(ThyBlackMan.com) Long shits, irregular hours, understaffing – nursing is undoubtedly one of the most hectic professions with many responsibilities. These responsibilities have grown by leaps and bounds ever since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. As a result, the already challenging job has become more stressful than ever. These high stress levels can have adverse effects on nurses’ mental and physical well-being and the quality of their work.
However, a few practical management tips can solve this problem. So if you’re a nurse who’s trying to overcome stress, don’t worry. Here we’ve listed some of the most effective stress-management tips that can make you feel less burned out, allowing you to offer optimal care to your patients. Let’s dig in!
Manage your time properly
As we mentioned, long working hours contribute to stress on the job. So if you want to tackle this issue, you need to learn how to manage your time correctly. Start by creating a list of essential tasks you need to get done in the day/week. You can also include personal tasks in the list. Then, allocate time to each task to ensure effective management. This way, you’ll be able to perform all your professional and personal responsibilities without overlapping and messing things up.
If you’re trying to upskill your nursing practice with higher education, good time management will help you better manage work and studies for a less stressful experience. Also, you can enroll yourself in a distance learning opportunity such as an online MSN to effectively manage your professional and academic responsibilities. With the time management tools and apps at your disposal, you’ll be able to create a better work-study-life balance. This is by far the most crucial step for you to stay sane and avoid burnout.
Engage in regular physical exercise can help you manage your stress
Regular exercise can bring your soaring stress levels down. How? By boosting your endorphins that help to elevate your mood. Working out also increases your stamina, allowing your body to perform challenging and exhausting responsibilities for a longer time. If you can’t fit in extended workout sessions at the gym in your routine, there are plenty of simple yet equally effective exercises that don’t require a gym or extra time. With that said, listed below are some exercises you can perform to burn cortisol and bust stress:
- Interval training – A type of exercise that involves a high-intensity workout followed by rest breaks
- Swimming
- Jogging or walking
- Weight lifting
- Cycling
- Pilates
- Aerobics
Performing these exercises will lead to decreased levels of stress hormones flowing through your blood. If these sound too overwhelming, you can always try stretching exercises during your breaks. Extra tip: you can make your exercising time enjoyable by asking your fellow nurses to accompany you.
Practice medication
Besides exercise, meditation is yet another helpful technique you can implement to relieve your stress. While a peaceful and calm environment isn’t necessary to medicate, it significantly augments the benefits that you will receive. If you start feeling that you’re over-burdened with stress, you can begin practicing meditation anywhere. Meditation provides several benefits, including developing skills to counter stress, improved concentration, and self-awareness. In addition, it is an excellent technique to reach mental tranquility that enables you to be more patient and tolerant in stressful situations.
There are several forms of medication that you can opt for, depending on what interests you. These include Yoga, Tai chi, Qi gong, Mantra, guided meditation. All these types ensure the relaxation of your mind, body, and soul. However, to enjoy meditating and fully experience its benefits, you should be practicing it the correct way. The five fundamental elements of meditation are as follows:
- Keeping your mind open and allowing your thoughts to flow seamlessly
- Maintaining a position at which you feel yourself at ease
- Choosing a peaceful setting to practice meditation
- Ensuring even-paced, relaxed breathing
- Focusing on anything other than worldly distractions
Practice deep breathing
Long deep breaths are not only an effective way to cope with stress, but they also help with improving your blood circulation and lung function. So try to squeeze this habit into your work routine to manage your stress levels. It’ll be easy since you do not need any equipment, but merely clean, fresh air.
However, to draw out the maximum benefit from deep breathing, you must ensure doing it correctly. Try to: dress comfortably to encourage your body to breathe deeply without any hassle. This means ditching restrictive apparel and nursing equipment for a few minutes. Also, it is necessary to select a quiet and peaceful place to maintain focus. And to ensure it becomes a regular habit, schedule breathing sessions at the same time of the day. Because short breaths lead to fatigue and stress, most stress-reducing deep breathing techniques involve counting techniques during breathing. Such techniques involve:
- Tensing and relaxing muscles in a sequence by breathing in and out
- Modified lion’s breath – breathing in with the nose and exhaling with mouth open
- Setting the same time for both inhaling and exhaling. For instance, if you’ve inhaled for 4 seconds, then exhale for 4 seconds as well
- Using something to focus, either a picture or a phrase
- Belly breathing – keeping one hand on the chest and the other on the belly and ensuring that the chest doesn’t move while breathing
- The 4-7-8 technique – breathing in with the nose for 4 seconds, holding it for 7 seconds, and then breathing it out for 8 seconds
Conclusion
For nurses, stress at the workplace can lead to poor performance and misjudgment. In some cases, this may become a matter of life and death. Hence it essential to take measures to reduce high stress levels. This article mentioned some practical stress management tips including, practicing good time management, incorporating physical exercise, practicing meditation, and deep breathing. Implementing these tips will enable you to manage your stress and ensure mental, physical, and social well-being.
Staff Writer; Mark Johnson
