Wellbeing Plans with Jess Nunn and Zeph Lyne-Spink

In the second series of the One Health Podcast, Dorian Broomhall, Manager of Culture & Wellbeing, speaks with people from across the Department of Health about the things we can do as individuals and an organisation to improve our wellbeing.

In this episode, Jess Nunn, Nurse Unit Manager of Paediatric Services at the RHH, and Zeph Lyne-Spink, Coordinator of THS Interpreter Services, go through their personal plans for wellbeing.

These wellbeing plans are based on “The Six Pillars of Wellbeing” - Sleep, Light/Dark Exposure, Movement, Nutrition, Social Connection, and Stress Regulation.

You can find information on the six pillars as well as a wellbeing plan worksheet on the Department of Health’s new Wellbeing Hub. The Hub has been designed with our people and environment in mind, and provides useful, accessible, and actionable wellbeing information and resources.

This was recorded as a live webinar and you can watch a video recording here.

Transcript

Dorian Broomhall:

Welcome to series two of the One Health Podcast. This episode was recorded on the land of the palawa people. I acknowledge and pay respect to all Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and to their deep history of storytelling and their ways of looking after one another. My name's Dorian Broomhall and I'm the manager of Culture & Wellbeing at the Department of Health here in lutruwita, Tasmania. In this second series of the One Health Podcast, I'm speaking with people from across our organisation about what we can do as individuals and as an organisation to improve our collective wellbeing.

The series forms part of a broader focus on wellbeing within our department. We've just launched a set of tailored actionable resources called the Wellbeing Hub. On our intranet, we're also looking at systemic and procedural changes that can be made to improve the overall health and wellbeing of all employees that work in health. For this episode of the podcast, I got to know Jess Nunn, the nurse unit manager of paediatric services at the Royal Hobart Hospital, and Zeph Lyne-Spink, the coordinator of the Tasmanian Health Service Interpreter Services. This conversation was also live-streamed right across the organisation. In our conversation, we spoke about individual strategies for wellbeing, what the organisation can do to support the wellbeing of all of our people and what managers can do to influence wellbeing at a local level. So, let's get into it.

Today, through the One Health Culture programme, we also launch our Wellbeing Hub on the department intranet, which we'll provide a link to for you to have a poke around if you haven't had already. And we're going to be talking through part of the content that we've introduced there, which is around this six pillars of wellbeing. This has been informed by Stanford neuroscientist, neurobiologist, Professor Andrew Huberman, whose podcast many of you may be familiar with. He's done a prolific amount of work in bringing science to the mainstream, and I think that's really important to acknowledge. And it builds on the work that he's presented, working in collaboration with a number of other distinguished researchers and professors. And these six pillars of wellbeing. What I particularly like about them is that you're probably doing some of them, whether you know it or not, whether you've drawn attention to it or not.

So, rather than necessarily saying, "Hey, let's take up a meditation practise," or, "Let's all go for long walks on the beach," both of which are absolutely valid and great ways to support your wellbeing, part of what I want to do with a conversation today is discover what people's implicit strategies might be. What is it that you're already doing for your wellbeing, but you perhaps haven't put the language around it like that yet? And we're going to work around these six pillars and I'll talk through them a little bit as we go.

And I'll just say that they're largely in no particular order, and as you'll see that they really interact with one another and they're very much a beautiful, messy, complex environment or a system that enables how we are. But the first one, of course, that probably is foundational and is probably the most important is sleep. I don't think I need to talk too much to anybody about the importance of sleep, so I won't. And I'm just going to ask the question, if we score ourselves out of 10, what do you think you currently give yourself as a rating out of 10, Jess, for how well you do sleep?

Jess Nunn:

In terms of effort that I put into trying to sleep well, I'd say I probably sit at about an eight. In terms of how well that comes out, I'm probably sitting lower than that.

Dorian Broomhall:

Wow.

Jess Nunn:

I try really hard. That's one of my personal important pillars, sleep.

Dorian Broomhall:

I want to come back to that. I think that's profoundly important. The effort that might go into it, how will we try to do it and then how that actually might land. It's something that we like to say is that sleep's both a determinant of well-being and an outcome of well-being. And I'll be curious to know whether that's true for you. And for you, Zeph, where's your sleep at?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, so out of the six pillars, this is actually the worst that I've rated myself.

