8 Self Care Tips to Help Manage Your Nursing Stress
By Sarah Stasik, Contributor
Do you ever feel stress overtaking both your work and personal time? You aren't alone.
According to the Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies, nursing stress is common because all the tasks RNs approach on a daily basis have factors that can lead to burnout. Those include things such as compassion fatigue, moral distress, secondary stress and vicarious trauma."
Scoring higher on measures of compassion, with an ability to connect, be empathetic and present with the suffering of others, is highly correlated with burnout," says Christina Fleming MA, MSN, RN, CNM.
But self-care tips and strategies can help protect nurse health. Learn about these tips for stress management for nurses and then visit TravelNursing.com to discover travel nursing opportunities that let you break out of a career rut to find a job that brings more professional satisfaction.
8 nursing stress management tips
Nurses spend a lot of time promoting wellness for their patients, but taking time to ensure nurse health is important. Put some of these eight tips into action to alleviate nursing stress on a daily basis.
1. Participate in activities that promote well-being
Jennifer Flynn, from Nurses Service Organization, says, "Nurses should participate in activities that promote physical, emotional and spiritual well-being."
In short: even if you love your career, you should be participating in things outside of the job that you also love or are good for you. Depending on your own personal preferences and life situation, that could include making time for your family, going to church or getting involved in a new hobby.
2. Make use of Employee Assistance Programs
Flynn also points out that strong nurse health may require seeking assistance. "Seek out support in the form of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), caregiver or nursing support groups or other forms of counseling and emotional support," she says.
3. Get adequate sleep
Healthy sleep habits are important to everyone, and getting adequate rest is a proven nursing stress management tool.
It's not always easy for nurses who work odd shifts or have obligations outside of work to get a solid eight hours of sleep every night, but you can put tips into practice to improve your sleep cycle and nurse health.
4. Pay attention to nutrition
Eating right may be a tip you're likely to give patients, but how often do you prescribe to it yourself? Stress management for nurses sometimes devolves into binge eating —the chocolate or chips in the hospital vending machines may look good when you're running on the fumes from lunch and feeling nursing stress after a long shift.
A study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality indicates that many nurses miss meals when caring for patients, but American Nurse Today offers some tips for maintaining good nutrition as you work. They include things like not skipping meals, not relying on a single large meal each day, carrying healthy snacks, drinking plenty of water and avoiding too much caffeine.
5. Exercise on a regular basis
Case Western Reserve University calls nurses to exercise to provide positive health modeling for patients, but that's not the only reason to hit the treadmill, rowing machine or yoga mat. Physical activity is known to produce endorphins to reduce stress, helping nurses overcome a variety of mental and emotional reactions to things that happen on the job.
Even better, you get these benefits from any exercise, so you can choose activities that resonate with you. Take your frustrations out by punching and kicking a bag in a kickboxing class, dance nursing stress away in a hip hop class or get exercise alone by running, walking or lifting weights.
6. Don't assume you always own the next step
Rhonda Williams, RN and Executive Life Strategist says nurses should work on letting go of things that they can't —or shouldn't —control. She gives a five-step nursing stress management strategy for letting go of some things.
1. Reflect on the situation.
2. Identify what you feel (we are all human).
3. Determine who owns the next step (often it is not you).
4. Place it in the proper perspective.
5. Focus on control and ownership of your own thoughts, feelings and actions.
Nurses often care deeply about their patients, but Williams points out that "ownership of yourself means not trying to carry the burdens of everyone else." If you carry too many patient or coworker burdens, you impact your own nurse health enough that you may not be an effective provider for others.
7. Understand the symptoms of nurse burnout
Matthew Thomson, RN and blogger at TheRNMentor.com says nurses must know how to recognize the signs of burnout so they can proactively manage nurse health with self-care. Some signs of burnout, he says, including feeling alienated from job tasks, feeling emotionally exhausted and a reduction in performance.
8. Use meditation techniques
Thomson says nurses can employ meditation techniques to help reduce nursing stress before burnout occurs. Nurses might think meditation requires a special room, candles and other tools, but you can actually practice this tactic in various locations in the hospital with help from smartphone apps. In a study published by American Nurse Today, nursing participants reported some benefits from using the One-Minute Meditation app, for example.
The bottom line is this: nurse health is impacted by nursing stress. Learning more about stress management for nurses is important for every RN, but you do have to find the type of self-care techniques that work for you. Test out the techniques above, and try others that seem right for you, such as relaxing in a warm bath after a shift or talking out your issues with a close friend.