Vital Views

Cassandra Taloma 0:31
Welcome to another episode of vital views, a UNLV School of Nursing Podcast. I'm Cassandra taloma, the Director of Marketing and Communications at the school today, I'm excited to be joined by Dr Nirmala Lake hock, an assistant professor here at the School of Nursing. Dr Lake specializes in older adult health with a particular focus on spirituality and compassion. Her research explores how contemplative practices like meditation can enhance cognitive function, memory and psychological health, addressing issues such as loneliness, depression and anxiety in later life, her work strives to improve the mental well being of aging populations and their caregivers by designing interventions that promote compassion, love and kindness. Welcome, Dr lacock, thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me. Your work is truly inspiring. And as a society, we've really made many strides in prioritizing our mental health, from practicing gratitude and journaling to going to therapy and meditating. What initially drew you to specialize in spirituality and compassion

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 1:32
so well, before going into what you know, what made me specialize in spirituality and compassion, I want to talk about a little bit about how I came into, you know, particularly in this field. So I did some, you know, meditation, dancing, fasting, those kind of yoga asanas, all those things as a child would. So the frequency kind of decreases. When I did after my high school, it kind of went down. But as a nurse, when I worked in a long term care facility, I saw that people who had meaning and proposed in life, like you know, who went to church regularly. We had those faith, those some kind of activities that they do, they lived longer and they were more happier, and people who came into nursing home, usually who didn't have meaning or proposed in your life, they kind of decline in their health. And I've seen that with a lot of the older adults as well. So when I got chance to do PhD Maya, I looked at how spirituality will help with depression in older adults. So gradually, you know, one of the faculty members said, Why don't you look at meditation practices? You know, it has really useful for monks, and there is some scientific literature on it. So I started looking into a meditation literature. And then I found, even though I did meditation myself, I never looked into in a scientific literature that way. So when I looked into it, I'm like, This is what I what I want to do. So I looked into meditation, and how will it will increase the spiritual whole well being of older adults? So gradually, my dissertation focused on meditation and prayer effects on memory of older adults. So that's how I started. And one of my mentor used to run Elderly Care Center Research Center, and my husband, who teaches sociology here, he did some research and love as well, and I was the last author on that paper, and then when I when the COVID hit, I was like, you know, I was not ready for it, but that mentor said you should probably do this research. So when I did that research, I used the compassion in there as well. There was some questions on, you know, how love affects, how meditation increases the love for older adults. And then I found that meditation helps with love, and then love helps with lot of the psychological outcomes that we looked into as loneliness and, you know, other depression and anxiety. So that's how it saved up for me. So I got interested in compassion. It came to my life as not that I was looking into it, but it came into, you know, it just naturally, just came into my life, and I just was part of, you know, how meditation can help with loneliness and other sites psychological outcomes. And I saw that it helps increase the compassion.

Cassandra Taloma 4:46
I love that that's, you know, truly how fate kind of falls into our laps as we weren't looking for it at the time, but it really comes to us at the right times. And I like how you mentioned, you know, you weren't sure if you were ready to take on this research challenge. But. Uh, during COVID, when I think a lot of us may have felt some pretty major and severe mental health effects, you know, with everything happening, being, staying in our homes and kind of forced to be with our thoughts by ourselves. And so I think that's really, you know, it happened at the right time. And it's interesting, too. I you know, as you mentioned, meditation as a key intervention for mental health. Can you explain that science behind how meditation works and why it's so effective? Yeah,

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 5:30
so many, you know, the literature shows that there's a lot of literature on meditation that shows like, you know, it increases the brain gray matter. It, you know, we don't use our default network in the brain, which is because we're always active, we're always on phone or we're always on TV, so the meditation actually activates that default network that we don't use as much, and we need that passivity in life as well. You know, a lot of the time where our mind is always working, even when we're sleeping, it's racing through thoughts and everything, right? So the meditation helps to increase that focus of default network, and then, you know, decrease that thought process. So, and we need that. So it helps with reducing the stress anxiety. You know, with depression and sadness, it's usually not recommended that we meditate, but increase our energy level with, you know, doing activities that we like, and then meditate after that, not when you're really feeling sad, but you do activities with the meditation with when you're feeling sad, and then increase your energy level. And then meditate, so that when, when you're doing meditation, it focuses on improving your energy level rather than decreasing your energy level. So you know, it helps increasing your gray matter in the brain. And there is another area in the brain, which is called amygdala, and we need that for prayer processes, right? So with meditation, it decreases the fear. But we when we need it, like if there is a line in front of us, you know, it gets activated. So even with meditation, it improves that area as well. So you know, it helps us. And when you're meditating for longer period of time, it reduces the stress level. And I can speak personally as well. I was really stressed out during COVID time, and I was a new parent, you know. And then the new, you know, the faculty as well, the full time job. And I, when I started meditating every day, the stress level really went down. Nothing changed in the environment level, but I personally, internally, I was not reacting to what's happening outside. So that's helpful with the meditation, and that's

Cassandra Taloma 7:55
so important too. Like I said, during that time period, a lot of us were kind of looking to ways to improve our mental health, what we didn't not many of us integrated it into our daily lives. How? I guess, what? How much time would you recommend to start?