Dorian Broomhall:

Wow.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

So, I've rated myself a three out of 10 at the moment with a view to aiming towards six out of 10. So, that's sort of for a number of reasons that we can touch on if you wanted to. So, I guess I've got a fair bit on my plate at the moment. I'm doing some significant renovations at home, as well as work pressures and a few other things happening in the background. So, sleep has taken a little bit of a back step on a temporary basis. So, sleeping pattern's been thrown all around the place at the moment, but that's sort of where I'm sitting at. And then I'm hoping over the next few weeks or so I can build that back up to where I need to be.

Dorian Broomhall:

So, my only question on that then is would you have rated yourself a three for a long period of time or is it somewhat temporary?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Probably a few months. Before the last lot of building works at my house, I was also helping a friend do some renovations, and that was work into the night as well. So, it was the same theme there. But once this series of works is completed, then I'll start to get back onto track. And one of the things that doesn't help is I see myself as being more of a night owl as well. So, doing day work and then having a largely delayed or late sleeping pattern, there's a little bit of a conflict there and it eats into my sleeping time.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, fascinating. Lots there to unpack. Of course, the one thing that I think I did just learn about you that's different to me is that I would never do renovations myself, and it sounds like you'd be prepared to go and do that.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

I'm doing as much as as I can at the moment. And getting builders in or any tradies at the moment is, especially with the materials, enormously expensive. So, I'm trying to do as much as I can without delaying the works that they need to do as well.

Dorian Broomhall:

It's fascinating when we start talking about sleep from the frame of wellbeing and then realise that, oh, actually now we're talking about how challenging it is to renovate a house and the impact that that might be having on your wellbeing. So, it's big picture stuff, but I appreciate that you're at a three right now and you'd like to build it up for it to be different. It's interesting for me, I was recently reviewing one of the podcast episodes for this series where I actually spoke about, at that time, how crap my sleep was. I've got a 16-month-old, and at that particular point in time, I hadn't slept through the night fully for about 18 months.

I'm actually glad to say that last night... Forget last night because I was up for two hours, but in the last week, my sleep's been up at about a seven or an eight, and it hasn't been there for a really long time. And the transformation on how well I can think is enormously helpful, and probably detrimental for those around me because I've got way more energy than I otherwise normally would.

But Jess, I want to come back to where you're at. So, noting that you want your sleep to be up at an eight. So, important and perhaps it isn't right now. I'm not going to ask what you think the problem is. I'd like to know what you think you're going to do about it.

Jess Nunn:

So, the reason that I think that I put a seven or an eight in terms of effort is I've given myself a sleep routine. So, I have very specific things that I go through every night to try and calm my brain and do all those right things. And it's actually improved because I don't really have a lot of trouble getting to sleep, it's the trouble staying asleep. And that's where I think some of these other pillars actually come into it. So, things like your dark exposure, stress regulation, and they're the things that I have to start looking at and park the sleep pillar a little bit because there are other things that are impacting it that can't just be solved by sleeping longer. There area other things impacting upon me that mean that I can't do as well in that area.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, okay. Interesting. Well, let's hold off on unpacking sleep anymore because I think as he really rightly started to get to, these pillars absolutely intersect with one another. And notwithstanding some of the life choices that Zeph's making around choosing to renovate a house because he's crazy, perhaps there are some things that sit outside simply the time that we allow for sleep. And again, children, as many of us will know, makes things really difficult.

So, let's instead then put our attention on light or dark exposure, which I think is maybe the pillar of the six that people might go, "Oh, I don't really know much about that." And so, a really brief overview, and again, you can read more about it on the hub. Our circadian rhythms, our body's circadian cycles are not quite 24 hours, they're actually just a little bit longer. And something that we need to do in order to stay well-regulated and over that cycle is to re-regulate that every day, to reset that cortisol release, that is what keeps us in cycle, so to speak. And a really key way that we can do that is by viewing warning light or even in light for that matter.

That low solar angle light direct into our eyes. Don't stare directly at the sun, that would be silly, but you get what I mean. That being outside and receiving that light is a great way to get that cortisol release happening and reset our cycle, to be able to make sure that we are ready to go to sleep when we'd like to. And there's some quite interesting things that you can do to move your body clock around by viewing light at different times, which I think some are quite curious.

