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Melanie Cole (Host):  Welcome to Expert Insights with the Carle Foundation Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole, and I invite you to listen in as we discuss how to navigate mental wellness during these uncertain times. Joining me is Raki Wilks. She's a Nurse Practitioner of Psychiatry with the Carle Foundation Hospital. Raki, it's a pleasure to have you join us today. What an important topic. Probably one of the most important topics that we can discuss on these shows. How is the healthcare industry at Carle holding up right now? It must be overwhelming.

Rakisha Wilks, NP (Guest): Well, first I'd like to say thank you for having me. And it's a pleasure to be here. We are an outpatient provider and it's been tough. We haven't missed a beat. Actually, we've been probably even busier than prior to the pandemic, as you can probably expect.

Host: As far as the providers, how is that going? How is the mental health of the providers that you see that work with the Carle Foundation Hospital? What are you seeing?

Raki: My circle for the most part are the people that I work with in the building, and unfortunately, a lot of us are remote, but we stay in touch via other ways. And you know, we're all struggling. We're all doing the best we can and trying to provide care for our clients. And at the same time, trying to remember to take care of each other and ourselves. So we're all struggling. We're in this together.

Host: Well, that certainly is true. And people are feeling all sorts of things and fear, uncertainty, all of these things, especially in the healthcare industry right now. In these abnormal times, is this normal to feel these kinds of fears. And if so, how do we identify what might not be normal or might need extra help?

Raki: Well, you know, psychiatry all - is already kind of a different beast if you will, right? So, we have a quirkiness, I think about us, most of us who work in this department. And so a lot of us are pretty resilient I think in terms of how we deal with the day to day, right? Some of our clients can be rather difficult. And I think that's any provider, no matter what department, but again, psychiatry is again, a little different. So absolutely, it's normal to feel abnormal because this is unprecedented. Some of us have a bigger support system than others and don't feel it quite as heavily as others.

So, layman's to me, like, I feel that whatever you're feeling is your norm and that's relative. And what is abnormal for you is not necessarily abnormal to the next person. So, taking your baseline where you fall, if you feel that this is abnormal for your state, then that's when you want to go ahead and seek help and reach out. So, it is relative. What is your abnormal normally?

Host: So, as we're all feeling this stress Raki, and we're thinking about your team and remaining calm, managing the incredible emotional challenges of this pandemic. Tell us a little bit about some of the things that are challenging, that would normally be not so challenging, like sleep during this pandemic and the importance of sleep especially for healthcare providers so that they can navigate the waters as it would and be well rested and have their immune systems working well. Why is sleep so important for healthcare providers and really all of us, right now?

Raki: Well, absolutely sleep is going to be the most important or one of the most important cornerstones in life in general. If we really think about it, we're supposed to spend a third of our lives asleep, right? It's restorative. This is how we formulate memories. This is how our cells rejuvenate. So, what makes sleep even more important right now is the fact that especially for those of us who are working from home, right, let's take that as an example, you really don't have a change of environment.

So, the days start to run together. You know, it, it just feels like one long day, over and over again. And what good sleep does for that is give you the ability to have the mental agility to deal with these tougher days, right? We have less sunlight right now. So, that is already a little bit of a component that really kind of throws most people's moods. So, right now with sleep, what we really need to do is focus on it. Because sleep isn't brilliant already, just in general, and with stress and the social climate and everything that's going on in the world right now, a lot of people are feeling this and find it very difficult to sleep. So, getting the proper rest and giving yourself the ability to rejuvenate, get restarted, hit the reset button every day and come into a renewed and ready for the challenges of the day is going to be uber important, especially right now.

Host: So, if they find that the anxiety is overwhelming, we're talking about physicians, nurses, and all the healthcare industry, really. If it's overwhelming and impacting their job possibly, what would you like them to do? Where do they go? Where do they turn for help? What would you like them to know?

Raki: There are options. If the sleep is just a little bit problematic and it's just for a short time, of course you can use an over the counter aid, but I definitely don't recommend this long-term. If it's becoming problematic for a long period of time and it's also affecting your mood and you're noticing everything is just starting to slip a little bit, I definitely recommend that you reach out to EAP, which Carle does definitely have our EAP program. We've actually even had EAP sit in on one of our meetings for our division here at Psychiatry, which was extremely useful and informative. You can also reach out to your provider. And, a lot of times it's going to be us or not so much, you know, there are other, people in the community that you can utilize for therapy as well as psychiatric needs.

And there is medication that we can talk about and perhaps get you on short term and nothing is forever. And you may not need it past the pandemic, but there's definitely, some type relief that we can find for you.

Host: Well then Raki, how are you utilizing Telehealth as an option for providers that are having just a little bit of trouble and need a little bit of extra support?

Raki: To me, that's another one that's kind of relative, right? Depending on how comfortable you are with technology. That's definitely a spectrum. So, it started out, we were using the phones when we first started the pandemic and it kind of morphed from there. We started with Teladoc and Zoom, and now we're at InTouch, which is the new platform we're using via myCarle. For me, it's running pretty seamlessly, but for some of my colleagues, they just don't really love it. So, it really depends on how secure you are and how comfortable you are with technology. But we have tech support. We have each other, you can utilize, we can ask each other questions. So, there's multiple avenues to make sure that we can get everything taken care of with our clients, for sure.

