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So thank you for coming. Um My name is Michelle Turner and um I'm a um a volunteer at Learn of Nurses. I'm a nurse of many, many, many years and I've also done complimentary therapies. I've done reflexology, massage, relax, kids training, Reiki. And also I've done a lifestyle course with the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine, which if anybody's interested in lifestyle courses, I could sign post you to de for more nurses and all the more healthcare professionals we can get in that organization, the more we can spread the word of getting back to self care and prioritizing things that perhaps we've forgotten about a little bit. So hope you can see and hear me. I'm a bit worried that nobody's writing in the chat. Um How many people have we got here? We got four people. Um I'm hoping you can see and hear me. Ok, I'll get going as I'm getting going, please please please write in the chat so that I know that you're with me on this. Um So just this is med all platform you'll get there's no certificate really for today is there. I mean, you can get one if you want, but it's not about learning, it is about self care and well being is really important. Um um So if you want to download a certificate, you can, as long as you fill out the evaluation, then you get access to the slides of that, which like I said, they're really not that significant today apart from a couple of references. Um So your name is Suda in London. My stress levels are high 9 to 10, right? Ok. Let's get going. Let's get going. Let's not mess that. Hopefully you can see and hear me. Ok. So just give me that thumbs up. So I know there's a Facebook page if anyone wants to join, um you can use med for your own. You know, it's a really amazing site if anybody's interested in doing training online. And today really is about us as healthcare professionals and in every year learning nurses do a self care summer series and it's all about selfcare looking after ourselves. So there's no data, there's no stats, there's no science as such, although there is science isn't there in relaxation, but basically, it's all about looking after us. Never before have we needed to look after ourselves as much as we do right now, given the huge pressures that we're all under. So this is just a practical session. I'm just gonna do it as, as a relaxation one, I'm gonna introduce some little ideas and then we'll do a um gonna do some box breathing, some um the five sentences, we're going to do progressive muscle relaxation and then we'll do a little visualization and then we'll just talk about you thinking about. Is there anything from today that you could pop into your day, your week, your morning, your afternoon, whatever you think so that you take forward this, this, this self care kind of um philosophy and we do it as much as we can in order to keep ourselves well. And I put a picture of a koala there because basically that's our aim is to become more koala, be more koala. Um So this, if you don't want to look at the slides, you know, just close your eyes if you're in a room on your own and you can lie down or put your feet up or just close your eyes. If you're comfortable with doing that, you don't need to be looking at anything. You can just, just do get in a position that you're comfortable with depending on where you are. I'm guessing most of you are doing this in your own time. Um So hopefully you're able to do that. Um And yeah, so we'll get going. Anything I ask you to do if you don't want to do it, if you're not comfortable with it or if it affects your, if you've got an underlying respiratory condition and you can't do the breathing, then you just do whatever take from it what you can take from it. Um, and if you're used to doing practices like this and it sets you off and you go your own way, then just, that's fine too. I do that yoga all the time. I go to yoga and I start following the teacher and then I start doing my own moves. They're not great moves by any means. I'm not good at postures, but sometimes just hearing her voice sets me off to do things that I feel my body needs to do, which is something she encourages. So, the same for me today, if there's an element of the practice you prefer and I do something else and you're not so keen, just go back to what you liked better. So this is really about you getting 30 minutes of relaxation to set you up because we all already can see that Suda there in London is stressed. Had a very stressful week. Um, I could do a little poll if just so that I know that you're all able to respond. So I'll put stress levels for the week. Uh, we'll do 12 if I just do this and I do know that you're able to, he see and hear me because that's the only trouble with this. We, we're not able to chat, although we can actually, if I invite you to the stage anyway, here you go. So one is the, um, the least stress you could possibly be and 10 is the most stressed for the last, you know, this week, just this week. Give me a um give me a go at answering that. So I know that you're able to, to respond to things. Oh, you're not. Yes, you are. Great. So I know you're there. Brilliant. Great, great, great. That's perfect. So we've got 50%. Um Yeah, so we've got level four. So most people are not terribly stressed. Some people, we've got a mixture there, high stress levels to kind of just below halfway. So, ok, that's great. Perfect. OK. So let's get on with this then. So we're going to, like I said, I've introduced those things. So we're going to start with some um just focusing on our breathing. So if you're able to um close your eyes, if you're able to or just put your gaze down, put your hands on your um chest and on your tummy and just concentrate on the breath that you've got, don't change it in any way. Just concentrate on what you're naturally doing and just really noticing the rise and fall of your chest and your tummy. So just for a few moments, just take those breaths and noticing if you can notice any stress around or if you notice if you tend to breathe