I get enormously frustrated as I'm coming into work on the bike track, seeing people with sunglasses on walking. I'm like, I'm glad that you're out walking, but you're actually missing all of this benefit of light exposure into the eyeballs. And sorry, and the flip side of that, being dark, keeping a really dark room when you're sleeping whenever you can. Noting again, shift work can make it difficult, but actually having that time in darkness is also emerging to be quite important. How's that going for you at the moment, Jess?

Jess Nunn:

I would like to acknowledge that we are currently in Tasmania and it is winter and the dark exposure, doing amazingly. Dark exposure is no problem for us here. Light exposure is trickier. I think something that I try and do is have all the curtains open as soon as I get up at home because not that there is any light about at that time of the day, but you can see the sun start to rise and that's something. And then, so that's my body being like, "Right, the sun's coming, it's going to be okay." And I think if there's a reason that there's massive amounts of seasonal affective disorder in Tasmania is because it's so dark for such large periods of the day that it's really tricky to actually get the light dark exposure. And so, getting the health system to fund natural light bulbs would be a really great place that we could influence there.

Dorian Broomhall:

I think that the push to having well-being start to influence other parts of policy in the way that we do things, I think that's entirely reasonable to start to think about. So, yeah, I'd love-

Jess Nunn:

Fluorescent lights are great. They serve a purpose, they provide light, but are they the best type of white bulbs? Is that something we need to be discussing today? Perhaps not, but something to put on the list.

Dorian Broomhall:

And so, what would you give your current score based on those pressures, noting that you probably start work pretty early?

Jess Nunn:

Probably about a five.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, okay.

Jess Nunn:

I'm sitting on the stance there, but I'm happy with a five.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah. Okay. Zeph?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, so this one's a little bit better, going more towards seven out of 10 on this one. So, I find of a morning, I might not necessarily get up straight after the alarm-

Dorian Broomhall:

Snooze that,

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

... but but having that routine of starting work. Doing day work, I'm naturally getting that light of an early morning, straight after opening the curtains, walking to work, those kinds of things. I try and get out a couple of times during the day as well just to make sure I'm getting that sunlight, not putting the sunglasses on straight...

Dorian Broomhall:

You look great. You look great. Don't get me wrong.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

But yeah, early morning. And trying to get out throughout the day to get some sun exposure. Also, how that interacts with vitamin D and seasonal affective disorder and those sorts of things as well. Obviously, it's a lot more challenging in Tasmania to get that light exposure and vitamin D throughout the day in winter. Over nighttime, I've got blockout curtains, so even if I've got a night shift sleeping pattern and I'm on leave or something like that, even if I'm not getting out until later, I've still got those blockout lines. Also being mindful to make sure I don't have all the lights on in the house before I go to bed, so as it gets later in the evening, I start turning more of them off and just having the ones on that I need. Secondary things like a blue light filter on the phone, which sort of comes secondary to actually not using your phone for extended periods of time of a night. So, that's sort of all things I'm mindful of and that's why I've given myself a seven, maybe working towards a seven and a half.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yep. Yeah, nice. No, I think that's great. I'm going to be like you. This is one that I think I do pretty well. I give myself an eight. Most of the time I commute to work outside somehow using my legs in some way, shape or form, get that light exposure. I get to work between 7:30 and 8:00, so the sun's up by then. So, I'm lucky in that regard. Try and get out a little bit in the evening as well if I can before it gets completely dark or coming home, my timeline works pretty well for that.

It's interesting. I was staying with family in Melbourne recently and every time I walked into the bathroom in the evening, I expected a light to just magically come on because one of the best investments that I've made had been sent USB-powered sensor-activated lights, so I just put a little one tucked behind where you put your toothbrush. And so, every time you need to walk into the bathroom in the evening, you don't have to deal with the big overhead light, so it's just a little light flashes, it's enough light to make sure that you don't hurt yourself, do what you need to do. Every time I walked into these other bathrooms and it was like, "Oh, hang on, I'm not at home," because you get so used to that pattern. But a really simple tip that I've found to be really, really essential.

