Published on: 03 November 2018
Last Updated on: 19 July 2019
Many artists use art not only to express their ideas and thoughts but also to relieve stress. Artists claim that creating art can provide a catharsis for difficult emotions, distract you from your worries and much more. Also, getting into the state of “flow” can also be restorative for your mind. As all the mentioned benefits aren’t enough, you will get a beautiful piece of art in the end.
It is essential to know that art shouldn’t be created and enjoyed only by those who are talented or artistically inclined. Art should be created and enjoyed by everyone. Studies show that art therapy can help you relieve anxiety, depression, and stress. So, if you are feeling tense and need a natural and fun way to unwind, it’s time to get some brushes, colors and a canvas and delve into an art activity. Here are some great art ideas for stress relief recommended by Mac Fine Art galleries.
Create Something Beautiful:
Some people are deeply talented and able to create lifelike paintings, funny cartoons, powerful drawings and similar with ease. Other people may even experience difficulties trying to draw stick figures and hearts. If you are like one of the latter, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try art therapy. In fact, when it comes to stress management and enjoying the benefits of art, talent or the end product don’t matter at all. It’s all about the process of creating art and expressing your feelings. However, if you are not comfortable expressing yourself through a drawing, you could create something that’s just for you in your own personal drawing journal. You don’t have to show it to your friends or someone else.
Create Your Own Mandala:
Art therapists and even many famous psychologists such as Carl Jung have recommended creating mandalas for stress relief. Mandalas are circular designs that often consist of unique patterns and symbols. While making a mandala, you will process your feelings or things you went through in your life. It’s an excellent idea to symbolize some of your feelings, triumphs or losses with unique patterns and colors. There is no need to reveal your story because you may potentially trigger rumination. You just need to root yourself in the moment and allow the entire process to free yourself from negative thoughts or heal yourself from negative emotions. Your mandala can look however you want it. It can be rich with meaning or very basic. All you need to do is have fun. After you are done with drawing, you should also color it. If you really enjoy coloring mandalas but no so much the process of creating them, you can buy mandala coloring books.
Join an Art Class:
If you have enough time, it would be great to join an art class. One of the benefits of attending an art class is that it cements the activity into your schedule and routine. Also, being supported by a group can be a stress reliever in itself. If you don’t have enough time for this, consider taking a one-time workshop or something similar. Consider all your options and see what works best for you.
You Can Always Doodle:
If you don’t have much time for art classes or creating a complex painting at home, you can always dedicate 20 minutes of your time for a drawing session. Remember how you doodled at school when you were bored? It really felt good, right? It’s time to embrace your inner doodler again! You can get a sketchbook for 5-minute doodles, and keep it somewhere handy. If you love writing a journal, don’t forget to beautify the margins with hearts, flowers, smiling faces or whatever else you want. Doodling will let your inner artist slowly come out whenever you have time, and just enjoy life.
Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.
Want a mean right hook as well as a mean sense of general well-being? Boxing workouts may be the answer.
Though it sounds counterintuitive, punching things can make you a happier and calmer person. Want to learn more about how that oxymoronic situation works?
Learn more below.
Mind-Body Benefits of Boxing Workouts:
You already knew that boxing will get you shredded. But did you know it could make you a better dancer? A harder worker?
Here are some examples of what boxing workouts can do for your mind and mood.
1. It Makes You Feel Strong:
If you're a man, you can skip this one (unless you just want some perspective).
Women aren't taught to fight, in general. A lot of us are taught to shy away from confrontation or how to de-escalate it. That means we don't know how to stand up for yourself in most cases.
While we don't encourage trying out your hook every time you get in a confrontation, a boxing practice can make standing up for yourself easier.
Boxing is a good aggression release, too, which is something women aren't taught how to do either. Basically, it'll make you feel like wonder woman after she realizes her power.
2. It Boosts Endorphins and Helps Release Emotions:
If you’ve ever boxed before, you have imagined that the bag was a person (or at least one problem) once or twice. Working through your issues by hitting the heavy punch bag (not the person) is a great way to reduce negative feelings.
The fewer negative emotions you have, the more room there is for positive ones.
And boxing (exercise) creates positive feelings through the release of endorphins. Endorphins are brain chemicals that make you feel happy - it's scientifically proven.
