ANA Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation® Spotlight: Jazmine Reyes, RN, BSN, NC-BC
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Nurse coach combines ancient wisdom with modern science to heal mind, body, and spirit
If the hectic pace of life makes you wish you could slow down, maybe it’s time to do just that. According to #healthynurse Jazmine Reyes, slow living is exactly what we need for better health and personal and professional fulfillment. It’s an ancient concept that the modern world often forgets.
Jazmine knows firsthand the price our bodies and minds pay when we’re under constant stress. As an ICU nurse, she witnessed the impact of COVID-19 on patients and families and health care workers. And she felt the effects that stress had on her own body and spirit.
“I felt burned out, always in a state of fight or flight,” she says. “Working in the ICU is very rewarding but also very stressful. I would come home from a 12-hour shift too tired to take care of myself.”
A Journey to Better Health Leads to a New Career
Jazmine found herself eating convenient but unhealthy fast food, using alcohol to combat stress, and getting too little sleep. In turn, this led to health struggles like anxiety and mood swings, irregular menstrual cycles, and hormonal acne.
She discovered healing through functional medicine, which treats the root cause of health conditions instead of the symptoms. It examines everything that can affect your health, including:
- Diet
- Environment
- Lifestyle
- Psycho-social-spiritual factors
- Stress
For Jazmine, functional medicine opened her eyes to the unhealthy ways she was responding to stress. She became intentional with her diet and lifestyle choices and felt a positive shift in her physical and mental health. The effects were profound and life-changing, she says.
She also realized that she wanted to help others who were struggling as she had.
“I started to explore how I could practice nursing differently, in a way that aligned with holistic medicine,” she says. “I stumbled across nurse coaching and decided to make the jump.”
While researching ways to practice holistic nursing, Jazmine discovered the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy (INCA). She enrolled in and completed the academy’s Nurse Coach – Board Certified (NC-BC) program.
“It was a great program,” she says, “I enrolled with the intention of opening my own coaching practice, but this program would also benefit nurses in a hospital setting. It really taught us how to approach the patient differently and look at them as a whole.”
In early 2024, Jazmine launched her nurse coach practice.
What Is a Nurse Coach?
A nurse coach is a registered nurse (RN) with specialized training in health coaching. Nurse coaches guide and support clients through diet, behavioral, and lifestyle changes to improve their health.
According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), nurse coaches can work in hospitals or clinics, corporate environments, or in private practice like Jazmine. The benefits of nurse coaching include:
- Developing new skills in communication, leadership, and problem-solving
- Finding renewed purpose, especially for bedside nurses experiencing burnout
- Flexibility in hours, treatment plans, and approach
For Jazmine, nurse coaching allows her to combine her nursing skills with ancestral wisdom. It helps her support healing in her clients — from the inside out.
Going Back to Our Roots
Jazmine’s practice focuses on slowing down and living with intention, as our ancestors did.
“I help and educate clients on the importance of eating better, higher quality foods,” she says. “Food that our ancestors would recognize; not the processed food that harms our health today.”
Jazmine encourages her clients to eat locally sourced and organic fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, and fish. She hunts and fishes for her own food, which provides protein that is free from antibiotics and factory farming. It also connects her spiritually to what she eats.
“The act of hunting for food is a good reminder that we’re all part of the same ecosystem,” she says.
Jazmine also asks clients to focus on how they eat.
“We all eat too fast,” she says. “I struggled with this as a nurse when I would have only a few minutes to eat during a 12-hour shift. I’d open my phone and watch videos and wolf down my meal.”
The problem with eating fast, according to Jazmine, is that we’re making it difficult for our bodies to digest our food.
“When we scarf down food, we’re not chewing it enough to break it down before it hits our stomach,” she explains. “The stomach then has to work much harder to digest it.”
Another downside to rushed meals is that we miss out on enjoying the pleasure of eating.
“We no longer sit with our families and eat dinner and enjoy that fellowship without a phone or TV,” she says. “It’s important to take a step back and appreciate the food and family and friends in front of us, like our ancestors did. The spiritual aspect of sharing a meal together helps us connect with a deeper part of ourselves, our loved ones, and the earth.”
The Nurse Coach Approach
Jazmine works closely with her clients to understand and help heal their health issues.
“For me, nurse coaching starts with active listening,” she says. “Each client is the expert in how they feel and what they experience.”
Jazmine’s clients complete a comprehensive intake questionnaire and share their lab results from the past 2 years. From this information, she can create diet and lifestyle recommendations.
“My practice includes some life coaching as well,” she says. “I educate clients on the importance of remembering why we’re on this earth. It’s not to keep up with the Joneses. It’s not going to a job that doesn’t fulfill you. It’s our friends and family. It’s having genuine relationships that support and uplift you.”
She also helps people overcome self-limiting beliefs and set healthy boundaries.
“I love to work with people who feel like they’re stuck, whether it’s in a toxic relationship or a bad work environment,” she says. “I help them slow down and appreciate the things in life that really matter.”
In the future, Jazmine hopes to host retreats, especially for women.
“I love helping other women. They have a special place in my heart. I want to create a supportive place that empowers and nurtures them.”
Jazmine Reyes, RN, BSN, NC-BC is the founder of RAW Holistic Coaching & Consulting.
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Blog #healthynurse Spotlight
10/01/2024 6:57pm CDT
The #healthynurse Spotlight is a shout out to nurses who are making changes in their lives to improve their health and wellness. You can too! Read their stories for inspiration here.
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