This is a bit of a question for you perhaps, Jess, although either of you can answer it. When we were running an Elevate management development workshop, I'm going to say two weeks ago, I think it was an Elevate workshop and I'm pretty sure it was in Launceston, we were talking about these pillars and this thing. And I think it was possibly a nurse unit manager raised something around the light on the topic of, "I get to work and it's dark and I leave work and it's still dark. What am I going to do about that?" We had a bit of a discussion. But as we've got people that that's going to be the reality for, what can we do within our own environments to perhaps shift that to be different?

Jess Nunn:

That is my reality at the moment, given the daylight savings schedule. And so, that's why I probably did rate myself as a five. On the weekends I'd did a lot higher because I have the capacity, but during the day, and this is something that I need to get better at trying to do both for myself, but also role model it for my team and then also encourage my team to do it, is you do have a half an hour lunch break and it's not dark 24 hours a day. So, going outside, even if that's just in a courtyard somewhere within the hospital still on our particular footprint is making sure that you are near a window or outside if you can get there, and trying to get that natural light exposure. And so, taking your break, not eating at your desk, going out away from your work.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yes, good. It's simple, yet-

Jess Nunn:

It's really simple, but really hard.

Dorian Broomhall:

... effective and really underdone.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah, yeah. I think nurses have a tendency to, forgive me anyone that's listening to this, but we have a tendency to martyr ourselves. "No, no. If I go, then this will happen to these people." But realistically, if we're not going to our lunch breaks, we're just going to burn ourselves out. So, yes, that's important for light-dark exposure, but I could talk about this till the cows come home in any of these pillars that taking your breaks are super important. It just happens to come under this pillar as well.

Dorian Broomhall:

Okay, add one thing to that because it came up actually on Wednesday. It was the most beautiful thing that came up from a conversation we're having with our first base camp supervisor development programme up in Launceston, and 23 ANUMs in the room and someone says, "And if you get called in front of the coroner, that's what they're going to ask. When did you go on your break?" And I was just like, "Boom, okay, just remember that at the very pointy end of everything, when did you go on your break?" Make sure that you have.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah, nurses and midwives, they're the ones physically there 24-7. I think like any other specialty can walk away to an extent in some areas, especially the ones that I work in. And so, I think that we have to remind ourselves that you're not a slave to patient care needs at all hours of your shift. And you're not paid for your half an hour lunch break anyway, so you're just working for free.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah. Well, we would never have worked for free in our lives, but yes, I think it's a good point. And of course, there's some resources and some suggestions around SAD lamps and those other strategies. If you really are in the dark all the time, there are some different ways that you can do it. Buy yeah, as you rightly point out, it's challenging in Tasmania and we've still got agency, we've still got choice in amongst what we might be doing.

I'm going to skip over to nutrition as the next one, and I think the term nutrition is really important because there's so many different ways that you can get nutrition into your body, however that might be, and so many different factors. And of course, I recognise that there's so many different preferences. And I have no interest in going down a diet preference pathway, but the reality is that we need to get whole food into our bodies in whatever way it works for us regularly in order to be able to function well. And there's some key components to that, and not just physical health body to make this terrible distinction, but also brain. Where are you for nutrition at the moment, Jess?

Jess Nunn:

I choose not to score myself for this one. I try as hard as I can. And sometimes I make really good choices and sometimes I don't and that's okay. But I think sometimes if you score yourself on nutrition, you end up punishing yourself for something.

Dorian Broomhall:

Can do. Yep, absolutely. I think that's an absolutely reasonable and good thing to point out that remember that that's a choice too. Yeah, good one. What about you, Zeph?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, I've scored myself a seven out of 10 at the moment. I think I'm doing fairly well. I've always had a fairly good relationship with food and I acknowledge that not everyone does, and that can be quite difficult when you start to touch on these kinds of topics, especially when it's maybe rating yourself in things that you need to improve. That can sometimes put a lot of pressure on people. But I think I'm going fairly well at the moment. I try and limit my processed foods, so if I'm looking at takeaways and things like that, limiting how many times a week I'm doing that, making sure I'm getting plenty of water and fluids into my body throughout the day as well. So, I don't think I need to do too much more just to be mindful and maybe especially when it comes to hydration as well. If I get busy throughout the day, making sure I'm keeping my fluids up so I'm not getting headaches, not getting fatigued, cranky, those sorts of things.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, often you don't realise it until about three o'clock and then it's like, "Oh, what's the problem?" Oh no, I actually just haven't drunk any water today.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah, you're Making poor decisions, you have a drink of water, you're like, "Oh my god, I'm the smartest person alive."