more deeply higher up or whether you're somebody who naturally breathes deeply down into your tummy, such as taking those breaths in and out without force and what we want to do today is like turn on that parasympathetic system, calm everything down. And the more that we practice these little techniques, the quicker we'll get into that relaxation mode and they'll become very natural to us. So it's like everything practice makes perfect. And if we want to be able to take the edge off, very stressful situations, um The more we put this kind of breathing piece into daily life and get it embedded in. When we do start to enter a stressful situation, the relax, they will naturally turn to these techniques and we'll start to do them and that calming effect will happen sooner and be more subconscious. So, um just, yeah, I really invite you to think about putting these into your daily practice. So we've had a little focus on that breathing. And what I'd like you to do now is focus on really maybe deepening that belly breath. So when you take your deep breath in, take it all the way down to your tummy and really get that tummy rising. So deep breath in through your nose down through your chest, all the way down into your tummy and feel your tummy rising if you can hold for a second and then just let that breath come out and just do that a few times with your eyes closed, or your gaze just lowered, feeling that breath going in going right down into your tummy, getting your tummy to expand hold for a second and then let it come back down, do a couple more of those in your own time. There's no pressure and no timings. We're just putting a little bit more effort on that in breath to get that tummy expanding. Just do one more and then just, just notice if there's anything different already for you or you, somebody who responds really quickly to that and you started to feel that kind of relaxation coming in or not just acknowledge it with mindfulness. It's all about that curiosity. They say be more chimp like and be curious about things and really be curious about you because actually often we as carers, we're busy looking after our patients, we tend to then adapt some kind of role of looking after everybody because we've got that nature and people know what we do for a living. And so we get really kind of caught up in this caring kind of life and the person that we care least for is ourselves. And it's about actually stepping away from that and thinking more curiously about how you are. How am I today? How am I right now? What's going on for me? What is making me feel this way? What is making me feel better? Because if we pick up those clues on what is a cause of stress. And also very, very importantly, we may already have identified those quite easily. What is my reliever and what is the quickest thing for me to do to relieve stress in a small way. How does relieving that stress make me feel? Because if we notice the effect, it's going to help us to put the habit in. So if we notice that we feel a lot lighter when we do a bit of breathing and actually we're a bit calmer. A bit more patient with that stressful situation remains, but we can manage it a little bit easier with less trauma to ourselves. It will help us to keep practicing whatever it was that got us that feeling. So something silly for me and this, I'm not selling um whatever make these are. But if I start my day with a herbal tea instead of caffeine or um I kind of feel, I feel like I'm looking after myself because I feel like I've had a thought about what I'm going to put in my body and I just set myself off on a better journey that day. Um I don't do it all the time, but this, if I put my yoga mat out when I stand on it, I get relaxation straight away because I must associate it some, you know, inside me. So it's thinking of those little things. So from that belly breath, um we're gonna go to rectangular breathing. Um So basically, the concept is all just about having that slightly longer out breath in order to bring that relaxation um to us. So we use a rectangle because it's something that, um, we can breathe in on that vertical line and breathe out on the horizontal. If you're somebody who likes sort of, um, props to help you, you've always got a computer screen, a phone, a window, a door, you got some sort of rectangle somewhere and if it's, that's what you need in order to get you to do the breath, then use that prop. I think when I'm starting to get anxious or stressed, I look at my computer screen in a different way. Maybe I close the lid if it's a laptop and I just follow the shape around or if you're someone who can just visualize, just visualize. So we're going to do that breathing now. So we're going to try to get that breath back down into your tummy where you're raising your tummy. But we're gonna do a slightly shorter uh a longer out breath. I'm not gonna, I will do a little bit of counting to start. But actually once I've done it for a little while, I want you to just do what's comfortable for you. So if it's comfortable for you to breathe in for a little longer and out for a little longer, that's fine, we're just doing whatever is comfortable for you. So, with your hand on your tummy and your hand on your chest and your eyes closed. If you can, it's just take that breath in and we'll perhaps breathe in just for a count of three. So breathe in 123 and then try and blow out for five. So 12345. So breathe in and then out just accentuating the out then breathe in and out. You can breathe in through your nose and then you can, if you want, just breathe out through your mouth, if you want, you can have a little hold. So breathe in for three, just give that little hold and then breathe out and just keep going with that process. You might wanna breathe in a little longer. Hold for a couple of seconds. Breathe out for a little bit longer. So we'll try one more round when you're breathing out. Try to think of any things that are popping up into your mind when you're doing it and breathe them away, just calm them down, they're going to come back. We