Well, I have been away for over a year working hard on this! I am also writing a book for healthcare workers on nutrition screening. I hope to start taking personal clients soon but am building up my portfolio in the meantime. So, I thought it might be a good time to return here, change […]
Nutrition is not something we think about everyday when we all have busy working lives. Most people see food as fuel and grab something to eat on the go, not giving it much thought. Often food is cheap and fills us up so we are not too concerned about how nutritious it is. We have […]
It has been known for a long time that air quality can have a negative effect on our health and yet most of us do not take much notice of it – unless it has a particular smell. During the pandemic, we have all been advised to ventilate our homes well so that the […]
Many of us are aware of the importance of good nutrition but how do we measure it? Furthermore, is it at the front of our minds in our busy working day and are we aware of our own nutritional needs to be able to do our jobs well? Spencer and Palmer, (2012) suggest that a […]
Epigenetics is a word that we do not hear a lot about but is becoming more important as we discover what is good or bad for our health. According to Tiffon (2018) “Epigenetics refers to the control of gene expression via mechanisms not directly related to the DNA coding sequence” (p1) This means that […]
Metabolic health is becoming more evident in the research world lately and this may be because it is a subject that has been neglected greatly. Florence Nightingale was aware during the Crimean War in the 1800s that it was the infection that was killing the soldiers, more than their injuries and we have yet still […]
For most of this year, we have been trying to avoid a pandemic around the covid19 virus. Many people have not been able to avoid it as it becomes more virulent while others who have been vaccinated hope to not experience too many symptoms if they do. Debates and discussions have been evident and […]
Mental wellbeing is an important part of compassionate nutrition because it is directly connected to the vagus nerve otherwise known as the compassion nerve. The vagus nerve is part of the central nervous system and is in constant communication with the digestive system and the brain. The food that we eat therefore affects not only […]
Many of us in the western world who consider our diets to be healthy may not know enough about vitamin deficiency to be able to ensure that we are getting the correct amount of nutrients into our bodies. Modern-day food although often in abundance for many can also be seriously deficient in nutrients including […]
When we think about nutrition and stress many of us think of the term “comfort eating” however this type of eating is far from making the body comfortable when under stress and can in the long term lead to a lot of discomfort within the body. When we are feeling stressed food is one thing […]
Never before have we been in a situation like we are today and hopefully we never will be in the future. Living through a pandemic is not something I or anyone I know anticipated so we can hardly be blamed for not being prepared. We can however research and reflect upon the situation and […]
Mindfulness is a term we are hearing a lot more about especially during stressful times such as during a pandemic. Being mindful is a good reminder to us all to be more self compassionate and to become more aware of our actions and thoughts. It is a good way to look after ourselves everyday and […]
When we think about nutrition for heart health we do not often link compassion with what we eat but if we did we could be more focused upon what we need to improve our heart health. Everyone is an individual with different needs and this is how person-centred compassionate care works and can be more […]
At this time of year some of us might be feeling more festive but should we be feeling more spiritual given that it is a celebration of spiritual needs? Spiritual needs are like moral codes that we have learned throughout our life but we are not often aware of how, why or when to apply […]
Living in a pandemic is not something anyone of us would choose but when we find ourselves in this situation it is worth reflecting from time to time on how we are doing. The nurse philosopher Patricia Benner R.N Ph.D., who wrote the book From Novice to Expert, looked at how nurses became expert practitioners […]
Some of you many be old enough to remember Milgram’s Study on obedience and how he told people to give other people electric shocks if they answered a question wrong . Most of the participants followed the order even though they could hear the pain from the person next door (they were actually actors and […]
During the summer I have been reading and learning more about how compassionate nutrition can help to improve our resilience and protect us against stress and illness. As nurses we also have a responsibility to assess nutritional needs to aid healing and recovery. In light of the pandemic this has never been more important. Bringing […]
During stressful times such as the ones we are now in with the Covid19 pandemic, emotions tend to run high. We are seeing a lot of blaming and shaming going on and a projection of how people are actually feeling inside – scared. Fear makes us do strange things so it is important to understand […]
As I write this blog it is mental health awareness week in the UK. These weeks are aimed at increasing people’s awareness but also encouraging them to take action . The theme for this week is kindness, so people are being asked to think about how they can be more kinder to people with a […]
Have you ever stood in a room full of people and felt completely alone? Most people will associate with being alone but not when people are around us and that is why it feels so strange. Surely you should not feel alone if you have your friends and family or even strangers around you? The […]
All health professionals around the world are currently experiencing enormous pressure caused by the Covid 19 outbreak which I can only imagine is testing everyone’s resilience skills right now. At this moment in time we have no idea how bad it is going to get or how long it is going to last. Everyone involved […]
Recent news articles have campaigned for people to #BeKind after tragic events around a well known and well liked, TV presenter. While it is a good idea to encourage people to be kind, being kind in itself is not going to improve nursing practice. However, using real life stories and weaving them together into a […]
The above quote goes on to say that compassion is a verb – not a feeling – so it is something we do not just feel. In nursing this means we must demonstrate compassion not just say that we are compassionate. This requires an element of critical thinking while we try to work out what […]
“It takes six seconds to manage anger, it takes six seconds to create compassion, it takes six seconds to change the world”. Six Seconds The Emotional Intelligence Network Most of us in our lives will experience conflict either within ourselves or with other people as it is a natural part of the human survival mechanism. […]
