5 Tips For Nurses To Maintain Their Wellness

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Nursing is extremely rewarding, but it is challenging too. You don’t get into this profession thinking it would be a bed of roses; it will not. You will make all the efforts to look after the health of patients.

Due to your hectic routine, you may not find time for yourself as you work night shifts and rotation. But this is where you need to draw a line. When it comes to your health and wellness, ignoring it can be detrimental for you and your patients.

Your patients come to you for assistance, but if you are not mentally and physically fit, you can neither help them nor focus on your work. So, you must take the time to look after your health and wellness to give your best daily.

Some tips for you to improve your wellness include the following.

1. Keep Your Curiosity And Desire For Learning Alive

Curiosity is the thirst to learn new things and have new experiences. It promotes wonder. According to a study, when you feel curious, your feelings of uncertainty contract.

Curiosity has a positive effect on your mental health. It instills your dopamine centers, which release feel-good hormones making you feel good about yourself. Not only that, but curiosity also reduces stress, makes you less reactive to stress, and less defensive.

In healthcare, where new treatments and procedures are constantly replacing the old ones, you must have a curious and learning-oriented mind. If you get to know about any seminars or professional conferences, ensure your participation.

You can also enroll in remote higher education programs. For instance, if you already have a master’s degree, go for online post-Masters DNP programs for higher education. But a BSN can be a better option if you only have a diploma. The final goal is to engage in continuous learning so that your curiosity and desire for learning remain intact.

2. Eat Healthy Food

In the chaos of changing shifts and patient assignments, eating junk food and fast food seems like a good decision. Many nurses skip meals because they don’t have time to sit and eat without being called from the right and left.

Nevertheless, eating healthy food is an essential requirement for maintaining your wellness. What goes inside you undoubtedly affect your mental, physical, and emotional health. And as taxing as the nursing profession is, you cannot take a chance of getting overwhelmed by the stressful and hectic work schedules and ignoring your diet.

When you overeat convenience foods, your energy levels drop, you feel lethargic, and your concentration on your work drops too. Therefore, eat a healthy diet; add a lot of fruits and vegetables to your daily meal plan.

If planning your food every day seems difficult, make weekly food plans and buy groceries on the weekend. Also, prepare meals for the whole week and freeze them in the refrigerator for later use throughout the week.

3. Stay Active

Some might argue that you already move a lot during your shifts. Therefore, considerable walking and running between patient wards and rooms is part of your job. Still, it does not discount your need to give some time for targeted physical training. Dedicating thirty minutes of your day to physical exercise might be more fruitful than running between rooms all day.

When you are on your feet during work hours, your mind is not focused on physical activity. Instead, your focus is more on attending to your patients, timely providing them with medications, consulting with their doctor, and so on.

On the contrary, when you exercise, all your focus and concentration is on the physical training you undergo. This focus is why your brain responds positively to your physical activity and instigates your dopamine centers to release stress-busting, mind-relaxing chemicals.

Engage in daily physical activity, and you will realize a change in your mood and behavior in a few days. You will feel happier, more energetic, commit fewer medical errors, and experience less body pain; you will be more motivated and excited about your work. This is because your brain release hormones to improve your mood, memory, cognition, and concentration.

4. Don’t Neglect Your Sleep

Being a nurse may seem like a long shot to try to maintain your sleep routine. In their hectic routine and shift schedule, getting ample sleep is a luxury. Nevertheless, sleep is essential for nurses and must not be taken for granted.

Prioritize your sleep whenever you find a chance. If you find any time, don’t waste it using your phone, laptop, or watching TV. Instead, sleep and let your mind and body have some rest and time to reset their functions.

5. Cultivate Healthy Relationships

Your health and wellness are not limited to eating a healthy diet and keeping yourself active—it extends beyond it. One aspect of maintaining your wellness is cultivating healthy relationships with your colleagues at work. Having strained relationships with others at work adds to the already stressful environment in the hospital.

You will interact with colleagues in the hospital more often than with your family. Not having good relationships and camaraderie with your doctors and other nurses creates a hostile work environment.

Toxic work environments cause depression, anxiety, absenteeism, and other health issues and kill efficiency and productivity. Inefficient flow of information among members at a workplace such as a hospital increase the occurrence of medical errors and reduce patient satisfaction.

Therefore, try to maintain positive relationships with your colleagues, lend a helping hand to each other, and don’t waste time in toxic relationships. Not only with colleagues, but nurses must have positive relationships with family and relatives too. Arranging family dinners, planning vacations and trips, and hanging out with friends have positive health and wellness outcomes.

Conclusion

Nursing is a mentally and physically exhausting career. On top of that, if you neglect your health and well-being, you can fall ill and fail to give your hundred percent in your personal and professional life. The tips above can help you look after your wellness and stay fit and energetic.