Host: One of the things I've seen with the healthcare industry in this last eight months is the amazing resiliency to be able to calm their patients and calm the public and do their jobs with such dedication I have never seen. What would you like them to know as they are trying to calm their patients about this whole worldwide stress we're feeling, they've got to take care of themselves before they can take care of their patients, obviously. Put their own masks on first, right? So, I mean, that's timely. So, what would you like them to know about being able to transfer that calm to their patients when they may not be feeling it so very much themselves?

Raki: That's a really great question. One of the things that I actually speak about to all of my clients is first and foremost, we have to be compassionate to ourselves, right? We can look at others and find this grace and compassion and have this, oh my God, they're feeling a certain way. Or we have to be kind to them. Everybody's going through that. But it has to start with ourselves. We have to be compassionate about whatever you're feeling. We're human, we're all having a hard time. So, if that is where you land right now, that's fine. It's okay. Because it's not going to be forever. There is help. And we have to first and foremost be very kind to ourselves and that is going to be proper diet ish, right? Getting sleep. Being as social as possible, even though it may not be in person and reaching out for professional help.

Host: And as we wrap up, please give us your best advice regarding some of the lifestyles that we've been talking about, behaviors that could go along with treatment, when you feel it's important to reach out for professional help because the fact is that when providers are exhausted from the days that you all are working, exercise and I'm an exercise physiologist. So, that's obviously the first thing I'm going to recommend. But when the days are exhausting, exercise doesn't seem like the kind of thing you really want to do. So, when you mentioned a little bit about diet ish, what else would you like them to know if they can't seem to muster that motivation? What about yoga you know, meditation, any of these kinds of things that can help ground us and center our minds and calm the anxiety?

Raki: Well, let's go a little bit further into the categories if you will. So when I say diet ish, right? The quarantine-15 is real. A lot of people got it. And my advice at this point is we'll deal with it on the other end, right? I'm not saying sit down and eat a box of chocolates every day, but if that's your comfort right now, hey, have at it. Moderation is always going to be the key, but just, be mindful.

One of the biggest things I think in that category is definitely going to be caffeine intake. We're all kind of pounding it down a little bit more than we should and would like to. Just be mindful about how much caffeine, because that's going to play into our next thing, which is sleep right? If you're drinking a bunch of caffeine all day, you better believe your sleep is going to be impacted, whether you want it to be or not. So, then that leads into sleep. With sleep, if you get in the bed, you're not able to sleep within 30 minutes, get up, get out of the bed, start over, reset. Limit the screen time. And I can't tell you how many times people go, well, I turn on the filter at night.

It's still a screen. So limit, screen time, if you will. Cool, comfortable environment. If you're drinking, having that nightcap, studies show that the nightcap actually interrupts your sleep. So, we might want to rethink that. Also if you do chant, pray, meditate, definitely keep that going even more now than probably before. One of the recommendations that I've been having the conversation with my clients about is oftentimes the first time we unpack our day is when we get in the bed. That's the first time everything stops moving and that's the absolute worst time of the day to unpack your day. So, pick a time before bed, obviously and unpack your day, whether that is doing your to-do list, your task lists, using your cell phone and jot these things down, journaling, whatever you have to do to unload it. The what I didn't do, what I need to do, what I haven't done, whatever; do it before bed. And when you get in the bed, clean slate, hopefully.

Also again, watch the over-the-counter medication, if you're starting to pound it on a pretty regular basis. Socially, social platforms, where you can FaceTime, just being able to see each other's faces a little bit more than just speaking to one another, does wonders. Limit your news intake, especially right now. We don't need to know everything. That is huge. Yeah, we want to stay informed, but too much of anything is never good. So, limit it. You've had enough. It doesn't edify you to know every single thing about every single thing. That'll do. If you feel your anxiety rising, go ahead, put it away. I promise it'll be there the next day. Also, when we're looking at our outlook, trying to have a positive outlook. It does make a difference. It's not always the picture. Sometimes it's the frame. So, we know that we're in this together. We're in a pandemic. We can't undo this. We can't unring this bell.

We have to make the best of it and how we look at it and how we frame it, is going to be super important. And again, fall back. If all of those mechanisms are not working, it's time to go ahead and engage some professional help.

Host: What great advice. I can certainly attest to the advice about the lists and getting it off your brain for a while, and also not watching every second of the news. Because it's just too much for anybody for all of this. I thank you so much, Raki for joining us today. What great advice that you've given us.

And I hope that providers will take it to heart and seek help when they do feel it just overwhelmed. And nobody blames anybody for that because this is overwhelming for everyone. So, thank you so much for joining us. That concludes this episode of Expert Insights with the Carle Foundation Hospital. For a listing of Carle providers and to view Carle sponsored educational activities, please visit our This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information. We hope the information gained will be applicable to your work and life. If you found this podcast informative, please share on your social media and be sure to check out all the interesting podcasts in our library. I'm Melanie Cole.