Kamryn Compton
Professor Goran
NSG 351
October 29th, 2020
Self-Care Exemplar
At the beginning of the semester I completed an integrative health and wellness assessment. Following the assessment, it quickly became clear there were certain aspects of my life that I could personally improve. I decided to make it my goal for the semester to try and work on being mindful of my stress level and personal well-being, especially in relation to stress surrounding school. I also made myself the goal of focusing more on my overall nutrition and sleep pattern. Personally, I felt that these goals were extremely important for me to work on and in the past I have had a tendency to neglect some of these critical contributing factors to my health and well-being. It was my hope that by achieving my goals I would not only feel better overall, more hydrated and well rested, from a health standpoint, but also to reduce some of the stress and anxiety that I experience on a regular basis and allow myself to relax and improve from a mental and well-being standpoint. By working towards achieving both of my goals I feel I am improving my overall self which is extremely important to me.
Overall, I would say that I have made some progress toward my goals, but definitely still have a lot of room for improvement. I feel my biggest step toward reaching my goals was adjusting to my new class schedule. Once I adjusted to that I was able to plan my meal times, study time, personal time, and establish a sleep pattern. I feel that I really have been trying to be more aware of my physical, mental, and emotional health. I focus a lot on trying to stay on top of my workload and meeting with tutors and doing the little things that will help ease some of my stress and anxiety. In relation to my first goal I think I could work on utilizing some relaxation techniques and really trying to limit my stress at the moment that I am feeling it, as well as maintain the more preventative work that I have prioritized recently. For my second goal, I think that establishing a regular eating pattern has definitely helped me to stay motivated and productive throughout the day. I have focused on drinking more water, but I definitely could still work on my late-night snacking while studying. Once I ended my in person clinical rotation and the labs for the semester came to an end it definitely improved my sleep schedule significantly. I now have two days a week where I can sleep in. I could still prioritize getting to bed a little earlier, though.
While I feel I have done a decent job at trying to achieve my goals I have also been able to identify some setbacks. I feel one major barrier I had while trying to achieve my goal was the current pandemic. Through this challenging time, we have all been forced to be extremely flexible. I struggle with this a little bit because I am the type of person that loves a plan, so I felt this had some impact on trying to achieve some of my goals. Also, experiencing some personal setbacks such as giving in to some late-night craving, and not trying as hard as I could to get to bed a little earlier, skipping the gym some days, or choosing juice over water. For me, it’s the little moments that create the biggest barriers on me really achieving my goals and fully realizing the benefits of those goals. So, going forward I need to work on not letting myself be a barrier to my own goals.
Another huge influencer on me achieving my goals relates to Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model and my readiness to change. I think I got stuck between stage 3 preparation and planning for change and stage 4 action and adapting new habits. I think my intentions were there, but I did not work hard enough at trying to establish new habits and maintain those new habits. I believe, in the beginning, I really was ready for change and felt prepared to put the effort in and then as the semester moved along and things got a little bit more challenging, I somewhat fell back into my old habits. I would love to try harder to improve my goals while at home and over a break to really enforce my new habits and goals and then implement them throughout next semester, I think this is a necessary change that I could make to really improve my overall success. I think trying to implement them during the school semester is a challenge for me.
I felt that the integrative health and wellness assessment not only showed me a lot about myself but will also help me become a better nurse. Perhaps the most important takeaway from this assessment that I can apply to patient care in my future career as a nurse is patience. When I work with patients to achieve their goals, I will be able to relate and recognize that everyone is human and adopting new habits and achieving new goals is challenging and not always going to happen instantly. I will be able to assess my client and their readiness to change relating to Prochaska’s Transtheoretical model in an attempt provide the best individualized care for my patients. I hope to be able to work to achieve my personal goals so that I can be the best student, and one day best nurse for my patients.
