December 2, 2020

Work

Voices for our safety

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Health and Safety Representatives have the backing of strong health and safety policies and procedures to enforce workplace safety.

Mental health nurse Danica Ivankovic knows from first-hand experience why nurses need to be able to speak up about workplace safety.

In 2019, Danica was assaulted and injured by a patient at Bungarribee House acute mental health unit.

A 20-year veteran of Bungarribee, she had long been concerned about deteriorating safety conditions.

“Our safety was going downhill but staff were scared to report issues. I knew we needed to speak up more,” she said.

After time off work, Danica became a workplace health and safety representative (HSR) for Blacktown Mental Health Service, which covers three units including Bungarribee.

Soon after she took on the role in 2020, four nurses were injured when a Bungarribee patient became violent and the duress alarm failed during an afternoon shift.

One nurse suffered broken ribs, however the injured were initially denied permission to attend the emergency department because the unit would have been left short-staffed.

When Danica came on night shift she debriefed and advised injured staff as they wrote IIMS (Incident Information Management System) reports.

An investigation by SafeWork NSW recommended that staff in future be allowed to immediately go off duty to get treatment.

Other recommendations included a review of staff numbers.

It is Danica’s role to help monitor implementation of the recommendations. She and a fellow HSR cover health and safety at all three units within the service. They are backed by HSRs specific to each unit.

“We are supposed to be talking to management about staffing but they are used to coming and telling us what they are going to,” she said.

Danica is able to attend to safety issues as they arise. She is paid if she has to attend to WHS matters on her days off.

“I encourage staff to report safety incidents because it’s everyone’s right and responsibility to be safe.

“Some staff won’t file incident reports because they don’t want 
to be seen as a trouble maker or 
they believe that it doesn’t go anywhere and is either changed or deleted. As a HSR I’m happy to speak up if others feel they might be bullied or harassed.”

Danica is also Blacktown City Mental Health Branch President of the NSWNMA. She says she gets strong support from the NSWNMA which offers training to HSRs.

She has learned that NSW Health policies and procedures on work health and safety are actually very strong.

“All nurses have a right to be safe at work whether it be in mental health, emergency, in-patient units or out in the community and the role of HSR teaches you your legal rights and responsibilities.

“We are entitled to tell management when they are going against their own policies and the law. The job of HSR has given me more confidence to raise these issues.”

HSRs have legal rights and powers

Health and safety representatives (HSRs) are nurses, midwives and assistants in nursing who create change to improve the health and safety of their workplaces.

HSRs have five key powers under the Work Health and Safety Act:

They can:

  • inspect any part of the workplace after giving reasonable notice, or immediately in the event of an incident
  • accompany a SafeWork NSW inspector during an inspection at your workplace
  • require a health and safety committee to be established and be a member of the committee
  • seek the assistance of any appropriate person on health and safety matters whenever necessary
  • issue PINs (Provisional Improvement Notices) and directions to cease work.

Five rights of HSRs under the WHS Act 2011

HSRs have the right to:

  • be consulted about WHS matters in your workplace and be provided with 
hazard-related information by your employer
  • request a review of control measures under regulations (such as manual handling, noise, prevention of falls and confined spaces)
  • take time off work with pay to attend training and to exercise HSR powers
  • be provided with necessary facilities and assistance in your role as HSR
  • ability to escalate an WHS matter that remains unresolved after consult-ation requirements have 
been followed.

5 things you can do to reset yourself over Christmas

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Karl from Vitruvian Health shares 5 things you can do to reset yourself over Xmas.

Tip 1 Are

Tip 2 You

Tip 3 Serious?

You don’t really need tips, the only thing you really need to do to reset yourself over Xmas is to be realistic.  Reflect on your past year and ask yourself what you have achieved vs what you haven’t.

If you haven’t achieved something in the time you wanted to, outsource it to someone who can help you achieve it. Then focus on the things you love, enjoy and value.

Doing this helps you refocus your mind and gives you purpose.

