legitimate data bump and increase in resilience in the nurses that were participating in the program.

Speaker 1:

Now, there's a reason for this, because there's science behind why things like the break room breath work, which is what we're calling the two different breath methods that we went over in episodes two and three, or like the 30 second body scan there's reasons why that works. So when we are exposed to trauma, our body kicks into our sympathetic nervous system, which will release catecholamines like epinephrine and norepinephrine, raises our heart rates, raises our cortisol levels, and doing breath work and doing mindful, like intentional 30 second body scans, actually activates the parasympathetic nervous system intentionally and in doing so that lowers the amount of catecholamines, lowers the cortisol levels, it can stimulate the vagus nerve and that will slow down our heart rate. We are oxygenating better. There's something interesting about the breath work. You'll notice that in the breath work there's different periods of holding your breath. Now the increase in carbon dioxide actually lowers the heart rate also, so you're really creating kind of a positive feedback loop in a calming sense instead of a stimulating sense. So there's medical science behind why these techniques work, and research shows that there's absolutely improvement in using these techniques.

Speaker 1:

On resilience itself, now, some of the components that make up resilience are really unique, and if you understand the components, I think you'll be able to understand why having increased resilience is really important. So some of the components that make up our resiliency are our ability to adapt, to change, our ability to deal with adversity that comes along or unexpected changes that come along, our ability to cope with stress, our ability to stay focused and think clearly, our ability to not get discouraged in the face of failure, our ability to handle unpleasant feelings like anger, pain, sadness, even fear. And, of course, when we're talking about the ability to adapt or cope or handle or to stay focused, we're talking about utilizing these abilities within the context of exposure to trauma, or secondary trauma or stress, and so, or secondary trauma or stress, and so resilience, when you think about all these components, is really a life skill, and for nurses, for healthcare providers, really across the board. Our jobs involve a consistent and pretty constant application of stressful, sometimes traumatic, sometimes constant exposure to secondary trauma in context of our surroundings. So having resilience is very necessary, both on a psychological and a physiological level, to thrive in your chosen profession and not have it negatively affect your health, negatively affect your psyche, your emotional state, your mental health. So increased resilience is definitely something that I hope research continues to develop. I hope research continues to find more useful methods and tangible methods for people in all types of situations to utilize the skill sets and practice. But until then, we're going to use what evidence-based practice has shown us works very well. If you haven't listened to the other episodes, I encourage you to go do so, because the foundational building of skill sets that we did in those three episodes really set a great framework for creating intentional space for learning how to do breath work and for learning how to do that body scan. You become more self-aware and it becomes muscle memory for you to be able to do these exercises and figure out your emotional and physiological response in the context of the events surrounding you, of the science behind why these things work and the science on resilience showing that implementing these things work. If you have more questions, feedback, especially stories of using, like the break room, breath work or maybe a 30 second body scan and how did it change your response to the event that you were facing. Send them to me. I am not going to use them in research, I just want to hear your experiences and how well it's working for you. If there's things that you would add or take away from you, can send those to hello at ritualnursecom.

Speaker 1:

Now we're going to get into, of course, our favorite segment and I have to grab the cards over here. So our featured beverage is kind of a well, I mean, I think it's kind of funny and apropos for the moment. I'm sure many of you have been dealing with a lot of upper respiratory infections lately. I know one hit our household pretty hard. So featured beverage for episode four is going to be let's say, it's a certain kind of tea made by a company that has mint and honey and steamed lemonade and two different kinds of tea. So there's a mint tea and what used to be kind of like a peach or fruit based tea. They don't use that tea anymore.

Speaker 1:

However, if you're going to duplicate this beverage at home and actually now that I think about it, it's not even on their menu, so I can just say the words but if you're going to make medicine ball tea at home, you're going to want to take your favorite lemon, citrus or stone fruit tea and you're going to want to take your favorite lemon, citrus or stone fruit tea and you're going to want to combine it with a really strong mint tea. So I'd say two of the mint and one of the fruit and brew a good 16 ounces of hot water. You're not going to use that full amount. You're going to use about eight ounces of hot water and about eight ounces of steamed or heated lemonade. Or you could use the 16 ounces of hot water mix in a good two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. And then you're going to want to add a pretty hefty serving of either honey or agave for soothing the bronchial tract in your throat. But this tea is a go-to for me anytime that I sense I have any kind of upper respiratory infection, head cold, stuffy nose or I start feeling one come on. The combination of the mint and the sweet and the citrus and the fruit just seems to do the trick. I'm not sure why, but that is definitely the featured beverage for this episode.

