The scientific, 5-minute intervention that will change your life
- Megan Filoramo
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
If I told you to achieve something you really wanted, something that you feel would totally change your life, all you had to do is lie perfectly still on the floor for 5 minutes every single day (and had supporting evidence), would you do it?
If lying still for 5 minutes every day made it inevitable that you would
Lose 10 pounds
Get a promotion
Build muscle
Improve your cholesterol levels
Fix your relationships
Get out of debt
Heal your depression
Obliterate overwhelm
Make you feel great at work
Would you do it?
If these outcomes were guaranteed, would you find the time? Enlist help from others? Patiently keep doing it? Sure, it would take consistency and discipline, but most people would give it their best effort and if they missed a day, they would get back to it.
Unfortunately, there is no data that I am aware of to support that lying completely still for 5 minutes a day will guarantee these outcomes. I am sure that this is not shocking to you. It sounds crazy to think that just lying down would build muscle (although there is some evidence to support stillness and improvement in lipid profiles).
But there is plenty of data to support the use of equally simple tools to improve areas of our lives that can be sources of significant stress. By acknowledging these strategies and practicing them on a regular basis, we can see profound changes in our lives.
You have to ignore your internal naysayer that insists that 5 minutes a day of a simple strategy can’t give you your dreams.
This is the basis of the work I do in my own life and with my clients. We don’t need some elaborate plan, we need short, doable and effective strategies.
One of my go-to strategies for times that are really tough I learned from my coach, Stacey Boehman. She calls it a Rampage of Gratitude, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. It doesn’t take a lot of deep thought. It doesn’t take more than 5 minutes. (if it does, YAY- your list is really really long). It doesn’t take learning a new skill or gaining understanding. You can do it when you’re tired. You can do it when you’re angry or crying. You can do it when you are frustrated. You can do it when you can’t seem to do anything other than scroll social media. You can do it at work, between patients (yes, they can usually wait for 5 minutes- it will help them if you are feeling better).
You just start a list of things you are grateful for and keep going. Not sure where to start? The first line can be that you are grateful that you can write a list, that you have an education, that your hands work. Or start with the beginning of your day; you are grateful that you woke up, that you have coffee every morning, that you have hot water (take a minute and think about what your morning would be like without coffee or hot water).
It doesn’t have to be every day. Some studies have shown that even a single session of a gratitude intervention can have lasting effects on stress levels at a month post intervention. Some show that the benefit grows with repetition. Across the board, it is accepted that gratitude improves stress (there are a few references at the bottom for the skeptics- tons more are a quick google-scholar search away).
So why aren’t we using a Rampage of Gratitude, or even a simple 10 item list, when things are tough? Why don’t we fit a gratitude practice into our regular routine like we do with brushing our teeth?
Typically, it’s not because we aren’t grateful, it’s not because we don’t WANT to feel less stressed and more in control. It’s literally because we just don’t know to try it. We aren’t taught this in school. We are taught the ins and outs of the pharmacologic management of hypertension but not how to regulate our own nervous systems so that we can continue to do this work that is so hard but so important. Intentional gratitude is not just some sappy activity or a state of mind, it’s a real intervention, with predictable outcomes. Gratitude is a coping mechanism.
This is WHY I write these articles. Like any nurse practitioner, when I learn something new that can help people, I want to make sure that I spread the word. If I learned about a new supplement that could help high lipoprotein-a I would share that just as quickly. When advances are made in neuromodulation, I want to share that with my patients and my colleagues. It’s the nature of nursing to promote self-efficacy; learn then educate.
Giving nurses the tools to not only to prevent burnout but to thrive is crucial not only for the survival of my nursing friends and colleagues but for survival of healthcare at large.
The strategies aren’t hard. We just need to learn them and practice them. I hope this helps you consider trying the strategy of gratitude, it has turned things around for me when I am struggling and has been a useful tool for my patients who suffer with chronic pain.
No matter how tough our lives are, no matter what stressors are thrown at you, there is always something to be grateful for.
Bringing attention to it can save our lives.
If you are desperate for more strategies, for simple yet effective ways to improve your everyday life, please send me an email at Megan@NursingBeyondTheJob.com and we can set up a consultation to explore what working together would look like. We can come up with a plan that fits exactly what you need to reach a sense of overall well-being in your life. It isn’t hard, it isn’t beyond your capabilities. It isn’t out of reach♥️. I look forward to connecting with you.
A couple of references if you want to explore the science😁
Calleja P, Knight-Davidson P, McVicar A, Laker C, Yu S, Roszak-Burton L. Gratitude interventions to improve wellbeing and resilience of graduate nurses transitioning to practice: A scoping review. International Journal of Nursing Studies Advances. 2024 Feb 24:100188.
Cumella K. Gratitude journals can improve nurses' mental well-being. Nursing2024. 2022 Dec 1;52(12):58-61.
Fekete EM, Deichert NT. A brief gratitude writing intervention decreased stress and negative affect during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Happiness Studies. 2022 Aug;23(6):2427-48.