Self-Care Journey: Reflection on Developing a Self-Care Plan

This reflective essay discusses the importance of self-care for healthcare professionals and the journey of developing a self-care plan. The author focuses on mindfulness-based interventions and maintaining a balance between personal and educational life. The essay also highlights the impact of shared decision making, empowerment, and support networks in recovery planning for mentally ill patients.

Running head: SELF-CARE JOURNEY
Reflective essay:
Introduction:
Self-care can be defined as the set of actions thathelp an individual to reach optimal
physical, psychological and emotional health. Self-care undoubtedly is a very important
aspect forthe patients.However, the care professionals also have a pressing need for self-care
as the exhaustive physical and emotional burnout due to the job roles often leads to
considerable strain on the mental and physical status of the care staff (Raab, 2014). Most
importantly,the health care staffoften have to go through extensive physical and mental
burnout along with compassion fatigue. Hence, in order to safeguard the competence and
resilience, it is very important for the health care staffto maintain self-care optimally. As a
nursing student, I have attempted to develop a self-care plan for myself to be able to handle
the burnout and stresseffectively; and it had been an exceptional journey for me to complete.
This essay will reflect on the journey of developing this self-care plan, the support I received
and how it helped me improve, taking the assistance of the Gibbs reflection framework.
Description:
The self-care journey involves thorough planning and implementation; it had
beentime consuming but had been very systematic(Bible, Casper, Seifert & Porter, 2017). My
preliminary focus for the self-care planning activity had been on exploring and addressing the
exact impact of the stress that I have been encountering and the impact of the stress on my
competence. From the first activity of my self-care recovery planning, it was discovered that
irritability, anxiety, impulsiveness and breakdown had been frequent manifestations of the
stressand as an aspiring student myself it is very important for me to have understanding of
how to overcome the stress. Two major objectives that I developed for my self-care plan had
been firstly to implement mindfulness based interventions, which is a very common mental

1
SELF-CARE JOURNEY
health intervention and other was keeping a distinctive balance between my personal and
educational life. The strategies for the first objective included reflecting on practice,
engaging with an occupational therapist, learning different relaxing and meditating
techniques, making a routine for implementing the activities in the day and documenting the
progress (Khoury, Sharma, Rush & Fournier, 2015). These set of activities helped me
tremendously in reducing the impact of the stress that I have been suffering from and also
helped in eradicating the detrimental impact of the stress on the behaviour and my
performance as auniversity student. For the second objective, the strategy had been to focus
on personal health and wellbeing and maintaining enough time for personal life as well as
dedicating enough effort and time in the professional responsibilities that are needed to be
completed(Trotter-Mathison&Skovholt, 2014).
Feelings:
First and foremost, this had been an excellent opportunity for me to understand the
exact importance of the self-care activities and how it should be and can be incorporated in
the daily living so that the physical and mental health of the individuals can be optimally
enhanced and protected (Gauthier, Meyer, Grefe& Gold, 2015). It has to be mentioned that
for diseases or illness, the concept of recovery is multidimensional and incorporates a more
holistic understanding of health and wellbeing that can be adequately managed by the self-
care activities. Hence, in order to successfully implement the self-care activities adequately, it
is very important for care staff to understand the importance of the self-care activities and
how it can be incorporated by empowering the individuals. Therefore, I believe this is a very
important activity that helped me understand the advantages of having a self-care plan and
how it can be executed in real life situation. I felt nervous and anxious throughout the
experience afraid that the time I am required to invest in the self-care will somehow affect my
competence and performance as a student as well. However, I also had to take the aid ofa

2
SELF-CARE JOURNEY
number of support networks such as my peers, supervisors, professional occupational
therapists and fitness experts along with my family and friends which helped me overcome
the challenges and issues effectively (Jacob, 2015).
Evaluation:
On evaluating the entire experience, I have realised there are several factors that
worked for my benefit and helped me complete the journey successfully. Though I did
encounter several challenges which restricted the successful integration of the self-care plan
into action, I was determined I could overcome the same.The self-care activity for me was
mainly focussed on how the stress was affecting my behaviour with my peers and my family.
Hence, I focussed on mindfulness-based interventions,which have been proven to have a
significant impact on addressing the behavioural changes facilitated by stress. As mentioned
by Virgili (2015), mindfulness-basedinterventions havebeen known to help individuals deal
with not just stress but also helps in calming down individuals and enhancing focus and
dedication. Hence, the choice of mindfulness-based interventions had been one of the helpful
factors in the entire journey which prepared me to cope effectively with stress and focus on
the task at hand with calmness and composure.
Although, peer feedback collection on a regular basis had been difficult as not all
peers had been open to share honest feedback regularly as it is a very time-consuming
procedure. Although the supervisors and mentors had been a tremendous support tome as
they helped me cope with the challenges effectively. The sessions with the occupational
therapists have also been extremely time consuming and it involved various challenges that
restricted the success of the self-care plan. The support from family, my mentor and my
supervisor had served as ultimate support networks which helped me overcome the

