Nurse Wellbeing Mission

In this episode, we delve into the world of mental health nursing with Jane Fisher, a lecturer in the field and a service user herself. Jane shares her experiences and insights on self-disclosure, the complex identities nurses with mental health challenges navigate, and the power of authenticity in nursing practice. She emphasizes the importance of developing advanced interpersonal skills and fost...

It is such a common strategy or coping approach for many nurses to bottle up their feelings and hold on to things. This strategy makes sense in some circumstances. But in the long-run, it can be harmful. In this podcast episode, Nathan Illman discusses the common phenomenon of bottling up, or suppressing, emotions. He provides a step-by-step process for individuals to start acknowledging and expre...

Today's guest is Dr. Emma Wadey, a registered mental health nurse and Deputy Director of Mental Health Nursing for NHS England and Improvement. Emma's humility shines through in her clinical work and leadership style. We discuss her experiences, including public speaking anxiety, her unexpected path into nursing, the impact of nursing identity, and her love for marathon running. We also explore th...

District Nursing is a tough business. Long hours, solo working in complex and challenging environments. Not to mention the distressing and sometimes dangerous situations nurses are placed in. This can all take its toll on nurses' mental health. Which is why it is CRUCIAL to have a compassionate team leader who knows how to support their staff. Enter Helen Kelly. In today's super insightful and pra...

In this engaging and insightful podcast episode we talk to Deepa Korea, the Director of the RCN Foundation, a leading UK charity for nurses and midwives. She discusses the organization's mission to support nursing and midwifery staff through grants, research, and advocacy.  She candidly addresses imposter syndrome and the evolution of her mindset, highlighting the significance of self-care and bel...

All nurses and midwives experience stress in the course of their work. Having ways to quickly manage stress is crucial for one’s wellbeing and performance at work. In this solo episode, Nathan shares a powerful tool that helps to relieve stress, understand one’s emotions better, and develop self-compassion. It is a useful exercise that any nurse or midwife can practice. It could also easily be inc...

In today's episode, we will be tackling the question of whether mental health nursing students are being given adequate preparation and training in mental health. In this insightful discussion, I talk with Dan Warrender about the challenges and concerns surrounding mental health nurse education.  He highlights the impact of the Nursing and Midwifery Council's future nurse standards, emphasizing th...

Today’s episode is all about the story of how nurses are supporting other nurses in the UK.  We dive deep into the Professional Nurse Advocacy (PNA) program in the UK and how it is helping with nurse wellbeing and staff retention.   I chat to Martin Hogan, Lead Professional Nurse Advocate for a large healthcare organisation in the UK. He shares his story of how he got into supporting other nurses,...

Are you someone who neglects their needs and struggles with implementing self-care? Many nurses and midwives struggle with burnout and not taking appropriate care of themselves.  There is a real art and science to making behaviour change and properly taking care of ourselves. In this episode, Nathan will share with us some empowering questions that we can use to coach ourselves to start living a h...

Nursing seemed like a good career path for Emma Henry. She had finally found a profession she enjoyed, where she felt she could make a difference. But things changed. She had stressful experiences with her young children. She had stressful experiences at work. As things deteriorated, the unimaginable happened: She started experiencing hallucinations and delusions. She was having a psychotic episod...

Livaware is an innovative nurse-led team that fills the gaps in people's healthcare. They combine clinical excellence, coordination, and empathy to provide an unrivaled experience led by Hemmen Jutla, RN. In this episode, Nathan Illman talks with Hemmen as he talks about his inspiring journey of breaking away from his traditional nurse role to starting up his own company and becoming an entreprene...

Liam Caswell Coaching created a nurse career and life coaching service where they helped nurses navigate the life and career struggles that they face day to day and help them see that they have so many options.  In this episode, Nathan Illman sits down with Liam Caswell as he shares his own experiences of adversity and challenges he has overcome that influenced his career and desires to help other...

