Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

3 Things Nurses Should Know About Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

According to Google, the search for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has increased over the last few weeks. This probably means multiple people are genuinely interested in knowing about this therapy. As trained caregivers, nurses are supposed to educate themselves about subjects that might help their patients to better serve them whenever possible.

Since multiple people in the UK are asking about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, we have taken the liberty to make a few basic things known about the therapy. According to Healthline:

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a treatment approach that helps you recognize negative or unhelpful thoughts and behaviour patterns. CBT aims to help you identify and explore the ways your emotions and thoughts can affect your actions. Once you notice these patterns, you can begin learning how to change your behaviours and develop new coping strategies.

Healthline

In case you are asked about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a caregiver, here are three basic things you should know about the therapy:

  1. CBT can help mental disorders that include but are not limited to PTSD, OCD, panic disorders, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, substance abuse and depression.
  2. CBT is not a cure, it will help address the issues you are facing but it will not probably eliminate them completely and they could still persist after you stop the therapy. Also bear in mind, it is not a quick fix, results will take time.
  3. CBT can also be used to help overcome grief, loss, insomnia, chronic pain, serious health diagnosis, relationship issues, divorce or breakups and general stress.

Remember to take care of yourself first at all times. If you are looking for part-time nurses to staff your establishment call us on 03300300031 or send us an email at infor@myshifts.work

Self Care

5 Self Care Tips For Nurses

Over the years, nurses who by virtue of their jobs are trained caregivers, have effortlessly taken care of generations. Nurses have taken care of societies, communities, generations and families, and they continue to do so to this day. However, nursing in 1939 where the district nurse would ride a bicycle to do community visits is now different from nursing in the 21st century.

Nurses nowadays have a lot to juggle since today’s life demands more from us with very little help coming from any direction. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the situation and many nurses have put aside self-care in order to carry out their duties faithfully. Self-care by definition as defined by the Global Self-Care Federation is:

Self-care is the practice of individuals looking after their own health using the knowledge and information available to them…. It involves making healthy lifestyle choices, avoiding unhealthy lifestyle habits, making responsible use of prescription and non-prescription medicines, self-recognition of symptoms, self-monitoring and self-management 

Global Self-Care Federation

it is imperative for nurses to prioritise self-care because a lack of adequate self-care will lead to outcomes like burnouts which will lead to mistakes, and in the nursing field, a mistake can result in a fatality. These 5 tips will help nurses in our communities take care of themselves so that they prolong their lives and other services to humankind in need of them:

  1. Try to avoid mental strain. If you feel you have mental fatigue rest for a while.
  2. Do not compare your capabilities and abilities to those of your neighbour, if your neighbour can manage 5 long days and 2 short days in a row, do not compare their strength to yours. Pick a schedule you can manage.
  3. Prioritise your mental health, if anything has the ability to temper with your sanity even by a small fraction, find a way to cut it off.
  4. Try by all means to avoid an unhealthy lifestyle.
  5. Rest, whenever possible take some time off and rest your mind and body.

If you are based in the West Midlands and looking for extra shifts, call us at 03300300031 or send us an email at info@myshifts.works

Self Care

3 Self-Care Tips That Will Blow Your Mind

When we say self-care tips, we are opening an avenue that is too broad because different people have different definitions of the term self-care. However, for today we will use the World Health Organisation’s definition of self-care which states that:

The ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider

So, based on the WHO’s definition of self-care it could be right that those self-care tips we see on social media suggesting that we block our friends and relatives from nagging us and causing us anxiety are to an extent right. Because in the end, self-care is basically making decisions each minute that will better serve you on all fronts and maintaining your physical and mental health.

We have heard so much about eating a healthy diet to maintain a healthy body, trying to stay away from things that will trigger you emotionally or mentally and exercising among other self-care tips. However, for today we will talk about three things that will enhance your self-care in a way that will blow your mind.

  1. Socialising with others. A dynamically balanced human being does not live on an island. People who eat healthily, exercise, and get enough sleep but go about declaring themselves proud loners are not taking care of themselves perfectly. We all need a vibrant or at least a good amount of human interaction with others as they also help us see the world through their eyes which is good for our mental strength.
  2. Knowing when to draw the line. Many people have problems setting boundaries because they don’t want to offend others or they don’t want to be excommunicated or be branded bad names by family, friends or colleagues. As a result, many are offended and their egos are bruised in many ways but they swallow it up because they still want to appear as that nice relative, coworker or friend. Setting healthy boundaries and speaking up or letting people know you are not happy and going to bed with a smile is the most underrated self-care tip of all time.
  3. Leaving situations that are not ideal without looking back. Be it a friendship, a relationship, a home, a job, or a school, if it is causing you sleepless nights, costing you peace and making you unhappy on many levels learn to walk away and be prepared to start afresh. One sleepless night is too many to spend it anxiously looking for a solution to pacify non-ideal situations.

