Life As A Nursing Student: Relaxation Techniques

This may sound like just another nursing diagnosis, but it may also describe your life as a nursing student.  As caregivers by profession, we may tell our patients, families and friends to “just relax” or “take it easy”, as part of their recovery from illness or a bout of high stress.  But as a nursing student do we really know how to relax, with multiple-choice questions, a never-ending to-do list and your child’s soccer game floating around in your mind?  The ancients knew that relaxation is a paradox:  it is and is not that simple.
           
Relaxation can be described as an experience of calm, comfort, rest, renewal and openness that every living creature, from slumbering infants to creatures of the wild instinctively know how to access.  Unfortunately, this is more of an exception than the norm, which is why there is an increase in stress related illnesses, accounting for 75-80% of modern ailments.

The benefits of slowing down are numerous and can be accomplished anywhere, without any cost or equipment.  Relaxation techniques increases concentration, self-awareness, problem solving and a sense of control and productivity.

This all sounds beautiful; maybe even out of touch with our hectic, modern and overscheduled lives, but one of the simplest and deepest relaxation practices is right under our noses every moment of everyday: breathing!  Try these relaxation techniques:

1. Lie on your back with a pillow under your head.  Bend your knees (or put a small pillow under them) to relax your abdomen.
2. Put one hand on your abdomen, just below your rib cage.
3. Slowly breathe in through your nose.  You should feel your abdomen rising.
4. Exhale slowly through your mouth; emptying your lungs completely and letting your abdomen fall as your stress melts away.
5. Repeat several times until you feel calm and relaxed.  Practice daily, anywhere at any time.

The magic of summer is right here, right now, but it may be happening so fast that we fail to see it.  Within this flux, there can be moments of perfect stillness.  The best advice to give to a nursing student is to slow down and look around. Here’s to clearer thinking, less stress and high test scores!

Lisette Shanhai, RN, BSN, CRP
Rue Online Learning Tutor/Facilitator

Source:  J.Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (New York, NY: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1990).