Dorian Broomhall:

I fell amazing, right? Hydration is essential is it part of that. Yeah, I typically do food pretty well, partly because cooking is part of my stress regulation strategy. I really enjoy cooking. I enjoy taking the one-year-old to the shop on Sunday, doing the food, shopping for the week, having a plan. I can't get home and go, "Oh, what are we doing for dinner tonight?" Then, it's all over. Everything will fall into pieces. So, having that plan for me is really important and I really enjoy it. So, yeah, I do nutrition pretty well from that perspective. Though, the caveat being I love craft beer, and I'll acknowledge that as the thing that I often will struggle with. I really like IPA, so how do I have that balance of IPA and really great food and whole of life? And sometimes the balance isn't right, and I want to acknowledge that.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah. So, making the right choices when you can, I think. Things like meal-planning boxes, they're a lifesaver for me because I can't make a choice in the moment, but if I've had to order my box two weeks ago and that decision's already been made by two weeks ago Jess, well then I have to eat what she's decided And then, I do make a nice healthy dinner. It's already been decided. I don't have to think about it.

Dorian Broomhall:

Don't you love it when you look back at your past self and you go, "Gosh, good job, Jess."

Jess Nunn:

Yeah, well done.

Dorian Broomhall:

"Good job, Dorian. That was a good decision way back then. I was smart then because that has enabled me to remain smart now." Do you think that's a way that in a team environment or an organisation environment, a way that we can encourage more people to access those sorts of services, for want of a better word?

Jess Nunn:

Anyone that wants a code for a free box and a thing, you get those free codes and you send them out to your friends and family. I think we should all share those. Encourage people like in stage recipes, like you say you're really good at eating healthy and things like that, great. Share recipes with your team or something that you've found that takes 10 minutes to cook and is delicious sort of thing. Maybe that's what we need to get better at talking about as well.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Sort of feeds into cultural diversity, especially in my workplace and tapping into maybe some of the diverse cuisines from people from other backgrounds as well. Recently, we had a bit of a team dinner to one of the Nepalese restaurants that used to be, I think it's called The Chowk. It used to be Chowk. I can't pronounce it, should be able to pronounce it since one of our team members is Nepalese. But yeah, we went up there as a bit of a team-bonding exercise, and also just so that we can have something different to eat. And that was a great experience, able to share stories, share food, and really connect as well outside of work.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, love it. That's a really great example of how you can blend a couple of pillars there and go, "Oh, that's something different." Lots of good whole food in Nepalese food, a lot of simple food and great food. Again, my one-year-old basically lives off rice and pasta. If you get anything else in right now, that's okay, that's a bonus, but sometimes it doesn't have to be complicated. So, with that in mind, I'm going to skip to social connection. I think that that's a great segue of going, "Oh, well we can get together and connect over nutrition." We don't just have to go to the regular pub as it might be on a Friday for knockoffs for those that work corporate or however it might go. There are different ways that we can connect over nutrition with that sort of social connection in mind.

A caveat here that I'll throw in a little bit like perhaps yours for nutrition, Jess, that I think it's important to acknowledge, social connection can be really individual and each of us are going to have different preferences and also different wiring as to how much social connection is enough or how much is too much. Some people actually need a lot of time away from lots of people in order to be able to charge up again, to be able to spend more time with people. And I think it's important to recognise that. When we say social connection, we don't just mean spending lots of time with lots of people. It could be any sort of range of that. So, with that in mind, where are you at for your social connection at the moment, Jess?

Jess Nunn:

Probably an eight or nine. I'm doing the things that are important to me with the people that matter to me, enough for me, if if that makes sense.

Dorian Broomhall:

That's amazing. Wow.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah. So, as you said, it's person dependent, but it's also day, week, month dependent as well as to what you need for that day. And I think that this is something that I personally do well. I reach out to the people that I love and that love me to connect when I need to.

Dorian Broomhall:

Awesome.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah, I've got a good crew.

