Mind Body & Spirit: Spirituality

Posted 05/01/2017

May is National Fitness and Sports Month

Mind Body & Spirit: Spirituality

The theme for NJSNA Healthy Nurse Health Nation is mind, body and spirit. Busy professionals can sometimes forget to take care of themselves. Connecting with spirituality is essential in strengthening one’s own inner strength and peace. This is important because nurses touch the lives of so many others. According to Sheldon (2013), there are four components that enhance a nurses’ inner strength:

Mental strength – manage stress and make time for relaxation and joyful activities
Moral strength – maintain moral standards
Physical strength – get exercise and eat nutritiously
and Spiritual strength which includes three factors – faith/belief dimension, life/self-responsibility, and life satisfaction.

Exercising and good nutrition are helpful to gain energy and maintain physical strength. Managing stress and making time for relaxing and joyful activities are helpful for mental strength. Maintaining moral standards will enhance moral strength (Sheldon, 2013). According to Hungelmann et al. (1996), spiritual well-being is multidimensional. There are three broad factors to spiritual well-being including the faith/belief dimension, life/self-responsibility and life satisfaction/self-actualization (Hunglemann et al.,1996). Nurses may struggle more with life satisfaction/self-actualization factor than with the other two factors. Self-actualization can be defined as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming” (Burleson, 2005). Spiritual strength is beyond a religion or strong belief.

To achieve self-actualization and life satisfaction the following are a few recommendations (Burleson, 2005):

Be creative
Facilitate self-learning for personal growth
Maintain a positive affect
Be open-minded in thought
Volunteer

Self-actualization is an important component in developing spiritual strength. Spirituality improves themind-body connection and strengthens inner peace.

Have a wonderful week full of peace and joy!

Buffy Reilly

References

Burleson, W. (2005). Developing creativity, motivation, and self-actualization with learning systems. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,

63(415). 436-45. Retrieved from the Walden University Library of Databases.

Hunglemann, E., Kenkel-Ros, L. & Klassen, R.S. (1996). Focus on spiritual well-being: Harmonious interconnectedness od mind-body-spirit use of the

JAREL Spiritual Well-Being Scale. Geriatric Nursing. 17(6). 262-266. Retrieved from the Walden University Library of Databases.

Sheldon, J.M. (2013). A journey to your inner strength. Retrieved from

http://www.nursetogether.com/journey-your-inner-nursing-strength