As nurses, we see and experience things that most people run from. This may seem cliche to say these days, but it’s true. Many people outside of healthcare have no idea what it’s like to sit with a person you don’t even know, so that they don’t die alone, while a worldwide pandemic prevents their loved ones from visiting. Most people never had to witness the anguish on someone’s face as the only access they had to their dying loved one was through an iPad screen or window. This takes a very real toll on nurses and other healthcare workers.

We are very familiar with the mental and even physical effects that the stressors of nursing have on us. However, what’s often ignored is its effect on our spiritual health. There may be a variety of reasons for this. Among them is the connection that many place between spiritual health and religion. We’ll talk more about the difference between the two, but this connection often leads folks to avoid any talk of spiritual health, much to their own detriment and that of other nurses.

Ok, but what IS spiritual health? A quick Google search gives us this definition for spiritual:

“A dimension of wellness focuses on meaning, purpose, and connection, encompassing belief, values, and a sense of connection to something larger than oneself.”

Understanding Spiritual Health in Nursing

Now that we’ve identified what spirituality is, let’s talk about what it’s not. Spirituality is not equal to religion. Yes, if someone has a faith tradition, it will influence their definition of spiritual health, as well as the habits and routines that they use to nurture it. However, spiritually does not automatically mean religion. In my book, The Restored Nurse, I share some of my own spiritual journey as a Christian. Regardless of your religious background, you may find some of yourself in my story.

You can be spiritual, without being religious.

Ok, now that we’ve established that spirituality is not about religion, let’s look at how spiritual health can impact your emotional resilience and mental health. An article from Mass General Brigham hospital shows us how spiritual health can affect mental health in a variety of ways. (1)

• Purpose and Meaning: Spiritual health practices can help us to gain a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives. In a time when many people struggle with a lack of these things, this can be a powerful tool.
• Supportive Community: Many spiritual habits include spending time with people who share your beliefs and values. This provides a base for the sort of supportive community that we really all need in the difficult times of our lives.
• Hope, Self-Esteem, and Self-Worth: Spirituality, even when separate from religion, can help us to see that there is hope beyond our darkest moments. It can help us to believe in ourselves more and improve our sense that we matter.
• Tools: Spiritual practices can provide he sort of tools that we need to better care for ourselves. 

On a more clinical level, spiritual health habits have been shown to help with addiction, depression, and even lowering suicide risk by as much as 68% in women and 33% in men. (1)

Common Challenges Nursing Face in Maintaining Spiritual Health

It’s among the greatest of ironies that the very people who dedicate their lives to caring for others often ignore the very care that they, themselves, need. Mental healthcare among nurses has almost become a taboo subject, with a large stigma being attached to it. Spiritual healthcare may not have the same level of taboo or stigma, but mostly because it simply gets ignored. I’d say that stigma and lack of awareness are the start of the challenges nurses face when it comes to spiritual health.

Stress and Emotional Exhastion: Let’s be real here, nurses are TIRED. Not just a physical kind of tired that can be fixed by a good nap or a weekend of sleeping in. I’m talking about the kind of tired that you feel DEEP down inside. The kind of tired that has you driving home from work, crying in the car, for no reason, which I did recently.

The job of a nurse has always been hard, but it seems in the past few years, since COVID, it’s gotten worse. I believe that many nurses went into COVID at their limit emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and came out of it with nothing left. This is why we saw 100,000 nurses leave during COVID and expect nearly a million more to leave by 2027. (2)

The existing emotional exhaustion, the stress that’s a natural part of the job, and the many stressors that are NOT normal are huge factors making spiritual health even harder for nurses.

Compassion Fatigue: I won’t go much into this, cause I covered this in some detail in last week’s blog post. Still, understand that it is a factor that affects spiritual health.

Time constraints and lack of self-care focus: Some time ago, I asked nurses on TikTok to identify their biggest barriers to self-care. Time was one of the top answers. We work long hours, weekends, nights, holidays, etc, 24 hours, 7 days a week, Nurses are working to care for other people. On top of that, many of us have lives outside of work, regardless of what our employers may want. This all leaves us with limited time for self-care, especially spiritual health.