Dorian Broomhall:

That's great. Thanks for sharing. Amazing. What about you, Zeph?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, I'd rate myself an eight out of 10 as well at the moment. I think I've got a fairly good balance of those different social connections that I need also within my limitations of what my preferences are. So, I'm probably a little bit more introverted than what people would realise, seeing sometimes more of an outgoing personality at work. But yeah, my private life, I like to live independently, have my own space and those sorts of things. But I think tools like social media have been really great in being able to connect with people when you aren't physically present with them, but also bearing in mind that doesn't replace actual in-person conversations and interactions.

So, when it comes to those in-person interactions, that's where I do like to spend the time with friends, family, those sorts of things and try and take the time out to go to events, rather than just saying, "Oh, I'm too busy." Just make the time to for that to happen. So, whether that impacts exercise or renovations, those sorts of things, it might impact one of the other pillars, but it's sort of all a bit of a balance as well. Yeah, trying to balance things out that might be some compromises between the pillars there.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, I love that you both are really prioritising that and it sounds like you're doing it really well. This is one that I sort of struggle with and don't. I'm a bit like you, Zeph. Believe it or not, I actually really enjoy my own time and really need that time to recharge and reset my nervous system and my brain and know what I'm doing. I get a lot of social connection at work because I get to interact with a lot of people at work, and that's awesome and I love that. I probably don't do as much with my friends, especially pretty good with family to an extent.

I probably don't do as much with friends. Two of my closest friends don't live in Tassie. I say that we can do it better and I haven't spoken to them for a while, but we message every day. We've got a little room chat, which at each of our weddings has come up as a bit of a theme. It's been going for 10 years. And every day we'll have a message. One's in UK at the moment, one's in Brisbane. But if nothing else, we'll have a bit a banter and a bit of a message on that. And I think that even when I'm not getting it in the ways that I'd like to with competing pressures of life and small child, that's a bit of a saving grace. So, I think it can come in many different ways.

Any thoughts either of you on how we can enable social connection at work? Noting that so much work that most of us, not all of us, in health do does relate to people, so we often are getting that. So, it might not be even doing more of it might be doing less, but any thoughts either of you?

Jess Nunn:

We have a social committee that organises events outside of work that free, welcome, anyone can attend. We do some things inside of work as well as part of that. So, I think in one area that I manage, there's a cake of the month. So, that if it's your birthday that month, you bring in a cake for everyone to share. So, even little things like that.

Dorian Broomhall:

I love it's a responsibility of the person whose birthday it is. That's a great way to actually assign reasonable accountability. Love it.

Jess Nunn:

Exactly. Yeah, so small things like that and then encouraging staff to come along to social events or to spend time with their people and to make connections at work. We're lucky in that despite the fact that we're a large team where we get along relatively well across the whole, and so we can use each other for support and that helps that social connection as well.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, love it. I think that's a really great example of something simple that we can do. It's always struck me of course, that within public health services, I'm pretty sure it's one of the dietitians there leads a cake club within. And just to completely throw what your perspectives of nutrition and social connection might be, it's really important to do that sort of stuff. So, yeah, we probably need a cake club within People & Culture I suspect. So... Sorry. Yeah, jump in.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

I was going to say when we're based in social work, we had a cake policy that was heavily enforced. So, if it was your-

Dorian Broomhall:

Cake policy?

Jess Nunn:

[inaudible 00:28:51].

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, it was a Cake policy. It was actually a formal policy be written down as well. I don't think formal enough to actually get organisational recognition. But within the department, it was enforced that if it was your birthday, you bring a cake. And we used to have morning teas to actually celebrate birthdays and that sort of thing. So, that was one way that we had that social connection, and actually take a few minutes away from work to connect with each other, which was really good. COVID derailed that a little bit with the distancing, masks, and all that thing, but now that that's subsided a little bit, we can get back into those little activities where we can connect with each other.

Dorian Broomhall:

Thank you for nicely reframing for me the fact that I probably didn't do a very good job this week as a manager with a birthday within the team. And no doubt the person listening in from the team who's aware of the fact that it was their birthday now knows that it's actually on them to bring cake for all of us, not on me to do something nice as the manager. So, thank you for getting me out of that hole. [inaudible 00:29:55].

We've got a couple other pillars to get through before we run out of time, so I'll move it along a little bit. And I'd love to know movement. Were are you rating yourself, Jess, movement?

