Stay Calm as a production of I Heart Radio. Hi. I'm Bob Roth, and I've been teaching people to meditate for fifty years, helping them to stay calm under pressure, reboot and re energize their lives, and basically be a happier, healthier version of themselves. And now I want to help you do the same. Welcome to Stay Calm, your daily
dose of calmness. Every weekday morning, I'll share a meditation story, offer a simple practical tip about how you or a loved one can stay a bit calmer in your life, and then we'll end each episode together with a moment of gratitude. My hope is that I can share what I know to anyone who needs it. Ready, sit comfortably, take a few deep breaths, and let's begin today's journey.
I'd like to tell you about Tanya Malcolm, who's an emergency room registered nurse at one of the large hospitals outside of Washington, d C. On the front lines of the COVID nineteen epidemic. Tanya is also a member of the National Advisory Board of the Heal the Healers Now Initiative, which is bringing evidence based meditation to doctors nurses, orderlies, custodial staff to help them overcome the ravages of post traumatic stress disorder that they're experiencing right now, much like
what veterans report when they come back from combat. I want to tell you the story about Tanya and some of the lessons that she's learned. Her experiences as an emergency room nurse are to the extreme, perhaps, but all of us now or in the future are going to be caregivers. All of us are going to have an elderly parent to take care of who may be suffering from Alzheimer's, a child who has some learning difficulties, spouse, a partner who suffers from deep depression, all of whom
need our time and attention. So Tanya's experience in the emergency room is one of sheer hell. Tanya is a triage nurse, which means that all the patients who come into the hospital, she screens them first. She said. The fear and the anxiety that all the staff are feeling is palpable. She said. One of the biggest things is she has to isolate the patients from their families. Wife drives her husband of forty years to the hospital because he has symptoms of coronavirus and she has to leave
the hospital. She may never see him again. She also said, is such a stress when she goes home, and she's so afraid that she's going to bring the virus to her two children. So she has not hugged her children or her husband in over a month. All this pressure builds up against the desire to be a nurse. She loves nursing, she loves caregiving, so this is great battle
going on inside for Tanya. The practice of meditation has been an absolute life saver because she can take a break in the middle of the day, go into the women's bathroom or the chapel, the quiet room somewhere in the hospital, and take twenty minutes and do her TM transcendental meditation. It eliminates the build up of stress, wakes up her mind. It's like a rebooting so that she can face these people who come with such fear, and she can do it with love and with a smile
on her face. Again. Tanya's situation, while to the extreme, is a situation that either many of you are facing now or will face in the future. If there was one piece of advice that Tanya would have for all of us in a caregiver role is do not take it on yourself. It's so important to have people you can talk to, people you can share your experiences, people you could cry with if you need to, people you could vent your anger and your frustration. Yes, you should
definitely look into meditation, exercise, take time for yourself. Avoid the kind of thinking that only I can handle this problem. Why should I get any time off my husband, wife? You fill in the blanket suffering. Those are self defeating and destructive thoughts. My message don't let the pressure bottle up inside of you. Find people you can talk to, share your experiences, and at the same time take care
of yourself. All right, let's end this time together doing something that I think should be a feature of our everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break, just take a moment. It turns out when we do that it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back, all right. Thank you for joining. This is Bob Roth. Keep calm, Thanks for listening today. I hope you heard something that inspires that uplifts you and that
you can incorporate into your own life. Until next time, remember meditate, be kind, and be true to yourself. Hey, all of you out there, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your stories, your question or anything else on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.