Practical Strategies for Nurturing Spiritual Health

Personal reflection and mindfulness: Recently, on LinkedIn, I shared a post on mindfulness. In its most basic form, mindfulness is about understanding yourself both mentally and physically. If you’re interested in learning more about mindfulness, I’m planning a Mindfulness Workshop.

Meditation: While meditation is a common practice among a wide range of religions, it’s an amazing practice that you can benefit from, even if not religious.

Gratitude: This is another topic I discuss in The Restored Nurse. This can be a gratitude journal that you write down 3-5 things you are grateful for every day, or simply thinking about what you’re grateful for as you drive to work.

Finding meaning in your work: I recently spoke at a pinning ceremony for a nearby nursing school. One of the things I told these soon-to-be nurses was that if the work you do doesn’t mean anything to you, then it will become harder and harder to do it year after year. If you can’t find meaning in the current work you are doing, seek out work that does give you meaning.

Community: We are made for community. This can be as simple as spending time with friends or as big as religious or other gatherings with people who share your beliefs and values. You NEED those relationships. They will feed your spiritual health, but also your mental and relational health.

Prayer, music, time outside, and many other things can feed your spiritual health. If you’re not sure which practice is best for you, just start doing SOMETHING. Take the time to learn what works best for you. The truth is that even as you try some things and find that some don’t work as well as others, your spiritual health will benefit, even from this process of discovery.

Conclusion

If you get nothing else from this post, remember that you are a spiritual being, even if not a religious one. As you work to take care of all the other parts of yourself and your life, don’t ignore this one. If you do, you may make great advancements in your life, only to find that you still feel empty. That emptiness is within your spirit. Be sure to fill it.

REFERENCES

1. https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/spirituality
2. https://www.ncsbn.org/news/ncsbn-research-projects-significant-nursing-workforce-shortages-and-crisis

The post Spiritual Health for Nurse: Why it Matters and How to Nurture It appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Gratitude doesn’t mean pretending that bad or difficult things do not exist. This does not mean ignoring our struggles. Rather, it means being intentional about focusing our minds on the things that are going well in our lives. So, here are 10 Reasons Gratitude Matters.

1. It Changes Your Brain

A 2016 article in INC. magazine pointed to several different studies that showed that gratitude can actually change our brains. In this article, Harvard researcher Shawn Achor said taking time to write down 3 things you are grateful for daily for 21 days can increase your optimism with the effect lasting up to six months. Other studies mentioned in this article show that gratitude can increase your willpower (who couldn’t use more of that), help you stay calm, and even boost employee morale (another thing grossly lacking in nursing today.

2. Help you be more grateful

In that same article, a study found that people taken through a gratitude experiment felt more gratefulness even after the study had ended. This isn’t to say that they came out of the study with rose-colored glasses, unable to see the things that were wrong in the world. They didn’t wake up in the world of Free Guy, where nobody had a good day cause they all had GREAT days. Rather it showed that when they were looking for things to be grateful for, they became better at finding them.

Have you ever bought a new car, or were even shopping for a specific type of car, and suddenly you see them everywhere? It’s as if they barely even existed until you got one and now EVERYONE has one. The reality is that there are likely no more of them around you than there were before. Rather, what has happened is that your recent purchase or interest in that car has placed that car in the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is part of the brain that helps to filter the input that is important from what is not. We are constantly surrounded by so much information that our brains would shut down (or something) if they tried to process it all. So, the RAS takes those things that we are actively thinking about and helps us to filter all the inputs in order to find more of those things. Who knows, maybe this is one of those changes within our brain that we talked about in #1. In other words, the more you LOOK for things to be grateful for, the more you will SEE things to be grateful for.

3. It can improve your relationships

A study performed at Harvard Medical School found that couples that practiced a habit of expressing gratitude for their partner felt more positive about them. It also showed that they were more comfortable talking about concerns about their relationship with their partner.

Again, this is not a case of looking at your relationships through rose-colored glasses. Rather, it’s another example of what we talked about in #2. The more we look for and express the things we are grateful for in our partner, the easier it becomes to see them. I think it is simply human nature to focus on the negatives. This seems especially true in relationships. Expressing gratitude for our partners forces us to stop looking at the negatives for a short time and see the positives. Want to take it to another level, try expressing gratitude FOR your partner, TO your partner.