Speaker 1:

For the crystal of the week, again, I'm going to use the crystal oracle deck called Crystal Portal from Moonstruck Crystals. If you look at our socials you'll see pictures of the deck itself and I, like I mentioned last week, tag the creator, but this is the perfect way to figure out what our crystal is for the week. So let's see what we come up with for this week. It's going to be interesting because this topic and one came flying out, and it is aquamarine. Oh gosh, this image is beautiful for serenity. So let's see what aquamarine has to cover the cards, and the foiling on the cards is just gorgeous.

Speaker 1:

So the aquamarine card called serenity is calmness and wisdom. So this card invites you to embody tranquility and find solace in moments of stillness. There is a whale on the card and it symbolizes emotional depth and wisdom and the power of introspection. So embrace this moment of serenity to release stress, find inner peace and reconnect with your inner wisdom. Allow the gentle energy of aquamarine and the soothing presence of the whale to guide you towards a state of deep relaxation and emotional balance. So it's again reminding you to dive deep within yourself to find the serenity that resides at your core. Love it. So, aquamarine, those are absolutely beautiful stones. I do believe that they are a birthstone. Heck, it might even actually be my birthstone as a March Aries and for our tarot poll. Let's see what we have for our tarot poll.

Speaker 1:

I have so much fun doing this segment. I may have to do like a special segment on a full reading. I don't know if I don't know, you guys are going to have to let me know in the show feedback or the show comments. People have been commenting on Spotify and Apple podcasts. You guys are gonna have to let me know if you would want just a standalone segment. Occasionally that is just a full read of some kind. But let's see what our tarot card, our divination, is for this week. Nothing is jumping out at the moment.

Speaker 1:

So we have the four of pentacles and the crystal is actually hidden knight. And hidden knight is not a typical crystal that I am familiar with. Actually, I know people that know me. It looks like I have all of the crystals, like all and every single one of them, but I promise I don't possible challenge accepted. I don't know. We'll have to see, uh, how many are out there and how many I don't have and just how many bookshelves I need to build to get them. So, hidden knight, this is about control. So balance and gratitude and healing.

Speaker 1:

The four of pentacles usually indicates having a scarcity mindset. You may be clinging on to every single penny in fear that you may lose it all, or you may be struggling with your finances. Focus on finding a healthy balance of spending and saving and remember to practice gratitude. A scarcity mindset is actually something that is heavily connected to stress and anxiety and trauma. Go figure, a scarcity mindset is based on the thinking that people focus on the scarcity of something and it causes fear or anxiety and when it comes to nursing, a lot of times, one thing that can cause us a lot of fear and anxiety is the focus on the lack of resources or the lack of staffing.

Speaker 1:

Now, I do know, you know the divinatory meaning did say you know, remember to practice gratitude. I'm not here to tell you to be grateful for pizza or whatever else might be provided. What I am here to do is to tell you to focus on the resources that you have for maintaining your own health and wellness and well-being and the boundaries that you have that are included in those resources when it comes to, perhaps, the scarcity of staffing or the scarcity of resources, and not be not afraid to set those limits and maintain those boundaries and focus on the things that you can control and not so much the things that you can't control. That will just increase stress and anxiety. But that is our coffee crystals and divination segment for the week. Very interesting one. Really. Like the reminder in terms of bringing up the scarcity mindset.

Speaker 1:

If you guys have any feedback regarding a scarcity mindset in nursing and how that may or may not have affected you, I'd love to hear it. Don't forget to subscribe, follow, definitely, definitely, share with any and all nurses that you know. I was super excited, speaking of which, when I looked at my podcast statistics and realized that we are now we're approaching 200 downloads in just like the first what? 18 or so days, actually not even that 16 days of being launched. It's super exciting because we are currently in I'm looking right now, let's see. So we are in 43 different cities around the world, and we are in 43 different cities around the world, and we are in 10 different countries and territories around the world as well. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about that and to encourage you to keep sharing with as many nurses as you know.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Take care of yourselves. Take care of yourselves first. Don't be afraid to put yourselves first, because you deserve it and I love your faces. This is your Ritual Nurse, reva. Thanks for tuning in to the Ritual Nurse podcast. You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts, so don't forget to subscribe and stay connected For all our social links free education classes, blogs and podcast notes with resources. Head over to tcthorg. Until next time, love your faces.