And if you're feeling murderous, go hit a punching bag. As Elle Woods says, "Exercise gives you endorphins and endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't kill their husbands, they just don't!"
3. It Gives You a Learners High:
You know the feeling when you finally master something you've been working on for a long time? It could be anything: a song on the piano, a specific choreographic combo, or crushing your boxing workout.
That sense of accomplishment literally gets you high. It increases the reward mechanism in your brain, dopamine. Every time you master or start to master a new move at Society Boxing & Fitness, you'll get a boost.
4. It Makes You More Coordinated:
Have you ever heard that some professional sports players take dance lessons to help with their on-field performance? Boxing is like that too, but without the tutus.
Since boxing is a full body workout and involves being hyper-aware of where your body is in comparison to your opponent, it's a lot like dancing.
Get Your Gloves and Go!
If you've never tried boxing, trying to find a cardio kickboxing class in your area. You'll learn the basics there and once you're comfortable, check out a boxing gym.
Then you can start hitting stuff and really doing boxing workouts that will make yourself proud.
Want to learn how to approach conflict (without punching someone)? Click here.
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Heart disease is still one of the UK’s biggest killers and so it is incredibly important to be aware of cardiac risks and how best to take care of your heart health.
There are over 30,000 cardiac arrests each year outside of hospitals each year in the UK and shockingly few of the people who suffer these arrests survive to go home from the hospital. Current figures show less than 1 in 10 people who go into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital survive, despite the best efforts of paramedics and hospital doctors.
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Can seeking the help and advice of a private cardiologist reduce your risk of becoming just another statistic?
Keeping on top of your heart health
With such low survival rates for cardiac arrests across the UK, it is advisable to keep yourself as healthy as possible to avoid a heart attack in the first place. You may choose to visit a private cardiologist for regular check-ups to ensure that your heart is as healthy as possible and working at optimum levels.
Regular check-ups will not only give you the peace of mind that your body’s most important muscle is working to the best of its ability but it will also give your cardiologist to spot any changes should they occur. Spotting any changes to your heart’s normal rhythm can indicate problems and early diagnosis and treatment could prevent future cardiac arrests and ultimately save your life.
Treating symptoms early
Changes in your heart’s health can cause you to experience symptoms which a cardiologist will want to hear about. Symptoms of heart disease can be obvious, such as palpitations, pain, and discomfort, but they can also be subtle changes which increase over time.
Subtle changes in your heart’s health can be as simple as feeling breathless after physical activity. Many of us might put this down to aging and not being as fit as we once were. However, if there is a problem with your heart, causing your lungs to struggle too, then you will end up becoming breathless after simple tasks such as walking up the stairs.
Breathlessness, pain, and palpitations should always be investigated and a private cardiologist will often be your quickest route to a diagnosis and treatment. With such an important organ as the heart, time is of the essence. If you are suffering early symptoms of heart disease or other cardiac problems then the likelihood is that it will not improve by itself- you are going to need medical intervention. The earlier any problem is diagnosed then the more chance you have of making a recovery or receiving the treatment you need to prevent further damage to the muscles of your heart.
Avoiding Waiting Lists
While we are all very grateful that we have our fantastic NHS in the UK, often getting to see a specialist can involve a long wait on a list of possibly hundreds of other patients. This wait, while unintentional, can have disastrous consequences for your heart’s health.
Choosing to go to a private clinic can have you in front of a cardiac specialist within a fraction of the time that you may have to wait with the NHS. If your initial consultation ends in you requiring further tests then these will also be conducted quicker than with the NHS and you should receive your results much quicker. From there, treatment plans can be put in place to ensure that you don’t end up with further damage to your heart and a higher risk of cardiac arrest.
A private cardiologist can literally save your life before you get to the point that medical intervention is critical in keeping you alive. Early diagnosis and treatment are to avoiding serious cardiac problems in the future.
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Any Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner (AGNP), or individual considering moving into this booming area, will probably be aware that it involves more than supporting patients through short term illnesses or meeting their needs in a hospital or nursing home.