just give our mind a moment's pause from them. Our mind was made for thinking and boy does it do a good job of that. So just to take it away, just dampen it down, just put it to one side, just think. Let's breathe it out for a little while. So breathe in again. Hold and then breathe out for that little bit longer. I'm gonna leave you to do a few little circuits yourself and I'll just be quiet for a few seconds while you do that. So now you can just go back to normal breathing. And what we're going to do is we're going to build in the five senses sort of, um, approach. So we've got a little bit of breathing. We're going to look at the five senses. Um, we're going to do a progressive muscle relaxation. And then once we've done that, we'll do a little guided imagery where we try to bring all of those things in and then come back and see which ones you think work for you. So, um we'll go on to the five senses, the grounding technique. I don't know whether any of you have heard of it. But again, this is a really good thing to call upon if you're feeling quite stressed in the situation or you want to just do it to set your day off to end your day before you sleep in the middle of the night when you can't sleep any times where you can feel that stress level rising thinking. Do I want to go back to my breathing? Does that help me or am I somebody who needs to kind of almost think things through and through that thinking process and focusing on something? I'm starting to calm my mind down. So, um you could use your hand to remember these and you think there are five senses again, closing your eyes if you can um or just avert your gauge. The first one is about seeing. So you may want to leave your eyes open or just imagine. So start with five things that you can see. So just look around your room or imagine them five things that you can see. So imagining five, I can see trees, I can see cars, I can see books, I can see desks, I can see photographs. And then if you can close your eyes, if you haven't already just to help and then four things that you can feel or that you're touching. So for me, I'm touching my chair, I'm touching the floor with my feet, my clothes, I, I'm touching my clothes and I'm my hands are, are touching too. So four things that you can touch or feel and just bring those to your mind. And then we're gonna go through to three things that you can hear with any kind of practice of relaxation. Normal life goes on outside as well as in your mind and you'll never quiet and everything. So acknowledging what's around you is this is quite a good practice to start with relaxation with because you've kind of acknowledged everything around you and then you can kind of focus on yourself more. So three things that you can hear. So, um I can hear cars, I can hear the sound of my own voice. I can hear the hum of my computer. So think of three things and then we go to the sense of smell. So thinking of two things that you can smell around you. Um, I can smell my Josta. I've listen and my perfume, whatever, two things that you can smell and acknowledge those. And then one thing that you can taste and a little bit I think this practice is good at number one, it's good for start of a practice, like I said, but also it's that curiosity thing as well that we talked about being and turning that attention into ourselves. That very thing that we're not the best at doing maybe. Um because we're so busy looking out, it's looking in. And actually, even though we're only looking at our present thoughts and our, our present senses and what's around us does bring us very much into the now, which is kind of where we want to be. If we can bring ourselves back to center, get ourselves more grounded and we can move forward with other little techniques to move in. And this is a really good thing to do. You know, if you feel your stress levels are rising at work, you know, you can do either of these practices, the breathing all these senses just before a meeting. If you find yourself in a stressful situation, nobody would know if you suddenly just started to think these things through. And even if you only get down to, you know, you go through five things you can see for things you can touch and you've just started to reenter and ground and it's just taken the edge off that stress, utilizing whatever works for you. So we're gonna practice that again, but we're gonna do it when we're doing the visualization. So that II I, I'm gonna use a beach scene and then you can um you can use these five senses within that. So we'll do a, just a progressive muscle relaxation uh as well. So just so that we get ourselves feeling that little bit more relaxed. So with your eyes closed, if you can, again, um, if we just, wherever you are, I don't know whether you're seated or lying down, but wherever you are just tensing up each muscle group and relaxing, so we'll start with our feet. Depends on what position you are. Either pull your toes up towards you so that you're, if you're lying down so that you really are stretching your feet out. If you're seated in a chair, just push those feet into the ground, tense those feet up, curl your toes up and hold for a few seconds and then relax with your calves. If you're lying down or you've got a chair beneath you behind your cars, push your calves back into that chair and really feel that stretch tense, those calves up as best as you can and then relax with your thighs. Big, big muscles. Stretching is so important, especially as we're getting older. Um You know, as we reach over 50 stretching is one of the most important physical activities that we can do so stretch, tensing up those muscles and giving those muscles some work to do really, really tensing your thighs and then relax the same with your buttocks, squeezing your buttocks, pushing them into the chair or the bed or squeezing and relax. We hold a lot of stress around our sort of hips and buttock area and it can lead to back problems and back pain. So, really stretching and um toning these muscles is really important with our back. If you've