Balancing Self-Care and Social Support Roles while Healing Trauma: A Mental Health Perspective for Human Service and Social Workers
Going into any human service profession, particularly the kind that involves exposure to trauma, witnessing and/or assisting socially or physically hurting victims, and experiencing the ongoing strain relative to the job, can create a lack of mental and physical health to support such roles. Considering such, there are, however, specific things that need to be adjusted in the human service professionals’ daily role, such that would involve implementing a vital fusion of self-care tips and techniques from which to develop a healthy mind and body. For example, taking up yoga or using other relaxation techniques that help with blood flow and circulation of muscles help to relieve a lot of tension associated with a stressful job. Those in human service or social support roles such as medical doctors, social workers, teachers, frontline law enforcement officers, emergency aid technicians, and human resources personnel, to name a few, need to have a way to put-off the stress associated with the strain that comes from helping others. While such roles can involve the need for emotional and crisis intervention, as part of dealing with a trauma or crisis, this blog focuses on the “self-care” tips that serve as adding a healthy perspective to a human service worker’s job and lifestyle.
The issue for such human service professionals who become exhausted during the mission is that the level of human compassion in their service, coupled with perhaps other stressful domestic issues or personal problems, can cause burnout and exhaustion, when reaching a peak level of performance and exceptional compassion, which are also factors. Therefore, I thoroughly believe in a lifestyle of achieving a 360 degree perspective on health — particularly with our minds and bodies. These tips prove to help avoid common psychological and physiological stressors that can cause or exacerbate a problematic source of tension, and create stress, such as one’s job or domestic lifestyle. While I advocate practicing measures to achieve health for the soul and spirit, as well, such as attending a church service once a week or meditating on a more spiritual level, this article will only discuss the first two — mind and body.
Our minds, particularly our brains, are an example of the battery with which we use to start and operate our motor vehicles. Yet, I find that oftentimes our minds work a lot like more like diet regimens than a well-charged battery, in which just like we need to be careful with what sorts of food we consume and digest (e.g. due to levels of toxicity, unbalanced choices of foods, or malnutrition, leading to cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, cancer, and even death), it is essential to safeguard the things we expose our minds to on a daily basis that can lead to the kind of programming in our brains that would cause unnecessary stress and poor habits. An example is too much consumption of leisure activities, which at the surface relieve stress, but for which excessive consumption can strain the mind and body. Riding a bicycle for too long, or watching television or listening to music too much are also noteworthy examples.
Therefore, where it concerns all areas of one’s daily living, it is a source of good balance and a healthy perspective to eat properly, exercise, and get as much sleep as the body requires. Consuming or doing these things in moderation is also important. For a healthy mind, when balancing a busy schedule, it is also important to consume daily sources of therapeutic exercises, natural vitamins, minerals, and healthy supplements to keep your mind focused and sharp. For a healthy mind that needs to stay active and fight through the day, regardless of what stressors surface (e.g. dealing with the public, performance reviews, and dealing with bad personalities), it is necessary to supply the brain with these vital nutrients to help fight or stave off stress.
Paskey (2012) examined the effect of such demographic factors as burnout rates and its degree levels, coupled with such factors as experience, age, and gender. In addition, the effect of self-care on burnout associated with social support roles was examined. Yet evidence based on a small sample size of a much greater population found that upon completing an online survey, none of the above variables in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota study seemed to have an effect on burnout, although it can be added that there is some degree of association, however statistically significant or insignificant the association. Interestingly enough, it can be posited that any and all factors can create stress or motivate burnout. For instance, “age” as a variable itself would appear to not influence burnout, however it is can be posited that the greater the age factor associated with the the human service or social worker, the greater the chronic and social problems associated with that age, relative to a normal bell curved population of human service professionals. Thus, the possibility of emotional exhaustion or burnout, relative to a typical rookie, would not be as great, coming into the force, as exiting it — holding all other relevant factors associated with the burnout, equal.
Paskey (2012) notes that human service professions have had an increasing direct association with burnout. For this reason, in recent years, Paskey (2012) states that “burnout has been increasingly researched in regard to those working in human service professions.” Maslach et, al. (2001) also defines this concept of burnout to be associated with three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (or a disconnect from effective interactions with people), and reduced feeling of accomplishment (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). Thus, in dealing with the exhausting nature of one’s work or service, while feeling emotionally depleted, it is essential to find support. It is essential to draw from positive sources. For example, Boyes (2013), a Clinical Psychologist, lists that among her “17 Ways to Take Better Care of Yourself” is the idea or concept of simply “going slower.” In other words, make it a point to slow down in your day and find therapeutic alternatives than the same daily, chronic hustle and bustle. This is something all human service professionals, including social workers, need to learn to do, so that their mental strain can be alleviated, and new healthy perspectives can enter in. This can certainly evade headaches and dizziness and create alternatives to fatigue and emotional exhaustion.
Maslach et al. (2001) surveyed approximately 25,000 North American employees and it was found that among these, 20% met the standards or criteria for advanced burnout. Thus it is likely that someone reading this blog post falls under the same category. And so our bodies are our structural vehicles, which can also experience wear and tear, such as strain. Just like the mind, the body needs rest and a healthy balance of daily, moderate use. For example, for law enforcement officers, particularly in dealing with the strain of their daily roles, and anything for which physically serving the needs of others can become a cause for exhaustion and burnout, it is essential to find social and emotional support in addition to giving others the same in one’s profession. Thus, a human service professional, putting in long hours daily, and serving the human needs of the public can be an unhealthy cause for strain on the muscles and can cause a lot of tension on one’s back, neck, and shoulders. This sort of wear and tear on our bodies is reminiscent of the kind of occupational stress experienced by all human service professionals, and this coupled with giving compassionate care, can cause fatigue, for which “burnout” is a common risk factor associated with these kinds of professions. Simmons (2015) states that with clinical social workers, for example, “compassion fatigue” is a common side effect of this level of service. This is something that, in addition to the burnout associated with human service professions, causes those who extend the “unusual” love and care toward individuals, as part of their service, to become exhausted with fatigue. Caring for children alone can also cause this. So to conclude, to help cope with all these roles associated with emotional exhaustion and burnout, it is essential to find a healthy balance — not only for the mind, but for the body as well.
References
Boyes, A. (2013). 17 Ways to Take Better Care of Yourself. Psychology Today.
Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-practice/201302/17-ways-take-better-care-yourself
Paskey, T. (2012). An Examination of Self-Care and Social Support Regarding Burnout
Levels of Direct Care Staff and Social Workers. Master of Social Work Clinical Research Papers. St. Catherine University, University of St. Thomas, School of Social Work. Retrieved from http://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=msw_papers
Simmons Staff (2015). Self-Care Tips: Advice from Professional Clinicians. Simmons
School of Social Work. Retreived from
https://socialwork.simmons.edu/self-care-tips-advice-from-professional-clinicians/
Smallens, S. (2015). What I Wish I Had Known: Burnout and Self-Care in Our Social
Work Profession. The New Social Worker: The Social Work Careers Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/field-placement/What_I_Wish_I_Had_Known_Burnout_and_Self-Care_in_Our_Social_Work_Profession/