Once you’ve reflected, set 90 day goals of what you want to achieve in that time.  Be specific.  Map them out.  Write them out and stick them on your fridge.  Look at them every day and ask whether you are progressing towards them.

By the end of the 90 days, you will be able to then cross them off, Hi 5 yourself, your partner or a friend and then set some new ones.

Need some other inspiration to guide your reset?  How about:

  • Spending time with loved ones;
  • Watch a movie, or several;
  • Go for a super long walk;
  • Laugh so hard your belly hurts;
  • Read a book you can’t put down;
  • Take a long hot bath that fogs up the whole bathroom;
  • Eat foods you enjoy?

Last tip (this one’s an actual tip): do the solar plexus release twice a day.

Never heard of it? Check out this video with Karl where he explains how to do it.

Why is it good?  The solar plexus release can help relieve the tightness in your breathing, which in turn can help reduce the stress in your body.  Many of us hold tension in our diaphragm which forces us to breathe through our chest, not our belly.  Chest breaths stimulate the sympathetic nervous system (stress response), while belly breaths stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (relax response).

Doing the solar plexus release targets the complex system of radiating nerves and ganglia found in the put of the stomach in front of the aorta.  It has an important role in the functioning of the stomach, kidneys, liver and adrenal glands.  Doing this release stimulates this nerve hub and forces you to consciously focus on the depth of your breath and diaphragm.

While doing the release, you will actually feel your diaphragm and solar plexus ‘let go’.  Yes to start it is uncomfortable, but likely anything, practice makes perfect and the more you do it, the deeper your breaths will be.  Enjoy!

This article was kindly provided by Vitruvian Health. 

3 things you can do to boost your day to day recovery

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Karl from Vitruvian Health shares some tips on how you can boost your daily recovery – not just after exercise, but also after each work day, so that you can perform even better the day after a long and taxing shift.

Tip 1 – Start winding yourself down early

Karl’s daily routine actually begins at his nighttime.  He believes how you sleep is how you perform so instead of planning his day from when he wakes up, he focuses on what he can do to recover and sleep so that the following day he’s full of energy the whole day.

Want to know more about how you can plan your routine, starting with your recovery?  Check out this video with Karl.

Tip 2 – Have a pre bed routine

Whenever you finish your shift and you get home, you need to have a few things you do that signal to yourself and your body that it’s time to switch off and rest.  Do these every night and your body takes these as cues to switch on the parasympathetic system and wind yourself down.

For example, we all love eating, right?  Well if you eat a meal that is carb rich pre bed it stimulates the release of the relaxation hormone serotonin which means that you’ll go to bed on a full stomach with sustained energy to help your body rest and recover while you sleep.

Give this meal a go (yes, sounds weird but it is delicious!) – 180g cooked white rice mixed with 180g blueberries or raspberries, 120ml coconut milk and cinnamon.  Microwave for 1 minute or heat up in a pan and enjoy after dinner.  

Other things you can implement into your pre bed routine are:

  • Enjoy a hot cup of cacao 60 minutes before bed. 
  • Journal your thoughts and finish with 3 things you’re grateful for today.
  • Have a hot shower.

Tip 3 – Turn your bedroom into your sanctuary 

Have you ever gone to a hotel and seen the room where you are staying thinking ‘Wow that bed looks so comfy, I’m going to sleep so well!’?

Basically you want that response each time you see your own bed!  The bed is for sleeping, not for talking on the phone, reading a book, or watching a movie.  Every time you see your bed before you sleep, you want to trigger your body to think ‘I’m about to sleep’, so that when you get into bed, you are ready to sleep.

To help with this, set your room up for sleeping.  This is the best way you can set yourself up for the best recovery between shifts.  For example you can:

  • Make your bedroom like a bat cave – use heavy blinds to block out the light from outside, cover all lights from any smoke alarms, technology that’s in your room and close your bedroom door when you sleep.  Alternatively you can just wear an eye mask;
  • Leave your technology outside your bedroom.  Before you say “my alarm is on my phone”, trust me, your alarm works outside your door as well, it doesn’t need to be next to your ear to wake you up, simply turn up the volume;
  • Use side lamps or a salt lamp for light rather than the overhead light;
  • Invest in some soft bedding that makes you feel rested just by touching it;
  • Play some relaxation / sleep music to help you drift off to sleep.