got a back rest, you're lying on a bed or a chair, just pushing your back in, tensing your back up, pulling those muscles towards really trying to make those muscles work and then relax, bringing your shoulders up to your ears really, really, really high. Obviously, we all know this is where we all keep tension and relax down. You could do that a couple of times and relax, tensing up your whole arm, make a fist, you could bring your arms up and really stretch out, pull in all those muscles and then relax and with your face, I'm the only one who's on camera so nobody else can see each other. So it's screwing your face up, making any face if you're on your own. Just really screwing that face up and really getting that those face muscles working, do it pretend you're um just stretching that face and squeezing it and making the most weirdest faces possible because nobody's looking hopefully and then relax and remembering that, I don't know whether you've got pets, cats and dogs every day they get up and they stretch and they never stop doing it. And as little kids we stretch and we bounce around the place and then we become adults. And for some reason, we sit still and this body is a machine and it was never, never designed for sitting, still, sitting on chairs and looking at computers, it was made for moving. So thinking about starting your day with maybe just as you wake in the morning. Um they do say those are, you know, when you first wake up in the morning, all you want to do is curl her and stay for a few more minutes. Actually, that's one of the best times to think of maybe doing one of these little practices because that timeline there isn't doing you any good. You're not really resting because, you know, you've got to get up, you've had all your sleep, you're not gonna nod off again. It's just delay and the inevitable of starting that day, maybe. So, thinking about a wakening your muscle groups up in this way or getting out and doing some yoga poses, whatever you think works for you. But thinking about associating a normal habit you already have with a new activity will help you to link that activity into your daily routine. So if it is at that waking point in the morning, that five minutes that you stay in bed after the alarm, associate it with maybe the five senses, maybe this muscle relaxation, adapt something yourself um or just doing your belly breaths just to set you off is a really good way of making habits. Always try and associate a new habit with an existing activity if you can. So I am realizing that the time has gone really, really fast, but I did want to do a visualization. So I'm gonna do it and hope that you guys can stay. Um So I'll, I'll keep going and, and see if people stay with me. So what we're gonna do is close your eyes and we're gonna do a walk down to a beach and we're gonna just do a very quick um relaxation visualization. So we've put all the things that we've done in practice. So close your eyes if you can and we're going to take a walk down to a beach on a lovely sunny day, that's just the right temperature for you. You've got a hat on the sun isn't glaring into you. The weather is perfect. You take your shoes off and you walk along the sand down towards the beach and as you're walking down towards the sand, towards the sea, I want you to think about that five senses um approach that we said before. So as you're walking down, you're going to do your own visualization yourself and you're gonna think of five things that you can see as you're walking out towards the sea, you, you set whatever scene you like whatever beach you love or whichever beach you'd love to go to. Whatever's your favorite things to see on the beach you're now seeing. So think of five things that you're seeing as you walk down towards the seashore and then as you're enjoying those lovely sights, I want you to think of four things that you can touch or you can feel. So it might be the breeze, it might be the sun could be some water, it could be the sand, whatever it is that you're feeling and touching, as you're walking down towards this beautiful seashore. And then I want you to think of three things that you can hear in your lovely imaginary beautiful seaside seashore visit. And then I want you to think of two things that you can smell in your lovely environment and one thing that you can taste and you've set your own scene. And now I want you to come up to the sea at the edge of the sea, place yourself down on your, on your rug, lean against a rock, whatever make yourself comfortable on your beach. And you're now looking right out, you're very close to the sea. In fact, if you wanted to, your, your toes could be in the water and you could feel them lapping up as they come in and out. So you could paddle if you want to or you can keep your feet out whenever you want. And then I want you to think of that breathing that we did at the start. And I want you to think about the way that with the, with the waves rather than with the rectangle, we're gonna breathe. So your waves are going to come in as you breathe in and then as that wave goes back out, you're gonna breathe out. So you set your rhythm, this is your breath, this is your scene. So just taking that breath in which is a little shorter, do a little hold and then breath out. And if you like to imagine the waves coming in and out to help you so that you're really enjoying your, your visual experience. And one thing you could add in to that breath work is each time that breath you breathe out and that wave goes back out to see you could imagine or associate or throw in a pebble with that wave going back out with a worry or a thought or a situation, something that's on your mind that you want a bit of light relief from and you want to ease, ease your thoughts on it. Give yourself some space, just think of it, of throwing it away just for a few seconds just to lighten the load for you. You can do that as many times as you like as many things as you want to be. To be lifted from for a short while and maybe, then be able to focus on them in a different