This part is not just between partners, however. This will work on literally all the relationships in your life. Want to improve your relationships with your children, express gratitude for and to them. Want to see more good in your boss, look for things to be grateful for (Yes, I know this one can be really hard sometimes). Want to have a better working relationship with your coworkers, express gratitude for and to them.

4. It can improve your heart health

Another Harvard Medical School study, from 2019, showed that gratitude can even improve your heart health. In this study, they looked at people with heart failure. Those that kept a daily habit of listing three to four things they were grateful for had decreased levels of inflammatory hormones and maintained a lower heart rate during exercise after as little as two months. Another study published in 2017 seems to confirm these results, showing improvements in biomarkers that have been linked to morbidity in heart failure patients. Gratitude is literally good for your heart.

5. It can make you happier

This one links back to the reticular activating system. As mentioned above, the more you look for things to be grateful for, the easier you will be able to find them. Heck, do this long enough and you will find things to be grateful for when you aren’t even trying. According to a 2019 article in Positive Psychology, there is a direct link between gratitude and happiness.

Think about it. We’ve all worked with that person who could see the negative in every situation and was usually all too ready to share it with anyone who would listen and even those that were not listening. Those people ALWAYS seem to be so unhappy. Their RAS is working to show them all the negative things around them and it is making them miserable, maybe without even realizing it. The opposite can happen if you work at it. You can learn to see the good things around you and, as a result, train your RAS to focus on those things. This can’t help but make you happier, in the same way, the person constantly focusing on the negative will make you miserable.

6. It can improve self-esteem

A 2011 study on the positive effects of gratitude showed that people who had a regular habit of gratitude reported greater life satisfaction and self-esteem. A habit of gratitude can come in the form of a gratitude journal. This journal can be anything from something you write daily, sharing your thoughts on things you are grateful for in full paragraph form to as simple as taking time each day to list 3-5 things you are grateful for.

One thing I will say about this one is this; while simply taking the time to think about what you are grateful for can be powerful, writing it down takes it to a whole different level. Something powerful happens within our brains when we take the time to write stuff down. It forces our brain to concentrate on it. It helps us to remember it. It also provides us with a record that we can go back to. On the days when it might be really hard to think of things, you are grateful for, going back to the things you have written down on previous days can serve as a powerful reminder.

7. It can decrease materialism and improve wellbeing

At the onset, it might not seem obvious how materialism can be linked to a lower sense of well-being. However, if you give it a little thought, you know that you’ve known people that never seem satisfied with what they had. They were always buying new stuff in a never-ending question for happiness. They never seemed to realize that the things they thought were making them happy, or the next thing they thought would really never do.

A study in 2014 formalized this link. It found that materialism was negatively associated with well-being. It also found that people who practiced gratitude had the opposite effect, experiencing a greater sense of well-being. Who couldn’t use more well-being in their life?

8. It can help with depression

Now, before you roll your eyes, I’m not saying that this can CURE depression. Depression is often far too complicated for a single tool or method to cure it. However, several studies did show that it HELPED with depression. If you struggle with depression, you need to seek professional help. However, I would encourage you to also consider starting a gratitude habit.

9. It can reduce blood pressure

A study from 1977 showed improvements in blood pressure in study participants who “count their blessings” at least once per week. Ok, I know that is an old study and, therefore would not be considered significant if writing a research paper. But, this is not a research paper. As a person who had high blood pressure. I think that this is something I’m going to add to my routine. I will also continue to take my meds, exercise regularly, and work to lose weight, but if this can help too then it’s work trying.

10. It can help make people smile

Ok, this one is not so much about you. Hey, all the benefits don’t have to be for you. I spent most of my career in the emergency room. Sadly, this means that most of the people we care for go somewhere else to get better. This results in us often getting very few thank you’s from patients or families. I know we don’t do it for that reason, but man it’s powerful when it comes. A simple thank you to the server at the restaurant can change her entire day. Saying thanks to your partner, even for the smallest thing can make them smile. Just go out and show gratitude to the people around you. See how many of them will smile as a result.

Be grateful

This week is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. For many, this has a religious connotation. However, the benefits listed here are for everyone. Take some time to be grateful today… and every day.

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