Essay Sample on Stress-Related Problems: High Prevalence in Health Care Facility Visits

Introduction

Currently, the impacts of stress-related problems have risen where conditions such as stress, depression, anxiety, among other stress-related disorders, have become among the most widespread health challenges as proposed by the World Health Organization. However, the reports provided by the WHO show that conditions that are associated with stress or those that are worsened by stress accounts for more than three-fourths of health care facility visits. Due to the high level of stress-related incidents, nurses need to get involved and support mental health through the development of stress resistance and total resilience among people. Similarly, the nurses must train themselves to manage and reduce their stress not only to maintain their mental health but also to get involved and encourage healthy responses to the patients' constant worry. In this case, stress can be described as the brain's response to a particular demand. It is an inescapable and expected human experience in any given society, especially in a community that is characterized by fast and rushing change, which might not always be wrong. Thus, all life encounters cause stress for individuals.

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Stress is manifested either internally or externally through a response known as "fight or flight" or the General Adaptation Syndrome, GAS (Michalec, Diefenbeck, & Mahoney, 2013). When the body is exposed to stress, it produces hormones and chemicals that result to psychological changes such as an increase in pulse rate, muscle tension, increased respiration, and brain activities, which are all aimed at surviving. Nonetheless, the body system goes back to normal when the threat causing stress is finally over. Stressors are the causes of stress, and they can be described as the internal environmental demands that go beyond one's resources (Michalec, Diefenbeck, & Mahoney, 2013). The most common impacts of stress include low back pains, cardiovascular ailments, headaches, and gastrointestinal diseases. However, lack of supportive relationships to deal with stress may lead to depression and psychological distress. Thus, giving social support helps to ease the condition, and is more beneficial than receiving the same. Therefore since nurses are required to ensure the wellbeing of the society without being much attention on their emotional and psychological health, they should develop skills that help them to deal with stress, such as providing social support. The paper shall discuss what nursing students should learn from stress management and describe how they can develop self-care skills for themselves as caregivers. Nursing students should understand their weakness and accept it as a part of the human condition and use it to help them relate to others, and use and practice mindfulness techniques in managing stress.

What Nursing Students Learn from the Study of Stress

Approaching stress management requires one to adapt to the culture of the patient since the effectiveness of the approach depends on its compatibility with the beliefs and cultural understandings. This is because varied cultures have different opinions when it comes to stress management, where some do not believe in medication. The first step in treating stress and choosing a method of stress-management is identifying the cultural experience of the patient. Therefore the nursing student learns that not every approach taken can be useful in treating stress and its related disorders (Michalec, Diefenbeck, & Mahoney, 2013). However, stress management is aimed at reducing the frequency of stress-encouraging circumstances and increasing the individual's resistance to stress. Therefore, a nursing student should first recognize their abilities and weaknesses by accepting that they must face challenges in their profession and develop various strategies that might help encourage them in their job.

Self-Care Skills for Nursing Students

Since the nursing code is centered on safeguarding patients and colleagues from any injury, the use of mindfulness may help nursing students to reduce stress when working with patients. The nursing environment hardly provides time for meditation, although the consideration is explicitly encouraged about the care that is provided by the nurses to the patients and the ways that it impacts them professionally (Walker & Mann, 2016). Nurses are also given little encouragement when considering how they are affected by caregiving. Nursing students are trained not to show their feelings until they reach a point where they cannot express their feelings, and the impacts brought about by caring for others are hidden in their profession, enabling them to perform their tasks day-to-day. However, mindfulness assists in closing this gap, as it gives the students the appropriate equipment to explore and assess their inner self, concerning what they are experiencing with stress in the ground of the current health care (Walker & Mann, 2016). Mindfulness also helps to protect the health of future health caregivers.

