Calm Before the Shift

If you work in healthcare, are a teacher, a caregiver of any kind, and/or wear scrubs to your work, you probably know this feeling: you haven’t even clocked in yet, and you are already tired. Not physically tired, nervous-system tired. Exhausted. Bracing yourself. Tight. Carrying too much into the building.

Healthcare, in general, and any work that involves taking care of, or teaching, other human beings is exhausting. It is draining work.

What can help? Is it possible to change the work? Not likely. And even if change at work is possible, it, most likely, isn’t going to happen quickly.

So how can you preserve your wellbeing if you arrive to this chaotic workplace already depleted from the shift or day before? What if your health is suffering because of the mental strain your job is having on you? The key is in arriving calm and carrying your calm with you.

Picture, in your mind’s eye, that your stress, apprehension, distrust, anger, weariness, wariness, and exhaustion are in a bundle on your back, like a backpack of sorts, that you put on before your shift and carry around with you all day (or night), adding to it as your shift progresses. How heavy that pack is. What a load to bear. Imagine how you are feeling and acting with your gathered emotions and experiences weighing you down from the moment you arrived. Are you able to do your best work, shifting that pack from shoulder to shoulder? Are you able to see any good with your back aching from the weight of what you carry? Do you have any energy to go the extra distance when it is a slog to just do the bare minimum?

What if you took a few minutes before you shift and took the things that are weighing you down and set them on the seat beside you in the car, on the bench in the locker room, throw them out the window, or flush them down the toilet in the bathroom stall. Whatever works for you, just take them off your back and get rid of them; you don’t need them again. These are not things you want to come back to and put back on your back.

Now that they are off of your back, take a moment to find the calm. No affirmations. No pretending the job isn’t hard. Take the opportunity to use Calm Before the Shift for steady, human support for the moments right before you step inside. This practice, a short audio ritual library, is designed to help you walk into work more regulated and less depleted.

You can use it in your car, a locker room, or a bathroom stall. Same-day relief. No extra homework.

Here is a sample. (click to listen)

If that sounds like something you need you can find it here: Calm Before the Shift

Finding calm before the chaos is key. Have a good shift.