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 8:11
So I would recommend, if you're really in hurry, then don't do meditation practice. Do something that you like. But if you're not in hurry, then I would really recommend practicing the meditation, starting it at least in the morning or at night, whichever you prefer, because at night, at least you're, you know, winding down all your activities, you're ready to go to sleep, so you have some time. So you know, you can just meditate and get your energy level so you can sleep better, right? So that will that's helpful. And the other thing is, if you're meditating, there is thoughts process that comes naturally as well. So I would recommend start slowly, and when you feel really comfortable, at least do 20 minutes or 30 minutes, but start slowly, like 510 minutes, and then gradually, at least do 20 or 30 minutes, and when you feel comfortable doing it absolutely

Cassandra Taloma 9:02
meditation seems like a very powerful tool. You know, you also encourage different activities that foster compassionate love and kindness. Can you give some examples of simple practices that we can you know, involve into our daily lives, sure

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 9:17
you know the compassion and love and kindness you really don't have to do much, just be yourself. You know, when you are, for example, if you're a student, just focusing on your study, when you're focusing on your study, help your colleagues. You know, help your student members who are close to you, they're not doing well, then you can give them extra time, or, you know, extra strategies to help them with the studies that you're using. You can be nice to your faculty. You can be nice to your student. Member. Can Be nice to your friend. You know, just being yourself and acknowledging that you know the behavior change it takes time, but acknowledging that you have you know. Some kind of maybe anger issues or other kind of behavior issues, acknowledging that that is something that I need to improve on. The first thing always comes with acknowledgement, right? And that's compassion to yourself as well. And we usually forget that we need kindness to other people. We have to be kind to other people, but we're not kind to ourselves, right? So the most important thing is being kind to yourself as well. And the first thing is acknowledging that it's okay to be angry, it's okay to show emotions, it's okay to cry, and just be kind to yourself as well.

Cassandra Taloma 10:38
Absolutely how you know, as you went through the challenges of nursing school yourself, what were some things that helped you, that you think might be helpful to share with our fellow nursing students?

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 10:49
Yeah. So as I said before, you know compassion, sewing compassion to everyone would be nice. Sewing compassion to yourself would be good as well. And then two activities that you really like. You know, I know nursing school is very stressful, so you know, doing activities will bring your energy level up that you like to do, so bringing your energy level up. And if you're really into meditation, to meditation, because meditation is a tool that will bring your energy level up as well. And we have so much distraction now, like, you know, phone, social media, so it's easy to get sucked into that environment, and then we realize we don't have enough time to do, you know, homework assignments, study for nursing school. So acknowledging that there are distraction out there, and then use the meditation to take that distraction away from you. So it helps to bring that energy back to you, and then getting the distraction away, and then focusing on what's really important to you. Absolutely.

Cassandra Taloma 11:55
It sounds like meditating really helps us invest that time back into ourselves that we just offer to everyone and everything in our daily lives. So I love that about meditation. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention about meditating or other activities that might be helpful for us, or how we prioritize our mental health?

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 12:14
Yeah, so I want to say that when you're meditating, it's just a tool. You know, take it as a tool that will increase the awareness of yourself. So we all have that positive energy inside us so as to bring that out. Meditation helps with that. And you know, I call him my divine friend. He is a global humanitarian and spiritual transformation pioneer, and when you're meditating, he gave you the three P's version. So, you know, there is a posture when you're meditating. Everybody talks about posture. So you have to keep your, you know, spine erect, but not as erect where you're feeling really uncomfortable. So just be comfortable. The other P is patience. So you know, not to do meditation in hurry. It doesn't help you. It does. It has no benefit at all. So you know, if you have time, carve the time for meditation as well and do it. And it starts slowly, but gradually at least, do 20 or 30 minutes to get the full benefit of meditation. The third P is, I don't think anybody talk anybody who does meditation practice talks about it, but if you believe in higher power or God, then pray. You know that if you don't believe in anything, then have positive intention when you meditate as well. And it could be a for nursing student or any kind of students. It can be about grades, or, you know, it can be helpful to study properly. Those are positive intentions as well. And gradually, you know, you can for yourself. You can meditate for yourself, and then for your family or friends, and then the whole world as well. You know, I know the world is, there is so much crisis going around right now in the world. So having that intention when you meditate as well be helpful to you and the world as well. So you know, have that positive intention. And so the gratitude when you're meditating for yourself. And if you believe in divine power, then you know, so that gratitude to divine power as well. So when you meditate,

Cassandra Taloma 14:21
yeah, it sounds like, you know, meditation is truly universal for all of us, but at the same time, very personal. So whatever works for each individual, you know, what they believe in, what they can use as a center to ground them and help them focus and really tune in to their meditation is probably, you know, is going to be the best thing for them. So that's these are all really great suggestions, and I'm sure all of our listeners will find them very helpful, not just through nursing school, but throughout their careers as well. Yeah. Dr legag, it's been wonderful to speak with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your story with

Dr. Nirmala Lekhak 14:56
us. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me and thank. For letting me share these thoughts with you as well today. Thank you. Thank

Cassandra Taloma 15:03
you to our listeners for tuning in to another episode of vital views. You