3
SELF-CARE JOURNEY
challenges and issues that emerged during the experience (Ruotsalainen, Verbeek, Mariné&
Serra, 2015).
Analysis:
First and foremost, it has to be mentioned that the burnout and fatigue is a very
important challenge faced by university students (Moen et al., 2016). The patients often have
to undergo strenuous treatment procedures and the pain and suffering is often a great
emotional burden which can leave a significant mark on the lives and psyche of the
individuals that encounter them. As the nursing staff are the first point of contact for the
mental patients, they have to spend a long period of time with such patients which affects
their mental health and impacts the competence and performance statistics of the patients as
well.I had been given the opportunity to choose what I want to incorporate in the planning
which helped me achieve the goals more effectively (Kwok, Cheng & Wong, 2015).
This exercise helped me understand that providing the patients with the opportunity to
have the decision making opportunities will have a strong influence achieving the desired
outcome.Avery important aspect of recovery oriented approach is the emphasis on the
individuality of the patient care needs and the empowerment of having the decision making
abilities to the patient (Slade et al., 2014). The stark difference between the biomedical model
of care planning and recovery oriented planning is the fact that biomedical model only
focuses on the biological factors eliminating the psychological, environmental, and social
influences completely (Strand, Gammon &Ruland, 2017). My experience of the self-care
journey enlightened me of the exact feelings and thoughts of the patients while they embark
on their recovery oriented care planning program. I have understood that decision making,
independence, and the support networks such and friends and family are facilitators of more

4
SELF-CARE JOURNEY
patient centred and personalized care planning, which I will be implementing in my life as
well.
Action plan:
From this experience I discovered that time management, confidence and assertive
communication had been my weaknesses which also added to the challenges that I
experienced while completing my self-care journey. Hence, I will be enrolling in online
courses and workshops to enhance these soft skills. Hence, I will be taking additional efforts
to ensure implementing these practices in my future practice. Along with that, I will also keep
utilizing the mindfulness based interventions to help cope with the stress as well.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, this experience had been a great opportunity for me which not
only helped me identify the flaws and strengths of my professional competence as well as
personality traits but also helped me understand the impact of shared decision making, impact
of self-care, empowerment, and support networks in recovery planning for mentally ill. I
gained the opportunity to understand the importance of having the decision making choice for
the patient while making the recovery oriented plans. Along with that, I also understood how
having the decision making power helps the patients achieve the recovery goals more easily
and effectively. I believe that I will be successful in implementing the knowledge gained in
my future practice while planning the recovery journey of a mental patient.

5
SELF-CARE JOURNEY
References:
Acker, G. M. (2018). Self–care practices among social workers: do they predict job
satisfaction and turnover intention? Social Work in Mental Health, 1-15. doi:
10.1080/15332985.2018.1494082
Bible, L. J., Casper, K. A., Seifert, J. L., & Porter, K. A. (2017). Assessment of self-care and
medication adherence in individuals with mental health conditions. Journal of the
American Pharmacists Association, 57(3), S203-S210. doi:
10.1016/j.japh.2017.02.023
Gauthier, T., Meyer, R. M., Grefe, D., & Gold, J. I. (2015). An on-the-job mindfulness-based
intervention for pediatric ICU nurses: a pilot. Journal of pediatric nursing, 30(2),
402-409. doi: 10.1016/j.pedn.2014.10.005
Jacob, K. S. (2015). Recovery model of mental illness: A complementary approach to
psychiatric care. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 37(2), 117. doi:
10.4103/0253-7176.155605
Khoury, B., Sharma, M., Rush, S. E., & Fournier, C. (2015). Mindfulness-based stress
reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis. Journal of psychosomatic
research, 78(6), 519-528. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2015.03.009
Kwok, S. Y., Cheng, L., & Wong, D. F. (2015). Family emotional support, positive
psychological capital and job satisfaction among Chinese white-collar
workers. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(3), 561-582. doi: 10.1007/s10902-014-
9522-7

6
SELF-CARE JOURNEY
Raab, K. (2014). Mindfulness, self-compassion, and empathy among health care
professionals: a review of the literature. Journal of health care chaplaincy, 20(3), 95-
108. doi: 10.1080/08854726.2014.913876
Ruotsalainen, J. H., Verbeek, J. H., Mariné, A., & Serra, C. (2015). Preventing occupational
stress in healthcare workers. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 4. Retrieved from
file:///C:/Users/LAPTOP_MP0251/Downloads/Preventingoccupationalstressinhealthc
areworkers.pdf
Slade, M., Amering, M., Farkas, M., Hamilton, B., O'Hagan, M., Panther, G., ...& Whitley,
R. (2014). Uses and abuses of recovery: implementing recovery‐oriented practices in
mental health systems. World Psychiatry, 13(1), 12-20. doi: 10.1002/wps.20084
Strand, M., Gammon, D., &Ruland, C. M. (2017). Transitions from biomedical to recovery-
oriented practices in mental health: a scoping review to explore the role of Internet-
based interventions. BMC health services research, 17(1), 257. doi: 10.1186/s12913-
017-2176-5
Trotter-Mathison, M., &Skovholt, T. (2014). The resilient practitioner: Burnout prevention
and self-care strategies for counselors, therapists, teachers, and health professionals.
Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135858018
Virgili, M. (2015). Mindfulness-based interventions reduce psychological distress in working
adults: a meta-analysis of intervention studies. Mindfulness, 6(2), 326-337. doi:
10.1007/s12671-013-0264-0