way. And then I'm really mindful of, um, gonna have to slowly come back into reality. So, um, from your lovely position on the beach, what I think would be a nice idea now is to maybe do, go back to our strength stretching and if you're in a position where you can just stretch your whole body. At this point, we did, we went through the muscle groups really, really quickly. If there's an area you want to go back to stretching those shoulders or stretching your buttocks or your feet or your arms or even better. Just if you're in a position where you're able to do it to stretch your whole body. If you're lying down, you can do your whole body stretch or, um, doing diagonal stretch by stretching out your right toe and your, your leg and your foot and, and taking your left arm up and doing a diagonal stretch right across and then the opposite with your other leg stretch, your left leg out, point your toe, put your arm in the air if you're able to or on the floor and do that diagonal stretch right across your body and really getting wakening up all these muscles and then take your hands and rub them together, get a bit of friction going, get some warmth and some energy and place that over your eyes, cop them over your eyes and then just take a few, just normal breaths in well, before we come back to reality and maybe just again, like we said, at the beginning, being curious to how we feel now, how we felt before. What's the difference? Was there anything that you could hang on to and try again? And it might be that these things didn't work for you and then that, that's fine too because you found that out. I've always been curious to what you've done and how it's making you feel right now and then you can open your eyes within your cupped hands and then slowly take your hands away and bring yourself back to reality. So that was very, very, very quick. And I'm going to give you a couple of seconds and just check. I've still got people with me. Let me just check. I think I have. Uh, yes, I have, uh, nothing in the chat. Ok. So, um, so just have a couple of seconds there just to come back. If anybody wants to, they could pop something in the chat. But I really want you just to focus more on you. Um, and how you're feeling and I just got a couple of slides because I know I've gone over, I'm slightly gonna go over. I don't want you to, um, have to do that. So, um, this is just one little thing that I was taught about trying to get bathe yourselves in our natural chemicals every day, our happiness chemicals, we've got so much within us that we can tap into to make us feel better ourselves without looking outside of, of that. So, it's like thinking about every day, what can I do as a hack to make myself feel good? Um, and I like this little slide that I came across that talks about, you know, things that we can do to make ourselves better, either the relaxation, things that I've talked about today or looking at um our natural hormones and how to tap into them every day in a little bit. And I think one of the big ones for me is that dopamine one. And I think for today, I think I'm hoping that if you've enjoyed the session today, you should give yourself a big pat on the back for coming, coming in your own time. You've prioritized yourself, which is key and you should feel really proud of yourself for doing that. And actually each and every time that you do do something around selfcare, give yourself that reward, acknowledge it, let yourself know that you've done something good and feel that reward. Um So I just like that little slide really. Um This is just thinking about, you know, going forward with your practice thinking about what is your goal in order around self care. What resources do you need to do that? Do you need little reminders? Do you need in the mindfulness courses that I've done, they talk about putting the little, um, just little stickers things so that you, when you see that little spot a sticker, you think, ah, I must have I done anything relaxation wise yet today. Should I do something now? Thinking about, about making tiny changes. Don't try and put too much in all at once. Like I said, associate a new habit with an existing activity such as when you wake up after you've cleaned your teeth. That time when you're at the bus stop, I don't know anything. Associate it with something you already do and you're more likely to put it into practice and noticing the difference. That's the key thing for me. Um There's a few resources that I just popped on there and you can pop any questions in if you want. And there's a really good um link there for the RCN. They do um little mindfulness sessions and they're only like about seven minutes and they go through the whole day. So they do from waking up um to leaving for work, being at work, leaving work and getting a doorstop. And I think the doors stop. One is one that I try to do because it's the one that you think I want to leave work behind now. And I just want to, when I get to the door, once I get to that door, just let me just do that little bit of mindfulness and see what I can let go of from the day so that I break from work and enter into home. So that's a really nice little one and they're so small, they're little um just little youtube clips. They are and there's another one there for mindful breathing. So I better stop because it is just two minutes to go and thank you all for coming. It's a lovely sunny day here in drop show. I'm not sure what it's like where you guys are. Um But um thank you for coming and I hope it was a little bit helpful for you. Um If you want to give some feedback, we would really, really like your feedback. So I'm gonna release this form and once you've done that, um you'll get a certificate if you did want it for this. And also, um you'll get the slides and remember there's lots of sessions going on in August. There's um at least 123, I think there's four other sessions going on around self care. So if you've want to know more, then please please come back and do some more of looking after yourself. So, thank you very much.