Selfcare is a contemporary term relating to individual views Free Essay Example

Self-care is a contemporary term relating to individual views and strategies aiming to improve own health by implementation of physical activity, home remedies, spiritual practice and medications (Arman & H?k, 2016).

As suggested by Eriksson (2007) acts of compassions are the ethical building blocks of love and they are in the centre of caring profession and humans naturally quest for love in life. Caring profession more than others need attention on the balance as their ethical principles and code of conduct is more focused on self-sacrifice than self-care so they are more likely to running down their resources if they do not have the support and help available if needed.

It is interesting how Buddhist philosophy and Christian ethics can be a valuable resource when managing self-care and preventing work related burnout (Pembroke, 2016) by offering universal and disinterested love, but difficult to achieve as most of caring jobs become regulated by external bodies as they are paid for delivering the service.

Last fifteen years of working in healthcare sector cured me effectively from believing that working in caring profession will produce self-caring individuals, emerging evidence suggest being counter-productive.

I would even argue that there is a potential danger when assuming the following pattern of thoughts. If people do not invest enough resources in self-care they will start to ignore their own needs as working in demanding environment are a challenge to start with and this is not healthy at all. One of the most striking conclusions emerging from these current observations is that majority of people working in caregiving industry had knowledge about health but this did not reflect in their own health (Arman & H?k, 2016).

In this paper in order to better understand the concept of self-care I utilised the properties of Orem’s Self-Care (OSC) theory which clearly explain the underpinning difficulties to self-care by caring professionals (Hartweg, 1990). Orem (2015) argued that every person is responsible for their own well-being and most importantly their own learned schemas are in charge of disease creation or health maintenance. Those assumptions highlights that self-care is a real struggle as is complex phenomena because includes human functioning, growth, development and adjusting in terms of nursing to rigid guidelines and policies necessary for the institutions like NHS to function. One of the reasons why Orem’s SC theory is so important for these reflective paper is its relevance not only to patient self-care but to staff self-care emphasising the own ability to act. One of the most effective way to maintain positive aspects of self-care will be to create the thriving environment where self-care become a foundation and the expected experience of meaningful and good life within the caring professions (Arman & H?k, 2016).

As much as the hospital environment is a place struggling to accommodate principles of self-care it is impressive to watch all professionals aiming to put patient/client in the centre of attention of the therapeutic alliance. One of the most heart-warming experiences which will stay in my memory for long was to see staff mastering Roger’s (1959) unconditional positive regards and manifesting in compassionate care and this is one of healthy signs of well-being. Sometimes this simply means listen patiently the same story from client with severe cognitive impairment, other time giving reassurance and comfort to someone who is anxious and depressed and feeling lost in a very busy environment of the acute hospital environment.