As a rule, the older a patient gets, the more likely they are to experience chronic health complications which interfere with their day-to-day tasks. For much of history, such patients were written off, encouraged to take to their beds and be supported entirely by others, doing very little. They often didn’t live very long. But all that changed on account of one remarkable nurse, Dorothea Orem, whose legacy continues to shape the nursing profession today. This article examines her groundbreaking self-care deficit theory and looks at how AGNPs might use it for their nursing career.
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem was born in Baltimore in 1914 and studied nursing in the late 1930s. This was a time when nursing schools were still a new phenomenon and there was a lot of experimental thinking in the nascent profession. Though she spent time on the wards as a staff nurse, she also worked as an administrator and consultant over the course of her career, spending her later years focusing on theory.
A naturally focused and attentive person, she soon began recording observations about the patients she worked with, leading to her self-care deficit theory of nursing, for which she strongly advocated for her entire life. It was theory which, in its early years, transformed the way nurses thought about patients and their duties. It laid the foundations for nursing today.
Universal Self-Care Requisites
Orem’s theory recognizes eight universal self-care requisites, or SCRs. Here, universal refers to things every human needs, regardless of circumstance. Air is needed for respiration. Water is needed to maintain a healthy level of hydration. Food is needed to maintain healthy energy levels and prevent starvation. Elimination or toileting, a polite way of referring to the expulsion of urine and feces from the body, is required too.
In addition to these four things, Orem posits that every patient needs a balance of physical activity and rest. Everyone needs social interaction, but also some alone time. People need to manage their lives to avoid or remove hazards, and, finally, they need to promote normality. This means that they need to achieve and maintain a way of living and relating to the world which is normal for them as individuals and does not involve psychosis.
Health Deviation Self-Care Requisites
When patients are recovering from injury or illness, or living with a chronic illness or disability, they can be described as experiencing a health deviation. This is not pejorative – it simply establishes that they differ from the norm. Health deviations are more common in older demographics, as they have additional self-care requisites.
These requisites include following doctors’ instructions (taking medicine on time), identifying problems caused by their conditions and attending to them effectively (sitting down until a dizzy spell passes), and knowing when and how to seek help from a caregiver or healthcare professional.
It is also important that these patients can understand and accept that their bodies have changed and can adjust psychologically to cope with it.
What Is A Self-Care Deficit?
A self-care deficit occurs when people are no longer able to carry out basic tasks. This can be because a disability makes them physically impossible to perform, or a number of other reasons. For example, some people get so overwhelmed by the way their bodies have changed that they stop trying to live. This doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve sympathy – it is an understandable response to an extreme situation – but it might mean that there is potential for improvement.
For some people, self-care deficits are permanent or are likely to worsen due to progressive illnesses. For others, however, they can be temporary, even in extreme old age. Self-care deficits stemming from a broken arm, for example, will normally dissipate after the arm heals, but this is less likely if the patient has learned to feel helpless in the meantime.
Assessment, Diagnosis, And Implementation
When using Orem’s theory, nurses have three steps to work through. The first is undertaken during the initial assessment of a new patient and involves identifying any self-care deficits. These are not always obvious from looking at a patient and the process may require gentle but persistent questioning. Some people may be embarrassed and hesitant to talk if they are unable to care for themselves.
The second involves full diagnosis of the deficits, including establishing causes. The third step is to draw up a treatment plan based on these diagnoses. In her work, Orem stressed the importance of recognizing that every patient is a unique individual, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this type of planning. In each case, AGNPs will need to work with the patient to establish the most effective way forward.
Five Ways Nurses Can Help
There are five strategies nurses can use to address self-care deficits when establishing patient care plans:
For the most severely incapacitated patients, it may be necessary to perform actions on their behalf, such as washing or dressing them.
Patients struggling mentally or who lack confidence can be guided through actions, ideally to the point of independence.
Patients can be taught new ways of approaching day to day tasks which make them easier to accomplish, such as taking a break to have a shower in the afternoon if it is too hard to find the energy at other times.
AGNPs can focus on the patient’s environment, making it easier for them to carry out self-care activities, such as suggesting kitchen gadgets to reduce the physical effort involved in preparing meals.
Finally, AGNPs can train a family caregiver to provide appropriate support.
These five strategies involve numerous actions, skills, and tools that nurses can use. Patients may need particular assistance with the following tasks.
