NurseConnect.com Nursing and Political Talk Forum

sleep disorder

Sleep is an important human activity as it keeps a person physically healthy. Among other things, sleep helps a person cope up with stress effectively and enhances a person’s mental function. But sad to say, a lot of people are getting less sleep that their body needs. Individuals who lack sleep are at risk for encountering car accidents three times than those who are sleeping well at night. Furthermore, sleep deprivation has been linked to stress.

What Causes Sleep Disorders

Troubles from work. Most people take their workloads at home and even during bedtime. The demands of the work tend to contribute to the trouble people experience when sleeping. No one can stop the mind from thinking about the day of troubleshooting. What’s worse is that it can even wake a person up in the middle of the night due to these thoughts.
Too much intake of coffee. Most people take caffeine to start their day. Coffee tends to give a boost that allows a person to make it through the day. But caffeine also exacerbates stress levels that affect the amount of sleep a person gets.
Stress. The stress hormone, cortisol, is responsible for the jolt of energy experienced when a person is stressed out or threatened. Release of this hormone enables a person to respond well in stressful situations. However, when stress is prolonged cortisol levels increase excessively which contributes to the disruption of a person’s healthy sleep patterns.
Anxiety. An anxious mind keeps sleep away. Perhaps a person is preoccupied with finding the solution to the problem or worrying about the future. This thoughts increases cortisol levels that robs a person’s sleep.

Tips in Getting Enough Sleep:

Set regular and healthy nighttime habits. The key to getting quality sleep at night is consistency. A regular schedule of sleeping every night and waking up almost at the same time each day can promote a sufficient amount of a good night’s sleep.
Use relaxation techniques. Keeping the stress away is achieved by performing progressive muscle relaxation and deep muscle relaxation techniques. Another way to easily move on to sleep is meditation. It tends to relax the body and promote peace.
Performing sexual activity before sleeping. This has been the favorite technique of most people as it increases the levels of relaxing hormones and provides other advantages to stress management.
Have a power nap. Napping increases a person’s productivity and fills in the amount of sleep needed.

If prices of cigarettes go up to $10.00 a pack will nurses, doctors, and society quit smoking?

As we see everyday how the society advertises about cigarette smoking can harm your health and how the taxes keep going up on cigarettes to the point of them being expensive. If the cigarettes go up to $10.00 a pack will the society quit smoking? My husband smokes and has for years and as I watch him buy a pack a day I add up how much it costs us financially. On the radio one day we heard they are going to attach more taxes on cigarettes to try and keep people from buying them. My husbands comment coming from a smoker said that won’t stop people from smoking they will still buy the cigarettes. My question from a non-smoker perspective and from a health perspective will it ever stop and how far will smokers go? Will they be willing to pay $20.00 for that pack of cigarettes knowing that is their last $20.00 to their name?This is a good point, Janice. The nicotine addiction is a powerful one, and each individual has to have their "breaking point". My concern is that some cigarette smokers will actually spend the additional money per pack rather than say on required medications or nutritious food. Both of these substitutions would have an impact on health outcomes.

Obesity is it and addiction or a craving?

I am a nursing student with only 4 more months to go and I have a question for other nurses through out the world. I was watching a TV show the other day and they had a debate on weather obesity is an addiction or a craving. An addiction like alcoholism or a craving one sits around and can't think of anything else but that chocolate cake so the concentration is gone. What do you think?

Nurse Call Systems - Lightening the Load

It is all too clear to me that nurses have one of the toughest jobs out there and the resolution to the problem of overworked nursing staff and healthcare professionals inevitably lies in technology. Nurses are such a valuable resource and, without them, society would be a much worse place so we should help them in their jobs and design and supply technology that helps them function as efficiently, cost effectively and safely as possible.

Nurse call systems are a form of technology which are found in the vast majority of healthcare facilities throughout Europe and North America and they are a vital cog in the machine of helping nurses respond to emergencies in a timely fashion and prioritise which patients require treatment most urgently. Nurses invariably have to work on the fly and wireless nurse call systems invariably help them to achieve this as they are an extremely versatile and intuitive form of technology which has helped patient safety and nursing efficiency come on leaps and bounds in the last few years alone.

Nursing staff often have the responsibility for overseeing the safety of a large number of patients and often find themselves lacking in the necessary resources, in terms of manpower, to safely achieve this goal. Nurse call systems, however, are beginning to help turn the tide in the favour of nurses and healthcare professionals as they typically offer multi-zone flexibility which gives nurses the chance to monitor their patients more effectively.

www.nursecallsystems.co.uk

Help make safety needles mandatory!!!

I just created a petition entitled Federal Healthcare Regulations: Mandatory retractable safety needles in healthcare settings, because I care deeply about this very important issue. I'm trying to collect 100 signatures, and I could really use your help. To read more about what I'm trying to do and to sign my petition, click here: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-president-of-the-united-states-make-retractable-safety-needles-mandatory-in-healthcare-settings

Protecting Nurses

I work for an organization that employs several hundred nurses and several thousand employees covering all 50 states. The 30+ nurses working together at my job site are the only ones who are organized into a collective bargaining unit. We had unionized before the corporation took over the company with which we originally negotiated our contract. We have been represented by our state nursing organization but have been notified it is dropping its union role due to finances. We're very anxious to continue the union protections we currently enjoy. The benefits are great to have, but the protection against unfair disciplinary actions and dismissal have been a huge factor in this particular setting. We have found a new union to represent us, but we also know management has announced the union is being disbanded. Does anyone know, what the corporation can do to block us? Do you have any suggestions for how to approach a transition like this? Any comments would be welcome, and any direction/guidance would be deeply appreciated.

