Expressive Writing for Nurses
I'm reading through the ANA magazine I got in the mail, and there's an article on expressive writing and how it can help nurses deal with stress. It's midnight on a Tuesday and I don't plan to go to bed for another few hours, so let's give it a shot.
One of the prompts mentioned in the article that has nothing to do with nursing is, "What games did you play as a child?"
One thing I remember doing as a child that made me very happy was visiting my cousins Chris and Sandi at their home, which was an apartment about half an hour away from my parents' house. They had the biggest collection of plastic play food I had ever seen, and it got me all riled up to be able to organize it into categories and play waitress. I would steal an apron from my Aunt Louie and a pad of paper and go person-to-person in the living room, asking what they wanted to order. Then I would run into the other room and set up trays with my best approximations of what they had asked for and come back out with a tray high above my head, inevitably spilling most of the plastic food in transit. I don't know why I liked doing that so much, but I could never get enough of those little hollow plastic fruits and tiny triangles of pizza.
Another thing I remember from my childhood is watching my brother play video games. I would study the screen intently, as if I planned to pick up the controller when he was done and take a shot at it myself, which I rarely did. The couple of times I was forced to make an attempt I felt extremely uncomfortable, stating, "But I don't know what I'm doing!" Somehow, I still enjoyed watching him play. I remember at one point having a binder filled with notes I wrote about different aspects of the game, I guess to try to be helpful to my big brother. I wonder if that still exists somewhere, like in my parents' basement...
Speaking of the basement, Ryan and I also used to roller skate or roller blade around the basement in circles. There was a pretty big space down there (for a kid) before my dad finished half of it to make an exercise room and you could happily skate around for a while without getting terribly dizzy. There was also a red pogo stick and a pink skip-it, if I recall correctly.
I liked playing the game "Sorry" and dressing up Barbies. When the power would go out because of a thunderstorm or hurricane, we got out the lantern and played War until it felt like the wee hours but was probably only 9pm. My parents have a generator now, so they can watch TV when the power goes out, but I think it was better before. I still have a tendency to keep a deck of cards near my flashlight in a drawer in the kitchen, "Just in case!" You never know, I guess.
I suppose that was a nice way to get out of my new nurse brain spiral for a few minutes. I'll have to try that some more. Time to go get the laundry....
xoxo
One of the prompts mentioned in the article that has nothing to do with nursing is, "What games did you play as a child?"
One thing I remember doing as a child that made me very happy was visiting my cousins Chris and Sandi at their home, which was an apartment about half an hour away from my parents' house. They had the biggest collection of plastic play food I had ever seen, and it got me all riled up to be able to organize it into categories and play waitress. I would steal an apron from my Aunt Louie and a pad of paper and go person-to-person in the living room, asking what they wanted to order. Then I would run into the other room and set up trays with my best approximations of what they had asked for and come back out with a tray high above my head, inevitably spilling most of the plastic food in transit. I don't know why I liked doing that so much, but I could never get enough of those little hollow plastic fruits and tiny triangles of pizza.
Another thing I remember from my childhood is watching my brother play video games. I would study the screen intently, as if I planned to pick up the controller when he was done and take a shot at it myself, which I rarely did. The couple of times I was forced to make an attempt I felt extremely uncomfortable, stating, "But I don't know what I'm doing!" Somehow, I still enjoyed watching him play. I remember at one point having a binder filled with notes I wrote about different aspects of the game, I guess to try to be helpful to my big brother. I wonder if that still exists somewhere, like in my parents' basement...
Speaking of the basement, Ryan and I also used to roller skate or roller blade around the basement in circles. There was a pretty big space down there (for a kid) before my dad finished half of it to make an exercise room and you could happily skate around for a while without getting terribly dizzy. There was also a red pogo stick and a pink skip-it, if I recall correctly.
I liked playing the game "Sorry" and dressing up Barbies. When the power would go out because of a thunderstorm or hurricane, we got out the lantern and played War until it felt like the wee hours but was probably only 9pm. My parents have a generator now, so they can watch TV when the power goes out, but I think it was better before. I still have a tendency to keep a deck of cards near my flashlight in a drawer in the kitchen, "Just in case!" You never know, I guess.
I suppose that was a nice way to get out of my new nurse brain spiral for a few minutes. I'll have to try that some more. Time to go get the laundry....
xoxo