How to thrive in stressful times

Celeste: Welcome to the Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria podcast series where we will be diving into issues that impact the way nurses and midwives navigate today's ever-changing world. I'm Celeste Pinney, a Midwife and Senior Clinician at the Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria, and host of this podcast series. Before we commence, I would like to take the opportunity to highlight the role of the Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria, also known NMHPV, within the nursing and midwifery landscape in this state. NMHPV is a profession specific support service which provides care and assistance to nurses, midwives and students by experienced nurses and midwives. NMHPV provides a safe entry point into the service system where our colleagues can bring with them any sensitive health issues impacting their wellbeing. The program is voluntary, and importantly, it is free to access, confidential and independent.

Our new health and wellbeing podcast series, Wellness Reimagined- how to thrive in stressful times is a special six week series dedicated to supporting the health and wellbeing of nurses and midwives. We know the incredible dedication and care you bring to your work every day, and this series is designed to give back to you by focusing on your own health and self-care. Over the next six weeks, we'll be diving into the essentials of health and wellbeing for nurses, midwives and students. We have invited Mark Bunn, a wellness speaker, to provide you with actionable advice and insights and help equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to make positive changes in your life, one step at a time. Each week, we will be exploring a different health topic designed to guide you on your wellness journey. Welcome to the podcast, Mark.

Mark: Hello Celeste and all your wonderful listeners.

Celeste: Great to have you on board. Thanks for joining us today.

Mark: Ah, It's an absolute pleasure

Celeste: Just so our listeners can learn a little bit more about you and what you do. Would you mind first sharing with us something about yourself and your journey into the health and wellness field?

Mark: Certainly, yeah, I was fortunate to have a very enlightened mother who, at 16, gave me a book by Dr Wayne Dyer, and it was all about the mind body connection, and it just fascinated me. So I started to explore that while starting a AFL football career not long after learning something called transcendental meditation when I was just 19 years old, and sort of having an experience of just a way to really calm my mind and get in a really nice state of focus and sort of that whole performance level. But at the time, also, I was studying western health science, and to be honest, by the end of my honors degree, I was quite confused, because it seemed like every few months there'd be a new study, sort of telling us something different about health and wellbeing. You know, should we eat meat? Shouldn't we eat meat? Should we eat dairy? Shouldn't we eat dairy? Exercise should be high intensity for a short period of time or low intensity for a long time.

Sort of not long after that, I had the opportunity to travel through Southeast Asia working for an aid group, and I got introduced to more of that sort of Eastern medical system and the traditional sort of wisdom of cultures that have lived more closely attuned to the land and the sort of natural rhythms and cycles. And again, I found this really fascinating. At one point in Cambodia, I've got a chance to sit on the back of an Australia Post motorbike with an Indian ayurvedic doctor who would go out to the local villages and sort of treat them. And he was fascinating, you know, just the way he could almost diagnose certain conditions, you know, just by the look of their face or their skin or the way they talked.

So I came back to Australia, and I actually studied Ayurvedic medicine formally, and then had the great opportunity to travel for a couple of years with some doctors trained in that. And yeah, they were really great because they had a beautiful respect and honoured the western approach and modern science and modern medicine at the same time as having these fundamental sort of age old wisdoms, if you like, of health and happiness that they were able to sort of extol and taught to the people we saw. So that was a really great grounding. And then from there, I did a bit of one on one coaching myself, and then got into the speaking industry. So probably for 15-20 years now, travelled Australia and internationally speaking on health, but very much from a grounding of Ayurvedic medicine and Eastern medicine, and sort of integrating east and west, and taking the best of modern science and sort of backing that up with the traditional knowledge that we have. And then that culminated in writing a book called Ancient Wisdom for Modern Health about a decade ago that's been quite popular, and sort of, yeah, putting together just some really basic principles that we can follow in a you western world when we're busy and have to deal with all the challenges that we do.

Celeste: Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Mark. And what are you up to now in the health space?

Mark: Yeah, so I still speak a lot. Had the great fortune to speak four times at the biannual NMHPV event at the convention centre, so that's always a great thrill. I speak a lot to nurses and midwives, and I love teacher groups, as well as the business corporate groups. So that takes a bit of time with the travel. But I'm also, again, quite fortunate to have a role working with Sukhavati, which is a health resort in Bali that does primarily this Ayurvedic medicine, all the rejuvenation and purification programs, you know, you think of the massages and the warm herbalised oils across your forehead and facials and all that sort of beautiful stuff. So I get to spend about three months a year there, and then the rest of the time just working from Australia, overseeing the sort of Ayurvedic education pieces, and then when I can trying to do a little bit more writing. And had done a podcast up until recently, and looking to see whether we get back into a bit more of podcasting or just some online Pageprograms and bits and pieces. But whatever we can do to sort of here support people to get along the health journey as best they can.

Celeste: That sounds like a very fortunate and interesting career you've got

Mark: Yes. Now I feel very, very lucky.

Celeste: I will look forward to hearing more from you as the weeks go by. We're just going to share now a little bit about what you can look forward to over the next six weeks. So in week one, we're going to be diving into habits. Habits are fundamental to making positive changes and underpin all the other health topics that we'll discuss in future weeks, we're going to explore how to build and sustain healthy routines that support your wellbeing in the long term. 

And then in the second week, we'll emphasize the importance of rest and recovery and explore ways to ensure you're getting the downtime you need. Week three will be all about sleep, which is very important for nurses and midwives, because it can be a difficult area of health. You'll discover how to improve your sleep quality and implement simple, effective strategies specific to shift workers. In week four, we'll focus on movement and discuss the role of physical activity in boosting energy and maintaining resilience.

Week five will be all about stress management, where we'll share effective strategies to help you handle the demands of your work and life with greater ease. And in the final week, which is week six, we'll introduce breathing techniques that can help reduce anxiety, overwhelm, and increase feelings of calm and centeredness. So that's all for today. Thanks for joining us. We look forward to being with you next week for our first topic on Harnessing the Power of Habits. For any nurse or midwife in need of support, you can call us on 9415 7551 to make an appointment with one of our nurse and midwife clinicians.