An RN since 1963, I was taught that one of my professional responsibilities was to be a role model for good health practices. As I reflect on many years of practice and living, it seems one of the glaring omissions in my education was any information about how to take care of myself in one of the world’s most challenging roles.

Happenstance found me developing a running habit in the early 70s when only those weird guys who were training for marathons were on the roads with me. I have run hundreds and hundreds of miles in the past fifty years. Currently, I am working on completing a goal of hiking 400 miles between Jan. 1 and March 21, 2021. 

While my age cohort is being decimated by the pandemic because of their underlying comorbidities, I know that my lifelong exercise habits have enabled me to escape being vulnerable. 

Reams of research support the role of exercise as one of the most health-protective activities one can do. It reduces stress, cortisol levels, increases energy, reduces the likelihood of obesity, keeps hypertension and cardiovascular disease at bay.

One of the best means nurses have to help others, regardless of specialty is to be that healthy role model. Having had experiences of being on the receiving end of nursing care by very obviously unhealthy nurses, I find myself skeptical of their recommendations. Ironically, taking care of themselves, being proficient at self-care, is one of our best resources for taking care of others. 

In the midst of the pandemic, practicing nurses are living in a healthcare hell – where stress levels, high prior to the pandemic, have soared to astronomical levels. 

In a bone-weary, soul-sore world, the loving hearts that nurses offer to virtually everyone whether on shift or in the grocery store, are an essential part of the “care” in healthcare. Warm-loving empathy seems in critically short supply, yet, we daily see examples of nurses not only rising to the demand but going above and beyond.

It has warmed my heart to see the public acknowledgment that nurses are now receiving; warm loving acknowledgment is a resource for strengthening nurses’ hearts. Working to increase nurse-to-nurse empathy and respect is a balm for aching hearts.

Years ago, as a nurse manager, I would have loved to be able to give any staff member who went out to walk an extra 15 minutes for lunch break. Good for their hearts, good for their brains, good for reducing stress, good for increasing cohesion among those who walked together, and good for our patients. In my most recent jobs, nurses were lucky to get a bio break, let alone lunch; a huge step in the wrong direction.

Nurses need to be at the forefront of leading patients, families, and communities in adopting improved health practices. We are perennially the most respected professional groups. The pandemic has demonstrated beyond a doubt that good underlying health is essential for everyone.

We need to have a good understanding of how damaging the Standard American Diet (Sickness Activating Diet) really is and refuse to eat it. Healthy tends to be a misnomer when applied to “hospital food.”

We need to know, and demonstrate, even simple habits like reading labels, limiting or eliminating foods carrying labels that read like a synopsis for a chemistry class, insisting on time to refresh with a yoga class or meditation; those actions will speak more loudly to our patients than the best handout in a packet of discharge papers.

“Actions speak louder than words,” applies to heart health. What I do to take care of my heart and all the trillions of other cells in my body is one of the best resources I have for helping others live in great health as well.

Bio‐ Rita Losee, ScD, RN

Happily Independent Distributor of LiveWave Health Inducing Technologies

Author: Soaring Seniors: Stories, Steps and Strategies for Living Full-Out after Fifty, Sixty, Seventy… 

World’s First Foremost and, only, INSPIRACTional Speaker