Hello David,

Thank you for such an honest and insightful commentary on my presentation.

you made many good points, and I have chosen to take some needed time to reflect on them. Thank you for your recognition of my concerted efforts to limit fillers. I was not very successful, but agree that the effort is there and the awareness is there. Arguably, I still have much work to do to eliminate the fillers entirely. Even if I could swap ummm, (which for me personally is the worst of the worst) to "so".

I also apologize for the long-winded presentation. I was aware I was the only speaker, so rather than giving all of you a much needed 30 minutes of free time I decided to use the time to discuss my passion. Thank you for the attention.

You pointed out some contradictions I made and that proved to be helpful for me. The feedback was welcomed and from it I will learn to make my points more congruent and with more clarity of my point. Ideally, employees would and should be able to let employers know their needs, however managers still have to manage. Work-life balance is important, but so too is productivity and fiscal responsibility. Managers always must be mindful that the workload is manageable

and if there was a way that workers could predict, identify, and alleviate their own stress that would serve two purposes. Perhaps it would be of value to identify which nursing educators do not feel any stress and burnout and then try to determine common denominators, themes if you like, why they have no feelings of stress sand burnout.

There are indeed many factors to look at. Within my questionnaire there will be many questions that look at demographics, age, gender, years teaching experience, children, marital status, etc. All of these certainly play a role in predicting stress sand burnout.

I agree with you David, that stress is a feeling, a perception, a response rather than a thing that you can possess, it is a feeling that one experiences. I have many specifics I need to hone in on for my research. I like your idea of a narrative inquiry or a self-study, or an auto ethnography. Hmmmm, have you been spying on me when I am not around. Tongue in cheek as we say, it seems you have been a fly on the wall in my life. 

The problem with stress is it is palpable, and it is all too real, and it is present in many otherwise very successful peoples’ lives. Question is how do we measure success?  Is it success to work 60+ hours a week, is it success to work day and night, be on your email and accessible at all hours, to be able to do more with less. Only until the success story is depleted by often self-inflicted wounds do we realize that all of the tell-tale signs of stress were not only identifiable but predictable and more importantly avoidable.

My research is intended to bring more much needed awareness to a topic that although not new – is largely ignored. Stress is indeed a body’s response to situations the mind cannot handle (for whatever reason), however what are we doing about it? How are organizations supporting the employees? Ho ware managers supported, because the numbers of managers stressed and burnout out are high as well, and often under-reported.  Largely these people who are otherwise success stories turn to alcohol, self-medication, or prescription drugs to cope if they have no supports in place.  I know of three people that are off on stress leave and from my perspective my organization id pretty good. So if we recognize that stress is a response, and in many ways a predicatbel response we still have a responsibility to acknowledge its existense, find acceptable practices to identify it, and implement strategies to prevent it oir deal with it appropriately and timely. The answer is not to wait unitl employees are on stress leave which often contributs to the employees stress rather then detract from it.

I like the idea of focusing on what online nurse educators are doing to manage stress. You have definitly provided me many points to pionder. Thaks David. Great to see you again.

Jill

Glad the points seem to have landed well Jill. Completely agree with you - it's an important topic to shed light on. It may be important to remember that stress also has positive functions - e.g. the difference between eustress and distress. 

For example the 'cake curve' I call it. Or the salt curve for others. A little is good, a bit more is even better, but eventually the peak benefit is reached. Add anymore and then it can have dwindling impacts. 

The image below shows some of that - and, that learning to have effective stress management tactics can actually raise performance. 

And, thus, I fully agree - it's important to be able to identify stressors - not neccesarily, stress, per se. And then to learn to identify and monitor the impacts on oneself - through self reflection. 

In hearing your impassioned discussion on these topics, you may find that you will be navigating a slippery road/slope between advocacy and activism. By doing research in the area you may be inherently 'raising awareness' however, you might also find in your research that you go in with pre-conceived notions of what stess is, how it impacts, etc. - and then realize in the research that it's far more complex, or more simple, or too difficult to narrow in on. 

Not sure; however, it will be interesting to see how it pans out.