I have recently been looking at self compassion in more depth and how we can develop our resilience towards stress and the harmful effects of the cortisol hormone that we produce in response to stress. Many years ago in the 1930s a researcher called Hans Selye developed an idea called the Gerneral Adaptation Syndrome where […]
When we talk about compassionate care we often talk about the theory behind the approach. This is all well and good but practitioners and indeed my own PhD supervisor also ask – “but what does it look like?”. While I was doing my own research I tried to create a narrative of what good care […]
As students are about to start their university courses all around the world it is becoming more and more important to be able to cope with and manage stress so that they can enjoy their studies and learn from the whole experience. In order to do this they must be fairly realxed to be able […]
Often there is a gap in the evidence for compassionate learning compared to the research evidence for compassionate care and yet it is the learning that informs our practice not the other way around. If we are to understand compassionate learning better then we should be more familiar with the scholarly activity of practitioners that […]
Next week I will be talking to people outside of the nursing profession about developing their self compassion skills. I am aware that they may not have ever thought about it despite being in a caring profession such as teaching of the police force. They may think that they do not have time for self […]
As a reflective blog this place helps me to understand compassion in the many different environments we find ourselves in. This month leadership is something that we all talk about and some argue that, we are all leaders but what does this really mean. In addition if we are all leaders how can we become […]
Language, including body language, is a very powerful way that we can help people to develop resilience and to recover quickly and compassionately. Used wisely it can be very effective but if not used wisely then it can do a great deal of damage. The Philosopher Martin Buber develops a strong argument for how we […]
Many organisations and professionals tend to focus more upon one area of everyday living than another while at the same time trying to deliver a compassionate service. Medical services are one example where people can become so focused upon what they are trying to achieve, they can lose sight of the other needs a person […]
There is a lot of talk about coproduction in the academic and health and social care world at the moment but there are various ideas and concepts of what it actually it. Some peope believe it has been around for a long time under different names such as involvement, engagement and empowerment, while others may […]
For some time I have been writing about narrative practice and promoting this way of working as a compassionate approach to nursing. It does not belong to nursing but is a good way to develop and make visible the evidence for nursing practice. When we talk about narrative practice we do not mean narrative therapy […]
I do not take part in any celebrations at this time of the year partly because I think it causes people too much stress but it is also a time of the year when people are expected to be more compassionate towards others which, in my view is often a false compassion. There is no […]
When things go wrong in health and social care many reports are produced making recommendations to improve practice. In most cases there is a common theme that runs throughout these reports and that is often around a failure in communication. In health and social care we are expected to take risks on a daily basis […]
Today I attended a very interesting conference on making compassion count. So many times do we hear about a lack of compassion, it can difficult to see where compassionate care does happen. Today it was all about making it happen. Two nurse researchers talked about how important it was to be human, to listen to […]
I am aware that I have not blogged for a while but I have not lost compassion for this subject that I am really passionate about. The problem with blogging is that it requires discipline which in turn develops self-compassion and resilience. Now discipline is something I am not very good at but I also […]
When I first met Tracey and people who were already familiar with her, I had no idea of all the hard work she had been putting in over the years for free! Her compassionate approach was outstanding and although not a nurse or a health professional she had a vast knowledge of B12 Deficiency. This […]
In many health and social care professions we are constantly required to demonstrate an evidence base for our practice. As a teacher I insist that no student should write or talk about anything without finding and discussing the evidence base for it. This can make talking about compassionate care very difficult as there is an […]
Most of us will belong to some sort of group where we can share our values and beliefs around some or many areas of our lives. It is part of this socialisation process that has helped us to develop compassion for each other ( Linklater 2014 see evidence page of this blog). This is what […]
When we talk about compassion it can appear to be an overwhelming subject that we might never grasp or understand everything that we need to know about it. This might make people turn away from being compassionate because it is just too hard to understand and therefore practice. Many of the posts in this blog […]
For many people of working age the workplace can be a very stressful place to be. Trying to meet demands of customers and managers can make the person in the middle feeling quite worn out. Sometimes this is referred to in the literature as compassion fatigue or burn out but in reality it probably presents […]
Resilience is a developing concept that could change the way we think about healthcare practice, but what does compassionate resilience do. As discussed previously compassion simply means understanding ourselves or others and our universal, diverse and recovery needs. Compassionate resilience therefore means developing coping skills to support our compassionate actions. For example if we wear […]
There is an argument that compassion cannot be taught but if this was the case we would also not be able to measure compassion. I have already suggested that we can do this from my research with people who use healthcare services (Ghisoni 2016) and in other posts to this blog. However if compassion can […]
When trying to explain to people what compassion looks like as my PhD supervisor would always ask, it becomes clear that it is something that we do, not something that we just talk about. Competent compassionate care can be measured therefore, by our knowledge and skills that we use when providing nursing care. The model […]
In nursing we are often being assessed for our competence either as a student or as a practitioner, as we need to re register our competence with our professional body. This is a regulatory process that all nurses need to go through to keep their registration and to continue to work in healthcare including healthcare […]
This is a tricky one but one that needs to be explored so that we can make sure we are being compassionate as much as possible. Being compassionate is not something we do once in a while just to prove we can do it, it takes practice and skill that need to be developed every […]