Jess Nunn:

Probably an eight out of 10. So, movement is a big important thing for my well-being. So, I have a particular type of exercise that I really like to do. So, I book my classes a couple of weeks in advance, and then I can hold myself accountable.

Dorian Broomhall:

Your past self is really looking after you yourself.

Jess Nunn:

Oh, yeah.

Dorian Broomhall:

That's a great thing.

Jess Nunn:

Yeah, future Jess has no idea, but past Jess, she's got it all worked out. And then, so if I drive to work for the day, I park somewhere at a distance and walk, or if you walk to the bus stop or things like that. I prioritise movement.

Dorian Broomhall:

And noting I know you how I do, you're a nurse unit manager, so you're not always on the floor. However, my understanding is you spend a fair amount of time on the floor. And I want to acknowledge that movement for people in the organisation, you might get a bunch of it at work. I compared steps with my wife last night at home who worked at shift in the emergency department, and she'd beaten me despite me going for at least a short run yesterday, and that was just from being at work.

Jess Nunn:

Incidental exercise, incidental movement is huge, especially in this line of work.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, great that you've got both covered off there though. Brilliant. Love it. What about you, Zeph?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, seven out of 10 at the moment. I guess working in an office basically staring at a screen all day, you're fairly stationary, but we do have sit-stand desks, which is really good. So, you're in one position the whole day. Outside of work itself, I have a fairly routine exercise regime, so I try and go to the gym fairly often, keep active. The only thing I'm missing at the moment... So, that's mostly resistance based training. The only thing I'm really missing would be that cardiovascular. I have in previous times done activities like tennis, [inaudible 00:31:56], other outdoor activities, and just being a little bit more time poor at the moment is why I'm probably seven out of 10, but looking to increase that back up to eight just by introducing a little bit more, and also acknowledging that cardio activity is still really important. Even if you are doing a lot of weights, there's still benefits to be had from incorporating cardio and sports, either team sports or those sorts of things as well. So, that carries over to social connections too.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, absolutely. And again, you see more of those overlaps. So, it's funny listening to you say that I'm like, "Oh, that sounds like me about..." I'll probably call it, gosh, three years ago now, where I really prioritised resistance training over anything else. And now, resistance training is the bit that's most missing in my regime. Thankfully, over a long period of time, I've probably done enough of it that it's okay, I'm going to lose a significant amount. But I've gone totally the other way and I'm going to have to get you out for a good old zone two run with me.

And changing my perception of cardio has been enormous because I take all that science that goes into metabolic training as opposed to other types of cardio training. And I'm quite specific about not running so fast that I'm at a state of stress. So, I'm running in that really regulated spot where you can still hold a conversation just, but it means you've still got access to your rational brain. So, I even think that some of this work that we're talking about probably emerged from me from one of my runs to work because that's the time that's an hour or so that I get for thinking. Can't do anything else.

Getting light exposure, opportunity to think and that movement, that for me, it's everything. And if I don't get that movement in, I know that I'm never going to be my best self. And I can feel it today, having not done any movement this morning, my brain's not as well oxygenated as it normally would be, and I'm not as sharp as I would like to be. The lack of sleep last night probably didn't help either. But yeah, anyway.

Jess Nunn:

I'd like to quickly flag that if you two do go on a run, you do not have to invite me.

Dorian Broomhall:

Okay, thank you.

Jess Nunn:

I'm okay with that.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah. You sure? Yeah. Okay, good. Well, there's a few run clubs emerging around the place within Health. There's a Thursday lunchtime one, so we might see if we can get on that and shake it up a little bit with our CMHW friends. So, really briefly then, before we run out of time, stress regulation. And probably something that we've learned through the process of putting these pillars together, all of these pillars, if we do them well, are around widening that window of tolerance to allow us perhaps better long-term stress regulation is perhaps where we want to focus in on when we talk about stress regulation, noting that everything that we talked about is actually about how we best regulate ourselves and have the right amount of stress.

It's that fast strategy. If you go, "Oh, I can feel myself escalating here." I did a presentation this morning that I absolutely had the heart thumping for before I spoke and I was like, "I don't know what's going to come out here." You start to feel that. It's that sort of stress regulation that I'd love to know about. So, Jess, where are you at with that at the moment?

