Idiot, slow down!
Slow down.

~ Radiohead

Running through a hospital ward will usually get some attention. We only really run when there’s an emergency. Ok, we only run when it’s a big emergency. Walking briskly, it seems, is the norm. At least it’s become mine. I was on my way to grab a warm blanket for a patient when a coworker, appearing slightly alarmed at my pace, asked if everything was ok. I told her yeah, I just needed to fetch this blanket real quick.

My response stopped me in my tracks. “Fetch a blanket real quick.” Because being a little chilly is some sort of life or death situation.

Health care workers know what a real emergency looks like. We usually appear calm even when it’s hitting the fan. There’s the joke that we don’t bring our family members to the emergency department unless it’s really bad… because we know what does and does not require rapid intervention. The problem is, when you work around a lot of urgency, you start to habitually move as though every need – every little request – requires an urgent response.

I work on a busy cardiac procedural unit. The pace can be fast. Patients require close observation and we often have a lot to do for a them in a fairly short amount of time. So even though we intellectually know what constitutes an emergency, sometimes we get trapped in a pattern of go-go-go. Every task requires a brisk pace, an immediate response. Even the most routine request like a warm blanket triggers a sense of urgency.

For the rest of the shift, I tried to catch myself in the act of hurrying. I realized I do it at baseline. Even walking back to the unit after transferring a patient: I found myself frustrated with the elevator for taking a few minutes. This was a rare moment I could have been enjoying away from patient care, alarms, call bells, etc. And here I was squandering a quiet moment because I was certain my unit was on fire and I was the only one who could put it out.

I set an intention to slow down my next yoga practice regardless of how fast the teacher was cuing the sequence. I found myself defaulting to that same haste to stay “in step” with the class (which is laughable and hardly required in yoga). I said to myself, “Idiot, slow down!” And took the remainder of the class at a pace that felt slow almost to the point of discomfort. And honestly? It felt good.

In a later reflection, I wondered if I could take this lesson off my mat, at work, while still ensuring patient safety and timely care. Perhaps with the mantra, “It takes as long as it takes.”

That’s a real challenge, because most nurses are forced to negotiate patient safety with their own wellness regularly. We hold our bladders, eat late lunches that are often not particularly nourishing, drink too little water, run from task to task without much thought. Then we wonder why we’re exhausted on our days off despite “only working three days a week.” That’s capitalism rearing its ugly head in our work-life balance: a for-profit health system that asks too much of its workers and wants us to believe our “time management” is the problem. (And not, say, caring for too many patients with not enough staff.) So no, sometimes it’s simply not possible to slow down without compromising patient safety, something most of us are unwilling to even fathom.

But I did find times I could stop running so damn much. Like when fetching a blanket, for example, or by taking a couple extra minutes to empty my bladder between tasks. Or taking my full thirty minute lunch. (Yes we only get thirty minutes in a full twelve hours.)

And the workday did seem less stressful. “It takes as long as it takes,” that mantra helped me connect better with patients, it helped me notice small changes in their condition, honor their anxieties, and be a better nurse overall. Not to mention, I left feeling a little less ragged.