The next time you look at your bedroom, consider whether it is set up properly so that you can maximise the time you have to rest and recover between your day to day.

This article was provided by Vitruvian Health.

Finding your fit(ness): it’s all about your ‘why’

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Karl from Vitruvian Health shares some insights into the different directions you can take on your health and welbeing journey.

As 2020 comes to a close, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on the year that was, and plan for the year ahead.  This year was many things for many different people, but we think it’s safe to say the events that occurred were unexpected.

What has however remained consistent is the choices you make in relation to your health and welbeing.

Whether you had a plan, or didn’t, the key question to ask yourself is: are you getting the results you want?

If your answer is..

“Yes” – then keep it up!

“No” – its time to change something.

“I don’t know what I want to achieve” – read on to find out more!

What results can you strive for?

The great thing about our health and wellbeing is that the results you can strive for are so diverse.  At the end of the day your goals depend on you as an individual – your current lifestyle and what your want to achieve.

In this article, we skip over the process of goal setting, rather we look at the results you can aim for. We find that having an idea of where you want to go can actually help you get there.

Health and welbeing results generally fall into the following categories:

  1. Create a physical change:
    1. Weight / fat loss
    2. Increase strength
    3. Build muscle
    4. Improve posture
  2. Optimise the body’s day to day functions:
    1. Increase energy
    2. Improve digestion
    3. Reduce brain fog and improve mental clarity
    4. Reduce inflammation in the body
    5. Increase libido
    6. Sleep deeper, wake rested and not craving coffee
  3. Improve mindset and lifestyle:
    1. Attain a structured approach to training and nutrition through the implementation of a routine that is sustainable and reflective of your lifestyle
    2. Gain clarity as to your purpose
    3. Feel grounded
    4. Improve your confidence 
    5. Reduce anxiety and depression

We find that there is generally 1 overarching goal that drives a person to want to make a change to their health and wellbeing.  Whether this goal is in category 1, 2 or 3, we generally see improvements to the other categories as a by-product of the focus on the initial category.  

So how do you figure out what you want to achieve?

You need to find your ‘why’. 

What is that, you ask? 

Your ‘why’ is the reason that underpins what you want to achieve.  Usually we find this reason is a deep dark secret that a person is reluctant to share unless they feel comfortable opening up about it. 

It is this deep dark secret that actually defines the way a person lives, is what drives them day to day and is sometimes what they most fear.

For example, a person might say ‘I want to lose weight’.  This goal is vague and doesn’t give a specific amount of weight to lose, a timeframe in which to do it, nor a connection to why they want to achieve it. 

If a person then sets out to lose the weight based on this goal, it is likely they will only last a few weeks on their weight loss journey and then succumb to a late night or emotional eating craving, undoing their hard work in the previous few weeks. It’s then unlikely that they’ll restart their weight loss journey. 

However if this person connected with their why from the outset, their experience would be different. That is, maybe their ‘why’ is that they want to lose weight because their partner is cheating on them, but rather than end the relationship they want to lose weight so they feel more confident about themselves, their body and in the bedroom, such that losing the weight will snap their partner out of their phase of looking elsewhere. 

Once a person connects with their ‘why’, it provides the connection to the main driver, which then makes it much easier to define their goal and prepare a strategy to set them up for success. 

Your ‘why’ will change over time, but then so too do your health and welbeing goals. The importance in the process is connecting with it throughout this time. 

This article was provided by Vitruvian Health.

8 exercises to improve your posture that you can do at home

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Karl from Vitruvian Health shares a short workout you can do at home to improve your posture.  

This workout is designed to open up and activate the muscles around your neck, shoulders, back and hips all in one session so that you enjoy a ‘post workout glow’! This will help  you either shake off the cobwebs from your night’s sleep, or loosen up after a long day.