Helping With Eating
Patients should always be encouraged to do as much for themselves as is reasonably possible. When it comes to eating, nurses should start with encouragement. Many older people lose their appetite and don’t feel motivated to eat, especially when it requires effort. So, an AGNP can point out that they have more energy when they manage to eat regular meals.
If the patient can get food to their mouth by themselves, nurses should resist the temptation to assist, even if they sometimes drop the food. Instead, nurses can reassure them that this is not uncommon and all they need to do is take a little more time. Nurses should also be alert to the possibility of choking issues and arrange X-rays if concerned. If some food proves difficult to eat, they can discuss the possibility of dietary adjustments.
Helping With Toileting
Nurses should reassure patients that, awkward as they may feel, there is nothing to be embarrassed about. The nurse must ensure they can transfer on and off the toilet safely and consider options like raising the height of the seat or installing grab. If there is a risk of falling, AGNPs may suggest bedpans for use when no caregiver is present. If adult diapers are needed, nurses should ensure that patients know how and when to change them (even if they are not soiled) and how to protect their skin against rashes or bruises caused by wearing them. Finally, nurses can also discuss medical options for softening stools or speeding up or slowing down digestive transit.
Helping With Dressing And Grooming
A balance must be struck between helping patients be more independent in dressing and grooming themselves and enabling them to maintain a style or standard of appearance that is natural for them. Some older men prefer to be clean shaven but end up growing beards because it is easier to trim a beard than it is to shave safely and neatly, for example. Some clothing options can be easier to get into than others, depending on a patient’s particular mobility difficulties. Simple devices such as a stick with a hook on the end can make adjusting the back of a garment or doing up a zip much easier. Nurses should pay particular attention to footwear to make sure patients can stand or walk safely.
Reducing Hazards
Whether a nurse is helping a patient to move around and complete self-care tasks in a hospital ward, a care home, or their own home, they must always pay attention to hazard prevention. Hazards can include mess, a layout created without regard for disability, or other people or pets moving around. Nurses can start by ensuring that the patient is aware of the risks and can recognize dangerous situations.
They should discuss simple measures like installing handrails or changing routines to make it easier to keep the area tidy. Nurses can also ensure that the patient can summon help if something goes wrong, by persuading them to install an alarm system or carry a charged mobile phone at all times, for example.
Care With Communication
Often, older patients who have self-care deficits also have difficulty with communication, whether due to physical or cognitive disability. Depending on their lifestyle in recent years, they may also be unfamiliar with modern technologies, but shy about admitting this. It is important for nurses to make sure that when they are addressing issues around essential needs, the patient understand them properly and vice versa.
It can be helpful to use pictures in communication, which are often available in support materials. When meeting a patient in the place they are going to be living, the nurse and patient can explore it together (in stages, if necessary) so both parties can directly identify issues.
Seeing Each Patient As An Individual
An essential tenet of Orem’s theory is that patients must be treated as individuals. This increases the chance that they will stick to treatment plans, as well as directly improving their psychological wellbeing.
Any nurse that’s interested in Orem’s theory and is considering joining this field will be looking into gerontology nurse practitioner programs online. The best courses place a lot of emphasis on adaptability and on learning how to manage different types of patients in different environments. The program at the University of Indianapolis, for example, encourages students to develop the patience and listening skills essential to getting to know patients and making them a part of the process. This communication and relationship building is essential to developing plans which will really benefit patients over the long term. The course at the University of Indianapolis is an eight-semester program designed for working nurses, involving part-time study and an intensive clinical placement.
The Nursing Profession Continues To Benefit
Thanks to Orem and her self-care deficit theory, patients are no longer left to waste away as they begin to struggle with old age. Generations of nurses who have practiced this theory have observed that, even in later life, patients can often improve and regain their self- care abilities with the right support. Advances in assistive technologies continue to make this even easier.
The right support, focused on facilitating and encouraging independence, enables seniors to go on living satisfying lives on their own terms for much longer. Even when they need extensive practical support, giving them more control helps to maintain their morale and ability to navigate the final chapter of their lives. In the process of providing this support, AGNPs also get what they really want; to see their patients thrive, no matter what they must overcome to achieve it.
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