Holistic self care: strategies for initiating a personal assessment.

To be fully present for clients, occupational health nurses must assume responsibility for meeting their own self care needs. To promote holistic health care, occupational health nurses must assess personal values, priorities, and responsibilities. This can be accomplished by completing a personal assessment focusing on current use of holistic modalities. To implement a plan for holistic self care, nurses can write goals, set intentions, be open to holistic modalities, begin with small changes, recognize feelings, pay attention to breathing and self talk, simplify their lives, build support systems, and apply self care at work.