Through the Eyes of a Nursing Student

Hey everyone, I have decided to create a new blog that will allow me to share a lot of interesting, crazy, and fun things that I experience and learn about as I journey through nursing school and work in the hospital.

As I was contemplating what I wanted to do for my career after returning home from my mission in Phoenix, I often wondered what it was like to go to nursing school. As I worked hard to get into nursing school, I kept on wondering what I was about to get myself into. So for this reason, I've decided to create a place that someone like me could have gone to a couple of years ago and had a lot of questions answered.

I plan on sharing different experiences I have, and interesting things that I learn in lectures. I think it's true to say that nursing school is the ultimate school for parents (on some serious steroids)! I learn a lot of things that are going to help me as a parent and I would like to share a lot of those things with you all (and some things that you might not care about). I hope you all enjoy reading and commenting!!

For my first post I would like to share some random facts about a few different topics:

Self-Concept:

People either have what's called an "internal locus of control" or an "external locus of control". People with an "internal" are those that can accept fault for something they have done wrong. They are not looking to pass blame to others for something they have done. People with an "external" are just the opposite, always blaming others for their problems and misfortunes. I find that I can sometimes fall into the "external" if i'm not careful. Interesting concept to think about, It's much more healthy and attractive to have an "internal," something that some of us could probably use a little work on. Which one are you?

Depression:

11% of adults suffer from major depressive disorder, which is classified as feeling depressed for more than two weeks, for most of the day. I'm sure we all know people that fall into this classification. Just interesting to know what people around you are dealing with.

The Endogenous Analgesia System:

Is a fancy name for a system in your body that dumps endogenous opioids into your blood when you are experiencing some kind of high. They give you that feeling of euphoria and bliss. It what happens to a runner when they are on their "runners high". It happens during sex, when a women is getting her choclate fix, and interestingly enough, it happens inside an infant when hearing the voice of their parents or seeing them (ever wonder why your baby gets so excited when seeing you after a long period of absence? because their getting medicated!)

Gate-Control Theory:

This is an amazing theory that we learned about the other day regarding pain. The idea is this: our brains can only handle so much input at a given time. If a child is getting a shot at the doctors office, and you talk to the child on the opposite side of them that the shot is going to be given in, you might hear them say, "I hardly felt that!" That's because half or more of their attention was pulled away from the shot and given to the converser. This theory can be used for all sorts of situations, just use your brain to think of some (and don't let anyone distract you :)

Another thing about pain, if your child ever hurts their arm, a good trick is to massage the opposite arm. It has a canceling out effect of the pain.

This one is for all the girls:

If you deal with particularly painful menstrual cycles, here's a magic trick you need to try: upon feeling your very first sign or symptom of cramping, take 800 mg of ibuprofen as fast as you can. This will do many people wonders! Here's what's happening: upon menstruation, a surge of oxytocin is released which causes the uterus to contract, and it can be VERY painful for some women. The reason why it's painful are because of these little pain messengers called prostaglandins. They "deliver" the message of pain to your nervous system, and that is when you perceive the pain. Here's a parable: if you could take out the mail man before he delivers the dear john to you, you would never feel the pain of reading a dear john! That's what the ibuprofen is doing, it's taking out the messenger of pain before it gets to the nervous system. It does it by inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis. Just a little magic trick you need to try if you think you would benefit.

Stay tuned, more to come soon!