Reimagining How We Care for Ourselves: Infusing Micro-Moments into the Everyday

BY JILL KOTTMEIER, MS, BSN, RN, FT, CCISM, PROGRAM DIRECTOR OF WELLBEING & VITALITY, ENDEAVOR HEALTH

May is a month that carries a lot of meaning in healthcare. We celebrate Nurses Week, honor our entire healthcare workforce during Hospital Week, and observe Mental Health Awareness Month. That convergence is not a coincidence. It’s an invitation. An invitation to pause and ask a question that is simple: Are we caring for the people who care for everyone else?

The honest answer, for most of us working in healthcare, is complicated. We know what we must care for ourselves and what that looks like in theory. We’ve read the research. We’ve shared the infographics. Nurses and healthcare workers are notorious for pouring themselves into others and putting their needs last. When someone is struggling with their mental health or facing burnout or compassion fatigue, adding tasks to care for oneself feels impossible.

And yet, so often the story we tell ourselves about caring for ourselves sounds like waiting. Waiting for more time, waiting to get off a long shift, waiting for PTO, waiting so we can care for others first, or waiting for a quiet season of life that may never quite arrive. We have, quietly and without realizing it, learned to postpone the care we all deserve.

What if our well-being doesn’t have to wait?  What if we don’t have to add tasks, but simply nurture our well-being in the everyday moments?

The Science of Small

There is a growing body of knowledge suggesting that we don’t need sweeping lifestyle overhauls to support our well-being. What we need are micro moments: brief but intentional acts that create space for awareness, reflection, and grounding within the rhythms of daily life. These moments, lasting anywhere from one to five minutes, send a quiet but powerful signal to the nervous system that we are safe, that we matter, and that we are more than our to-do lists.

Neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself, tells us that small, consistent practices compound over time. Research has found that brief experiences of awe in daily life were associated with lower inflammatory markers and improved mood. In addition, micro-breaks, short intentional pauses of even 30 seconds to five minutes, show meaningful reductions in stress, improvements in focus, and protection against burnout. These are not soft findings. They have real implications for how we design our days.

For nurses and healthcare workers, this matters enormously. The demands of this work,  the emotional labor, the clinical complexity, the weight of bearing witness to suffering, can push us out of our window of tolerance more often and more rapidly than almost any other profession. When we are chronically dysregulated, we are less present, less resilient, and at greater risk for compassion fatigue. Micro moments are not a luxury in that context. They are preventative care.

Building the Practice: What This Actually Looks Like

The beauty of micro moments is that they don’t require a new block of time in an already stretched day. They live in the spaces between — the walk to get water, 90 seconds before a meeting starts, the commute home, the moment after a difficult patient interaction. The goal is not to add more to your plate, but to bring intentionality to what is already there.

There are eight opportunities to consider as you build your own practice:

• Purpose — Reconnecting with your “why.” Purpose anchors us in times of stress and change, brings meaning to routine tasks and protects against compassion fatigue. Try this: notice one moment where your expertise made an impact for someone else. It takes about three minutes and costs nothing.
• Connection — Being seen and seeing others. Meaningful relationships at work are among the most powerful buffers against isolation and burnout. The micro moment here takes 90 seconds: instead of a text, send a voice memo to a colleague who is remote. Hearing a human voice changes everything.
• Rest — Rest at work means breaks, real ones. Moments that restore us, not just pause us. The two-minute version: step outside and stand in the sunlight between meetings. Not to check your phone. Just to be outside, in your body, for a moment. Soak up that feeling.
• Movement — Checking in with your body. Healthcare workers are often so attuned to the bodies of others that they lose track of their own. A body scan, noticing and naming where you feel tension. These take 30 seconds. A simple practice: roll your shoulders back five times after each phone call.
• Grounding — Bringing yourself back to your body and into the present moment can center you when your mind and body are. Before each meeting, try placing your hand on your heart and feeling your chest rise and fall for 60 seconds.
• Creativity — Recharging your imagination, curiosity, and problem-solving capacity helps support your well-being by using a different part of the brain. The next time your computer is loading, try coloring or doodling for 90 seconds. You are not wasting time, you are giving your brain a pause.
• Mindfulness — Creating intentional awareness of your own experience, shifting from judgment to noticing. It can happen while brushing your teeth: notice the taste, the temperature of the water, the brush on your teeth. Three minutes of that kind of noticing gives your brain what researchers sometimes call a gentle reset.
• Awe — Self-transcendent experiences that make us feel part of something larger than ourselves. Awe stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, decreases inflammation, and expands our sense of time. Step outside and notice something in nature: take in the colors, the textures, the sounds.

Making It Stick: The Habit Loop

Knowing about micro moments is one thing. Building them into a busy shift is another. The research on habit formation points to three elements that help: a cue, a routine, and a reward. Make the cue visual or attach it to something you already do; washing your hands (which nurses do dozens of times a day), is a natural anchor for a single intentional breath. Make the routine simple enough to be repeatable when you are exhausted. For the reward, track it by checking off even one micro moment a day, builds positive association and a quiet sense of success.

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen wrote that most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know, and that finding meaning is often not about doing things differently, but about seeing familiar things in new ways. That is, at its heart, what micro-moments invite us to do. Not to overhaul. Not to wait. But to look a little more closely at what is already here.

A Closing Invitation

This May, as we celebrate nurses, honor our healthcare teams, and shine a light on mental health, consider this a gentle challenge: not to add one more thing to your list, but to notice what is already there. Take 90 seconds before your next meeting and breathe. Text a colleague you’ve been thinking about. Step outside and feel the sun for a moment before you go back in. All these micro moments are spaces we can intentionally nurture our mind, body and spirit.

Micro moments can carry us through macro experiences. Your well-being doesn’t have to wait. ♦

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Author bio:

Jill Kottmeier, RN & Thanatologist, has dedicated her career to providing compassionate care at Endeavor Health Northwest Community Hospital since 1997. While focusing on palliative and bereavement care within the perinatal realm, Jill has walked alongside families during their most heart wrenching moments. Her ultimate goal is to create a safe space for all people that are grieving. Recognizing the profound impact of death and trauma on both patients and healthcare workers, she developed a program for employee grief support and co-founded the first crisis response team at NCH, which now serves the entire Endeavor Health System. Through these initiatives, Jill has formalized her role in supporting the wellbeing of hospital staff, addressing grief in the workplace, destigmatizing mental health, and providing essential education on crisis intervention for leaders and colleagues. Contact: jill.kottmeier@endeavorhealth.org 

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