This week, I was asked by the Australian College of Nursing to write an article for The Australian Health & Hospitals Bulletin, the topic was the effect of climate change on health.
Enjoy :)
https://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/facility-admin/article/protecting-the-vulnerable-from-climate-change-1233190804#axzz5XLW96tyo
Jen has worked in a variety of environments from remote Australia, to Saudi Arabia and Antarctica as well as everywhere in between. Currently a PhD candidate focused on mitigation strategies for occupational violence, Jen is always looking to make workplace culture safer, supportive and adaptive.
Positive Behaviour Support is a person centred approach used to assist in managing situations where challenging behaviours may occur or be at risk of occurring. The approach involves the whole support team; support workers, parents or significant others and therapists. Positive Behaviour Support is about creating an environment where an individual can be supported to communicate their needs in a positive and safe way.
…we get distracted, focused on other things, do mundane tasks on autopilot, basically live in the future or the past, but not the present. Our lives and worlds are full of actions. We are taught at a young age the value of multi-tasking, planning for the future and goal setting. Buddhist teaching refer to the monkey mind, a mind that leaps from thought to thought, idea to idea, unsettled, restless and easily distracted.
Burnout is a psychological syndrome characterised by overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of frustration, anger and cynicism and a sense of ineffectiveness and failure. The experience impacts social, personal and work functioning. So how do you recognise it and how do you prevent it?
A recent study of health professionals found a direct correlation between emotional intelligence scores and well-being indicators like life satisfaction and happiness. The researchers “suggest an underlying process by which high emotional intelligence may increase well-being.... by reducing the experience of stress.” Emotional intelligence has also been linked to leadership effectiveness and improved personal relationships, because people with higher emotional intelligence have the ability to be self and socially aware.
“Holy SHIT, holy SHIT, holy SHIT”
My fight or flight response was fully activated – adrenaline was making my voice and hands shake, I was in charge, I did not have the luxury of loosing my shit, I was standing in my pajamas in front of 40 amazing people who had responded to my search and rescue horn without a single clue what to do.
Fortunately I had learnt many years earlier the power of mindfulness and most importantly mindfulness of breath. The ability to quite your panicked self talk and focus your mind on the task at hand, all by taking a slow grounding breath.
All that is required to elicit a stress reaction in the body is the perception of potential harm, which explains why stress is such a universal human malady today.
So what can you do
As it turns out, a lot of the common sense advice you've been given over the years – is right.
Does climate change really have an impact on health? Would we really notice if the earth’s temperature rose by 1°C? These were questions registered nurse Jennifer Wressell asked herself, not realising the links between climate change and the impacts on her practice. Involvement in a climate forum exposed her to statistics about the impact of climate on health outcomes, particularly of the vulnerable. She reports here on how healthcare practitioners can make a difference.
Read more: http://hospitalhealth.com.au/content/facility-admin/article/protecting-the-vulnerable-from-climate-change-1233190804#ixzz5XTxoCVdC
Mindfulness training is a tool that can reestablish the links between thinking, feeling and doing, so that you are far more effective and productive.