According to Niven 2008, the nursing students were previously advised not to develop a very close relationship with the patients due to the fear of getting emotionally involved, which would have led to the inability to work within the goals of health care for patients and families (Niven, 2008). However, the author further probes whether it is possible to engage with others without first considering their own suffering. Thus, it is suggested that one must be aware of their pain to deal with that of others. In this case, the nursing students are required to explore the connection between their plight and concerning to others using theirs. A nurse, in this case, is seen as a wounded healer, where they do their best to ensure the wellness of the patients while they are undergoing a suffering themselves (Niven, 2008). Thus, when one realizes their separation, alienation, segregation, or being alone, see the sights of its effects, and accept it as a part of living, one can be able to use the wounded condition to relate to others. However, one is required to have deep and constructive thinking or meditation to understand their suffering, which might help in managing or coping with stress. Thus, before one treats others with hospitality by providing care to them, one must be comfortable about themselves through the acknowledgment of their wounds and realizing what they mean to them.

Nurse practitioners are regulated by the legislation, which has have caused an impact in cultivating caution and fear. This has compressed on the feelings of guilt among practitioners, unfolding to low involvement in interaction with the people who are at a higher risk. As stated by Nevin 2008, one might expose themselves to more suffering by being more exposed to other people's pain (Niven, 2008). Thus, when one becomes too much overwhelmed by other people's pain, they might be unable to provide care, comfort, and achieve professional goals (Niven, 2008). Therefore, nurses are required to bridge the gap between their emotions and professionalism using a technique that can be most effective. Mindfulness helps to solve such a predicament as it makes one feel more centered, which might reduce stress.

Mindfulness has been described as an understanding of the current and potential happenings that are beyond emotional (Walker & Mann, 2016). However, mindfulness has been theorized into two schools of thought, Langer and Kabat-Zinn. The Kabat-Zinn school of ideas is more adopted from Eastern Buddhism thinking and the use of mindful meditation as the critical modality in getting rid of mental anguish and physical illnesses (Walker & Mann, 2016). This form of mindfulness can be useful in general he3alth and wellness therapies, which can be used for the general basis of good health. The Langer ideology sees mindfulness as a tool that is used in the mental model of intellectual functioning, wellbeing, and mental health and is seen as a western method of mindful therapy. This form of mindfulness is most effective in intellectual and psychiatric centered therapies.

If nursing students integrate mindfulness techniques in their learning and practices, a significant difference in healthcare should be noted. In this case, mindfulness techniques such as breathing and meditating are believed to make a difference by increasing involvement in interaction (Pender, Murdaugh, & Parsons, 2015). This is because these techniques provide positive results on a sample of students who performed the exercises. Moreover, it is believed the meditation and breathing can help to reduce stress in a school, and clinical settings, which highly benefits the patients. Thus, mindfulness techniques should be assimilated by the higher learning institutions into the nursing curriculum.

Conclusion

Stress is caused by an inability to meet one's demand. However, there are various methods of coping with stress that can be used to deal with stress. They include the realization of one's conditions and circumstances and relating them to that of others, acceptance of one's suffering as a part of humanity, and the essential one includes the use of mindfulness techniques for self-care. Mindfulness involves the use of meditation and breathing sequence to get into the conscience of oneself. It helps one to let out the fears and feelings of guilt and empathy that might inhibit the provision of care. Thus, mindfulness is an essential method that can be used by nursing students to cope with the stress that results during their profession as caregivers, as it connects one to their anguish, which helps in relating to others and providing health care to achieve professional goals.

References

Michalec, B., Diefenbeck, C., & Mahoney, M. (2013). The calm before the storm? Burnout and compassion fatigue among undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 33. 314-320. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.01.026

Niven, E. (2008). The wounded healer - what has the concept to offer nursing? Nursing Ethics, 15(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969733007088354

Pender, N. J., Murdaugh, C. L., & Parsons, M. A. (2015). Health promotion in nursing practice, 7th edition. Boston: Pearson.

Walker, M. & Mann, R. A. (2016). Exploration of mindfulness in relation to compassion, empathy, and reflection within nursing education. Nurse Education Today, 40, 188-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016.03.005