This workout can be done either at the beginning or the end of the day.  Whether you feel super energetic or lethargic, there are options you can choose from depending on how you feel.  Have fun!

You can follow Karl and Kate doing this workout below.

Warm up

  1. Lying neck rotations
    1. Lie on the ground, knees bent or straight; with your shoulders away from your ears;
    2. Look up at the ceiling;
    3. Slowly rotate your head first to the left, and back to centre. Keep your chin in;
    4. Repeat 10 times;
    5. Then rotate to the right hand side and repeat 10 times.
  3. Lying scorpion pec stretch 
    1. Lie on your front with your right arm at a right angle;
    2. Lift your left leg, bend at the knee and roll over towards the right hand side;
    3. Make sure to keep the right shoulder on the ground the whole time. You have reached your range of movement when you feel a slight pulling sensation across the front of your right shoulder;
    4. Stay here for 10 breaths;
    5. Repeat on the left side.

Repeat neck rotations and lying scorpion pec stretch 3 times through, one after the other.

A series

    1. Single arm lat stretch
      1. Using a bar, door handle or kitchen sink, take hold with your right hand using a firm grip;
      2. Keep your feet hip distance apart;
      3. Lean your hips backwards until your back flattens and you feel the stretch through your lat;
      4. Knees can be bent or straight, depending on how you feel the stretch;
      5. Hold for 60 secs;
      6. Repeat on the left hand side.
  1.  2. Shoulder dislocates
    1. Grab a band, towel or dowel (broomstick);
    2. Hold the band with both hands.  Hands will be wider than your hips.  The tighter you are, the further apart your hands need to be.  The aim is to keep your arms straight the whole time;.
    3. On your inhale, lift your shoulder up near your ears, then lift your arms up over your head;
    4. Pull your stomach and ribs in;
    5. Without bending your arms, as you exhale, let your arms fall over your head while pulling your chest up (ribs in) so your arms and the band are behind you.  You are aiming for the band to touch your bum.  The tighter you are, the less range you have;
    6. Once you reach your end point, squeeze your upper back, take a deep breath in, lift your arms and as you do so, lift your shoulders up towards your ears;  
    7. Exhale as your arms come back down in front of you back to your starting position;
    8. Repeat 10 times

Repeat A series (single arm lat stretch and shoulder dislocates) 3 times through, one after the other.

B series

    1. Jefferson curls 
      1. Using a kettlebell / sandbag / bag of shopping, hold your weight with both hands in front of you;
      2. Stand feet hip distance apart, lock out legs, chin in, roll shoulders forwards, pull belly in;
      3. Start to slowly roll down through a forward fold feeling every vertebrae in your spine as you lower, pushing the hips back as far as you can; 
      4. Use your exhale to roll deeper;
      5. Slow roll back up to the top – this is the completion of 1 rep;
      6. Repeat 10 times.
  1. Lying prone big 3
    1. Lying on your front, hands by your side, palms up, lift hands up to the ceiling and back down, complete 15 reps;
    2. Palms down, rotate thumbs up to the ceiling, inhale lift your thumbs up to the ceiling turning the palms outwards and lower back down, complete 15 reps;
    3. Arms at 90 degrees, palms face down, lift up the hand, then the elbow as high as you can and back down, complete 15 reps.

Repeat B series (jefferson curls and prone big 3) 3 times through, one after the other.

C series

  1. Active pigeon
    1. Starting in a lunge, back knee down, hands on the inside of your front foot (option to have your hands on blocks, cushions or couch if you can’t touch the floor);
    2. Push the front knee out to the side and back up, complete 20 reps;
    3. On the 20th time, hold the knee out to the side and hold for 20 secs;
    4. Repeat on the opposite side.
  2. Side oblique hip lifts
    1. Lie onto your side;
    2. Bottom leg is straight, top leg bent at 90 degrees;
    3. Press bottom hand and foot of the bent leg into the ground and lift the hips up and down 10 times;
    4. Advanced option is to perform with both legs straight;
    5. Repeat on the other side.

Repeat C series (active pigeon and side oblique hip lifts) 3 times through, one after the other.