Culture and Nursing Education

I am a nurse educator who is currently in a doctoral program. As nursing and education becomes more global, what impact does culture have on our students preferences for learning? Do they prefer individual or small cooperative groups? Have any of you expereinced any cultural differences? In what ways does culture impact learning? I personally have noticed that students who are Asian interact less in the classroom setting but participate more in small groups. Teresa Bryan

Retention of Registered Nurses

Hi my name is T. Nichelle, and I am doing a study on the Retention of Registered Nurses in the Acute Care Setting for my Master's Degree in Healthcare Administration. Would you please take 10-15 minutes to complete my survey. Please follow the link. Thank you!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/empoweredbynurses

Unions...

I will be graduating in May from nursing school and will be moving to the San Francisco Bay area after. I was curious to know what the advantages/disadvantages of being Union. Graduating from an Idaho school we don't have unions here so more information would be great!I personaly like unions because they fight for a better salary for nurses and make sure that employers respect the meal and break rules as well as holidays, overtime, and many more. But in some cases that is hard to let go of a under performer nurse due to protection of unions i guess that would be a minus.

Superficial growth for the sake of change,

Or genuine growth for better patient outcomes?

Sharon Anderson, RN, Jackie Brown, RN, M. Jean Whitaker, RN, Jennifer Henry, RN

Changing the education requirements in nursing is inevitable. The current trend is to require a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing. As we move forward in nursing practice and education, nursing leaders look for ways of training nurses to be more competent and more capable of critical thinking upon graduation from nursing school. Some are proposing that a master’s degree should be required. We do not believe a master’s degree is necessary or appropriate for entry level nursing. According to an article by Drennan: “…Despite the centrality of critical thinking to educational curricula, achievement of this outcome has not been evaluated.” (Drennan 2010) If the outcome we seek is a better prepared nurse and this outcome’s achievement has not been evaluated, where do we stand on this debate? One cannot assume that more education will make nurses more competent. Rather, it is the individual that seeks to make themselves a more competent nurse. The research is not out there to support the need for a master’s degree as the basis for entry into nursing practice. One must also question whether this would decrease the nursing force. Would potential nurses no longer consider nursing as a profession if they were required to obtain a masters degree? This could leave us with an even bigger nursing shortage than is already in existence. There are no established benefits of requiring this higher degree for entry into practice and there is certainly the potential of producing undesired effects.

One group that has an opinion on nursing education is the American Nurses AssChanging the education requirements in nursing is inevitable. The current trend is to require a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing. As we move forward in nursing practice and education, nursing leaders look for ways of training nurses to be more competent and more capable of critical thinking upon graduation from nursing school. Some are proposing that a master’s degree should be required.To my brother and sister Medics out there. I literally had a <8hr relationship with Blackwater now the new and improved Xe? Yes, this will be a bitch session! :o) I had been contacted by them about a month or so. I’m just recently back from Iraq doing a contract gig at Camp Slayer providing medical care for the Ugandan and other ex-pats. I truly enjoyed taking care of all the folks there. You all I assume who are reading this know why we do what we do. It really is a special calling to be a “medic” i.e. EMT -B-I-P, LPN/RN/NP/PA etc. Any-who I was told I’d be flying into Blackwaster/Xe country 18th April. I cover clinics in CA and NV. Well they told me with a 3 days heads up I’d be flying out this Easter. I had to jump through hoops to find another provider to cover my slots etc. That was a red flag in itself. I should have said, to BW/XE to take a hike, but I did not. I flew out this last Sunday(Easter) I send BW/XE basically a nasty gram informing them of what a bind they put me in. I reminded them in my humble opinion; they were a bad company, hired thugs and goons to shoot innocent folks. That’s why they were tossed out of Iraq and not are being watched for other not so nice thinks happening in A-stan. Sunday night I told my roomie that I would be sent home the next day. I did pass my PT test and out of the 5 of us only 2 of us passed the actual run and bench press. Myself and another guy 20yrs my younger. BTW I’m 57, a mere baby! They had one of the female candidates run with an active Bronchitis on a Z-pak antibiotic. I brought that to the instructors and I was told it was not my concern. When they passed us all I thought it was a crock. Then why give a PT test at all if you are going to pass all regardless. I referred to their PSD folks as goons, thugs and trigger happy mercenaries Needless to say they did not like it. I was not happy with them at all. They were already kicked out of Iraq and now maybe soon out of A-stan. I was also called a “f….king pussy” by Andrew Walsh and told to keep my “f..kig mouth shut" by another BW employee while I was escorted back to my hotel room.ou've probably got lots of questions if you are planning for a baby. How can you increase your chances of conceiving? When is the best time to conceive? How long will it take to get pregnant?

Which foods to eat and which ones to avoid while you're pregnant? What are those ultrasound scans What's safe and what's not during pregnancy? What's going on inside your womb during those nine months and just what does happen when you give birth? for?