Balancing Act
Sacramento nurse encourages others to create their own care plans
By Candy Goulette
Guilt. Every nurse feels it once in a while, as they take a cigarette break or grab a candy bar for lunch. Nurses know better than most what it takes to live healthy, so when they don't practice what they preach, guilt is their reward.
Brenda Epperly-Ellis, MSN, RN, knows what it's like to work long hours and put off taking care of herself. Like many of her colleagues, she's had her own share of guilty moments. Unlike most, she found a way to contribute to her own health and she's now sharing her formula through a new business, Self-Care Solutions, with other nurses across the state and country.
Talk the Talk
Epperly-Ellis has worked in healthcare since she started in a pharmacy at age 16. At 19, she took a job at Atascadero State Hospital as a psych tech. She worked there while she attended Cuesta College to earn her ADN, then stayed on as a staff nurse. She transferred to corrections nursing and watched her colleagues work through pain, fatigue, hunger and anxiety. During a 7-year stint as a discharge planner in a Sacramento hospital, she watched med/surg nurses neglect themselves to put their patients first, because they loved the work.
But it wasn't until she completed her BSN and was into her MSN program at the University of Phoenix that she zeroed in on that lack of self-care. She focused on what she knew — nurses working in correctional facilities — but the face she saw in the mirror while she was planning was hers.
"While I was working on my master's project, I gathered information for several years," Epperly-Ellis recalled. "When I sat down to write the thesis, I felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world. I had put off my annual physical and mammogram for years, I had headaches and a frozen shoulder from being on the computer so much. I wasn't taking care of myself, and I was going to tell other nurses how to take care of themselves."
She completed the project and the degree, then set out to turn her thesis into a new business, one that would help other nurses take steps to take care of themselves. The result, Self-Care Solutions, aims to add balance to the lives of healthcare professionals.
"Self-care, by my definition, is the active process of the becoming aware of and taking action to improve your health — body, mind and spirit," Epperly-Ellis explained. "Nurses who practice self-care take much of the advice they give to patients for stress reduction, wellness and preventive health practices and apply it in their own lives. Practicing self-care means noticing areas of life that are out of balance and taking action to improve nutrition, exercise routine, attitudes at work, lifestyle choices, coping skills, stress levels, preventive health needs and career situation."
Walk the Walk
The live-to-work mentality that affects many caregivers, including nurses, was a tough mindset to shut off, even for Epperly-Ellis. After finishing her MSN, she had every intention of following her own advice, but her resolve ebbed when she took a position as director of healthcare programs at the Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC). Her professional life got busier and busier.
She promoted her own business, assisted community colleges across the state and worked with the California Institute for Nursing & Health Care (CINHC) and the Association of California Nurse Leaders (ACNL) to find ways to impact the nursing shortage.
"Self-care is an important concept for nurses to understand and practice because it will improve their quality of life which, in turn, can affect both their job performance and job satisfaction," she said. "This may directly affect the current nursing shortage by increasing the number of nurses who stay on the job. There is a large body of research available that demonstrates that nurses who take care of their own health needs and who lead a balanced life are far better performers on the job."
At the same time, the mother of two grown children became engaged and had to plan a wedding. Her self-care time wound down to nothing. Something had to give, she told ADVANCE. After 2 years, she left her FCCC position to focus her energies on herself, her new husband Mike, Self-Care Solutions and its Web site, http://www.selfcaresolutions.net/.
"I've always worked and done something else at the same time," Epperly-Ellis commented. "It was very sad to leave FCCC, but the programs we started [with CINHC] are well under way. I'm still working with ACNL on environment of practice issues and looking at forensic nursing issues."
Looking Ahead
With her Oct. 7 marriage behind her, Epperly-Ellis is free to concentrate on helping other nurses regain a healthy perspective on their lives. She'll be presenting at the National Commission on Correctional Health Care conference next May and is working with the BRN to earn CE status. She'd like to see self-care added to nursing school curriculums, so nurses will learn from the beginning how important it is to care for the caregiver, as well as adding more self-care to patient teaching.
"As with many things in our world, we change our circumstances one person at a time," she concluded. "We need to evaluate, prioritize and make a plan — decide where we need to focus. Sometimes we just need someone to remind us what we need to do, then work it in increments. Successful self-care is about successive approximations. You don't hit the nail squarely on the head the first time, but you keep getting closer. Eventually, you'll be in a place that's healthy for you, taking care of yourself."
Candy Goulette is regional editor at ADVANCE. http://nursing.advanceweb.com/common/EditorialSearch/printerfriendly.aspx?AN=NW_06oct9_n12p11.html&AD=10-09-2006