Jess Nunn:

Look, probably a three or four.

Dorian Broomhall:

Oh, okay.

Jess Nunn:

Yep, despite the fact that I do really well trying to prioritise other pillars, I'm not a great delegator, and I think that I probably take too much on myself.

Dorian Broomhall:

I believe that.

Jess Nunn:

And so, this is probably a goal for me, reflecting on it today, having these conversations is that that is an area that I could definitely improve upon.

Dorian Broomhall:

Love it. Delegation is a way of improving stress regulation. Brilliant strategy. Thank you. Zeph?

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

Yeah, I'm at a five out of 10 at the moment and I think maybe sleep has a little bit of an impact on that, noticing that my tolerance or temper might be a little bit shorter if I'm more tired or if I'm feeling more stressful, if I've got a lot more activities or responsibilities that I've got to manage, I can find that sometimes that does affect my stress regulation. I'm looking to improve that up to maybe around a seven out of 10, I reckon. So, I try and practise some mindfulness techniques, so whether it be breathing meditation. On the Wednesdays, we've got morning and afternoon that people can Teams into. So, that's something I'd encourage people to do. I found that quite useful. It's only 10, 15 minutes out of your day, whether you make that a morning or an afternoon tea break, to actually have that break first and foremost and actually use that for something beneficial.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, love it.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

I'd still class myself as a beginner or a novice when it comes to actually following through and the technique of doing those different mindfulness activities. And one thing I wanted to do is to go on a Vipassana 10-day course. I don't know if you've heard-

Dorian Broomhall:

Tell me more.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

So, Vipassana means to see things as they really are. So, it has a Buddhist origins dating back to around 2,500 years ago, and it's basically a 10-day course that's heavily centred around mindfulness and meditation. So, getting up basically from 4:00 in the morning and having around five or six meditation periods throughout the day for 90 minutes or so.

Dorian Broomhall:

Wow.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

So, that's something that I think is going to be hugely beneficial to me, and I think that's something I'm really going to learn a lot out of. It's based in Dromedary and it gets a little bit cold, so I'm not doing it over the winter period.

Dorian Broomhall:

Fair.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

I was booked in last October to do a session and it got cancelled at short notice because of lack of volunteers, so I was really bummed out about that. And I think that's something that's going to completely change my routine as well. So, you don't have the social connections, your diet's completely different. Your whole lifestyle is completely different and it takes away all of the other distractions out of your life, so that you're just centrally focused on that one thing and you're doing that over a 10-day period, which is basically usually the minimum timeframe that you're actually going to get something out of it. So, I'm hoping the next few months or so towards the end of the year that I can book back in and undertake that course. I'll be happy to report back if I do follow through and complete-

Dorian Broomhall:

When you follow through.

Zeph Lyne-Spink:

When I follow through, assuming it doesn't get cancelled again, I'll be happy to report back and let you know how I go.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah. Brilliant. That's awesome. Zeph, thank you both so much for being willing to share your own personal, I won't call it a journey, but your own personal snapshot of time with where you're at with this because it's not always easy to look inward and go, "Okay, where honestly am I at right now? What can do differently?" Thank you both for gently challenging some of even how I would think about this and really noting that, remember that whole rating thing sometimes isn't the best thing that we need to do, and that's actually okay as well. And knowing where we're at and making sure that we're making good choices for ourselves.

Yeah, thank you both for being part of the conversation. Thank you for listening in, watching in. So, with that, thank you and enjoy the rest of your day.

Thanks to Jess Nunn, the nurse unit manager of paediatric services at the Royal Hobart Hospital and Zeph Lyne-Spink, the coordinator of the Tasmanian Health Service Interpreter Services for taking time to speak with us, and to you for listening. Hope you found something in this conversation that you can take away and apply into your own work and life.

If you'd like information on other small steps you can take to improve your wellbeing, please visit the Department of Health's new Wellbeing Hub, available on our intranet. The hub has been designed with our people and environment in mind and provides usable, useful, accessible, and actionable wellbeing advice and resources. We'll keep adding to this over time. You can find the Wellbeing Hub under employee information on the Department of Health intranet. Join me again for our next episode when I speak with Andy Boote, senior project manager for Health ICT.