This article was kindly provided by Vitruvian Health. 

Want to stop the aches and pains? This will help! 

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Karl from Vitruvian Health shares a different form of self maintenance which can ease restriction and pain.

Back pain, neck pain, achy feet, tight hips… Sound familiar?  As nurses and midwives spend most of their time on their feet, the end of a 10+ hour day can result in many aches, pains and overall tightness throughout the body.

Left untreated, tightness, aches and pains can morph into restricted ranges of movement through the joints and increases your chances of developing an injury. 

When we say treatment, we don’t mean that you need to have a physio appointment booked in at the end of every shift.  Rather the key to treating, and resolving pain, as well as improving joint and tissue restrictions is… mobility.

What is mobility?

Mobility is the performance of basic ‘self-maintenance’ on your body by doing exercises that mobilise your tissue health.  In the same way that you need to clean the lint build up from your dryer, you need to perform regular maintenance on your body to prevent problems from occurring (the lint building up) that result from tissues that have become stiff and dysfunctional (the dryer catching on fire).

Dr Kelly Starrett is a big supporter of mobility exercises  and promotes the daily practice of a strategic and systematic approach to mobility exercises, combined with movement and restorative promoting lifestyle and nutrition choices that aim to release any soft tissue restrictions that could be limiting your range of movement. 

He describes the aim of mobility as addressing your ability to engage your muscles coupled with how well your tissues (skin, nerves, muscles and tendons) slide and glide over each other and around your joints.  A common term used to describe this is ‘myofascial work’.

Mobility is NOT the same as stretching

Beware of the trap of thinking that mobility is stretching.  When people stretch, they usually bring the joint or tissue into a position where tension is felt, and then hold it (e.g. in a lunge pressing your hips forwards).  Stretching like this will not promote the same release, restoration and strengthening like mobility will through the application of tension and slight movement at end range.  In fact, static stretching will actually make the muscle weaker, rather than stronger, increasing your chances of injury.

Mobility also helps to improve your posture

In another one of our articles, we talked about poor posture and how this results from assuming positions unique to our modern world that challenge the daily functioning of our musculature. 

Adopting a regular practice of mobility, in addition to your daily exercise regime, can help your body adapt to being in constant motion, and you won’t have a chance to stiffen into any one position, eg forward rounding shoulders.

Start your mobility journey today with 1 exercise – shoulder dislocates

The only unfortunate thing about this exercise is its name.. Don’t worry you won’t actually dislocate your shoulder from doing this exercise!

Shoulder dislocates can be performed using a towel, band or a dowel.  It focuses on opening up and strengthening the muscles in your shoulder. 

Everytime we are sitting in a desk posture, we are putting the tissues around the front of the shoulder, chest and neck in a shortened state, while all the muscles in the upper back are put in a lengthened state.  This makes it difficult to pull the shoulders back into a good position.

Shoulder dislocates work the shoulder through all of its movements: pronation, elevation, retraction, depression. Doing this promotes the engagement and strengthening of the anterior shoulder muscles so that they pull the shoulder joint backwards, which then enables the front shoulder muscles to release. 

How to perform shoulder dislocates

  1. Grab a band, towel or dowel (broomstick);
  2. Hold the band with both hands.  Hands will be wider than your hips.  The tighter you are, the further apart your hands need to be.  The aim is to keep your arms straight the whole time.;On your inhale, lift your shoulder up near your ears, then lift your arms up over your head;
  3. Pull your stomach and ribs in;
  4. Without bending your arms, as you exhale, let your arms fall over your head while pulling your chest up (ribs in) so your arms and the band are behind you.  You are aiming for the band to touch your bum.  The tighter you are, the less range you have;
  5. Once you reach your end point, squeeze your upper back, take a deep breath in, lift your arms and as you do so, lift your shoulders up towards your ears;  
  6. Exhale as your arms come back down in front of you back to your starting position;
  7. Repeat 10 times.

Here’s a video with Karl explaining how to do a shoulder dislocate.

This content was kindly provided by Vitruvian Health.