Remember not to mistake self-care for self-indulgence or being selfish, just like what WHO said, it is important to maintain a healthy body and mind but not by transferring it to someone else. Read more of our self-care tips on some of our previous blogs.

Monkeypox

FAQ- Monkeypox

A few weeks ago the world woke up to more bad news, that an individual had tested positive for something called monkeypox, an orthopoxvirus that is in the family of smallpox. Since the world is still battling the CIVID-19 pandemic, it was only natural that some people would panic and speculate that this virus could be novel and lead to yet another pandemic.

We have tried to answer these frequently asked questions about monkey pox, hoping they will help you understand this outbreak and its properties.

Is Monkeypox similar to Smallpox? According to the World Health Organisation, Monkey pox is part of the Poxviridae family which includes smallpox, cowpox, horsepox, and camelpox which are all part of the same genus. However, it is milder than smallpox.

Can Smallpox vaccines and drugs be used to treat monkeypox? WHO has speculated that the vaccines and drugs used to eradicate and treat smallpox can offer some form of protection against monkeypox, but no affirmative stance has been taken by the organisation in relation to the treatment and eradication of the outbreak so far.

Who is at risk of contracting and becoming severely ill from monkeypox? Immunosuppressed people and young children are at risk of getting severely sick from monkeypox.

What is the Monkeypox estimated fatality rate? Currently, the fatality rate is estimated to be between 1 and 10%.

What are the symptoms of Monkeypox? The American CDC has said, it starts with Fever, Headache, Muscle aches, and Backache and these will follow, Swollen lymph nodes, Chills, and Exhaustion. Then they will develop a rash which usually starts on the face before spreading to other parts of the body. The incubation period of the virus is between one and three days and it can take up to 4 weeks for a person to recover.

Is monkeypox only found in homosexual men? While the majority of the cases detected so far have been detected on homosexual and bisexual men, however, anyone is at risk of getting monkey pox according to the CDC. The CDC also warned the LGBTQ community that they have a greater chance of exposure right now.

Is Monkeypox contagious? Monkeypox can spread in one of the following ways, through intimate contact during sex when someone has an active rash, through large respiratory droplets like saliva and mucus etc, through direct contact with bodily fluids or through contact with contaminated clothes or bedsheets.

How can I prevent myself from contacting monkeypox? Pre and post-exposure vaccination using smallpox vaccines, isolation and reporting any suspected cases immediately.

Check out some of our answers to some frequently asked questions on other subjects.

Digital Eye Strain

5 Tips To Combat Technology Induced Digital Eye Strain

Digital eye strain aside, we cannot deny the obvious, technology has made our lives better on too many levels. How technology revolutionised our communication from the era of communicating through the one handset landline often in the dining room where every family member would hear part of your conversation to a personal smartphone remains the greatest advantage of technology.

To a factory or production line worker who was working in a dangerous environment, you cannot convince them that a robotic machine taking their job is a bad thing. I don’t think anyone will have much success in trying to convince an old woman deep in an African village who occasionally sees her American based grandchildren on a video call that a network booster stationed next to her home might cause health problems.

I would like to speculate and say it is difficult to explain to your generation Z child how a music jukebox operated without looking like someone trying to explain the benefits of eating pork to a person who abstains from eating it for religious reasons. The truth of the matter is, technology has made our lives so easy and enjoyable it is difficult to imagine life before the internet.

However, technology has its drawbacks too, chief among them, it has brought eye strains because of more screen exposure otherwise known as digital eye strains that were minimal in the past decade or two. We have also been bombarded with too much information because of technology one has to be cautious when consuming information on the internet. That and many other drawbacks we cant list today are just a tip of how technology is interfering with the life we are living.

Over the past few years, people have increased their screen time significantly according to the University Of Leeds’s Rafe Clayton and Carmen Clayton’s report on UK Screen Use 2022, 50% of adults in the Uk spend a whopping 11 hours a day looking at different screens. Over time, this is known to cause eye strains of many forms which include but are not limited to blurry vision, dry eyes, double vision, eye discomfort, and eye fatigue just to mention a few.

In case you are concerned about your screen time exposure and you either want to stay ahead of a looming eye strain or like the rest of us, you are already suffering from one form of digital eye strain, follow these 5 tips to combat the problem.

  1. Whenever possible ensure there is ambient light wherever you are going through your phone, laptop or watching TV. Avoid using these gadgets in the dark as this strains the eyes.
  2. Activate automatic brightness on your smartphone so that it automatically adjusts to the ambient light around you.
  3. Avoid spending too much time in front of your gadgets. Curate your schedule in such a way that you will only use them when necessary
  4. Make use of colour filters, and anti-glare apps and tools available for your gadgets.
  5. if possible, take an occasional 30 minutes break from your gadget to rest your eyes before you resume using it.