In this episode, Nathan talks about sleep again: part three of his mini-series about sleep difficulties, problems, and insomnia and how to improve those for nurses and midwives. In the previous episodes, Nathan provided an overview of effective evidence-based ways to optimize sleep and overcome sleep problems. Today's episode focused on shift work sleep disorder and the issues it creates for nurse...

In this episode, Nathan talks about sleep difficulties, problems, and insomnia and how to improve those for nurses and midwives. In the previous episode, Nathan talked about some general tips and tools for improving sleep. Today’s episode focused on people struggling with sleep; this episode is part two of a series about sleep tips. Here is a summary of key points from the episode: Insomnia is the...

In this episode, Nathan talks about the importance of sleep for wellbeing and shares some insights into some of his favourite tips to get better sleep. This episode is part of a series that will cover general sleep tips (today’s episode); ways to tackle insomnia; and how to improve sleep for night shift workers. Here is a summary of key points from the episode: >Sleep has been shown to be a sig...

Fatigue is a common problem in the workplace. It’s even more common and well-documented in people who work night shifts because of the lack of sleep they experience. It can cause different problems in our body systems that can, later on, affect the quality of our lives. It’s a good thing that in some workplaces fatigue is monitored among their employees and interventions are being implemented. How...

Schwartz Rounds provide a safe space for healthcare staff to share many aspects of their work with others. This results in reflections and realisations that enable staff to be more compassionate towards themselves and others. In this episode, Nathan Illman sits down with Jill Maben to discuss Schwartz Rounds and her evidence-based research about the effect of these rounds on nurses’ well-being.  L...

Being in a healthcare team is a tough job and even more when you stand as the leader. You have to be someone your team members can rely on especially during the most difficult times. It’s not enough to have the courage and strength of a leader. It is most important to keep the compassion that you had since the moment you entered this line of work to keep an open and honest culture for everyone’s w...

In today’s episode, I talk to Jasna Schwind, professor of nursing at the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing in Toronto about self-compassion in nurse education. Jasna is an RN and nurse educator who is interested in the humanness of care and ways to enhance nurse student learning via mindfulness and compassion. If you’re interested in self-compassion, this episode is for you! Nathan even leads a sh...

PTSD can reduce the quality of life for a long time but it is a treatable condition. The earlier it is detected, the better it will be for the person being crippled by it. Furthermore, in a workplace that has a high risk of facing traumatic experiences, taking the steps to prevent PTSD should be a prime concern.  In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Wild tackles the important aspects of Post-traumatic St...

It is normal for people to make mistakes and it is also completely normal to feel guilty about it. However, dwelling on the past and excessively thinking about the future effects of what we did wrong will oftentimes make it worse. It will greatly affect our practice, our overall health, and our relationships. So, practicing self-forgiveness and self-compassion can provide relief, growth and empowe...

Interested to know more about stress management programs for student nurses? Then you're in the right place. We talk to Becky Petley in this episode. Becky is finishing her Ph. D. at Winchester University in the UK and was investigating what aspects of wellbeing programs for student nurses actually work. In this conversation we cover: Why it’s important to understand what elements of wellbeing pro...

There are times when we already know that we should seek help because of the changes that we are noticing in the way we deal with things in our life. The problem is that many barriers stop us from taking action and make us think twice about getting help. However, thinking about the long-term benefits of seeking help now will help us change our mindsets and start to overcome these barriers. In this...

Tiffany Hood is an Associate Professor of nursing at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She has a highly varied nursing background and in the latter stages of her career has focused more on research. In this episode we talk about her research examining student nurses’ responses to critical incidents at work, to better understand their psychological reactions and help guide more effective prepa...

Professional quality of life greatly affects the overall well-being and work performance of healthcare workers. It is important to address the factors that negatively affect this and form habits through brief interventions. In this episode, Darcy Copeland, a Professor of Nursing and Nurse Scientist, talks about the study she conducted on brief workplace interventions to address burnout, compassion...