Nurses Need to Heal-Healing Burnout in Healthcare

We have an amazing parking place at work.  What is so amazing about it, you may ask?  That parking place has seen staff meltdowns and breakdowns after or in the middle of a challenging shift; hugs of comfort, tears of stress, jokes and smiles and laughter after a long day at work.  It has also seen prayers of mercy before a dreadful shift, smiles of gratitude after an uneventful day and in rare occasions, it has also been a place of decompression, compartmentalization and meditation as a way of coping until one regains the energy to drive back home after work.

Oftentimes, I observe more than I care to comment or react to; I see, hear and perceive things more than I dare to admit; perhaps it’s just an extension of my ‘nurse’ journey, or maybe working in mental health for a prolonged period of time has just made me ‘extra sensitive’ of my surroundings.  Each time, I see a nurse or a healthcare worker breakdown, I cannot help but wonder: Are we normalizing and encouraging stress in our healthcare settings?

As nurses, every moment, we face suffering, pain and death,” More often than we care to admit, we tend to build walls that we think will keep us safe, but when those walls get too thick, we become irritable and less present for patients, defeating the sole purpose of our mission to care and to heal.

When your workday is done, do you still carry much of the stress of your work with you into your off-work hours?

Whether you work at home or go to an office, it’s important for there to be a separation between your work and personal life. Without a clear gap, you will not be able to de-stress, and being able to leave that stress behind is crucially important to your quality of life.

Keeping your stress with you can also result in chronic stress, which contributes to many serious health issues.

If you’re finding that you continue to think about work events after working hours or you’re having difficulty with letting go of your stress, consider these tips to de-stress, so you can enjoy your time away from work.

Try these activities to melt away your workday stress:

1. Pause your work email and social media notifications. When my workplace gave us an option to download our work email into our phones; perhaps I was the first one to jump in and say “NO”.  There is no way I am taking my work home. Turn your tech notifications off for a couple hours while you have dinner and enjoy the company of your family and friends.
   
   
   1. You’ll feel less stressed and your relationships and social life will benefit. Eating your dinner in peace also helps digestion.
      
      
2. Exercise. Hands-on deck is the term used in a ship as the crew works as a team to make the show look its best.  Although, nurses are known for their team work and have learnt through experience, its benefits, it’s also time they learnt the hands-on desk exercise.  This is an exercise I learnt in a leadership development program recently. Sit down straight, pull your shoulders upward and outward, close your eyes and place your hands-on desk for a while; and practice your deep breathing. This is sure to help you regroup and re focus when you feel overwhelmed at work.

Tip:  Practice this now as you read it.   

Hands down, the best way to limit stress in your life is to exercise. Not only can exercise help to lower cortisol (stress hormone), but you’ll also be focused on the exercise and not what’s going on at work.

3. Create your personal safe space at home:  Make your home or a part of your home; your safe space.  Decorate it with your favorite colors.   Place an overstuffed arm chair in a quiet corner, add a nice soft cuddly rug, as well as a side table with a plant and a scented candle.  Have your favorite music at hand. Make a collection of your favorite positive affirmations and post them on your wall.

4. Vent when necessary-Most importantly, learn to regulate your emotions. If you tend to keep things bottled up inside, consider making a healthy change in your life and discuss the stressful issues with a close friend, family member, support group, or counselor when you feel it’s necessary. They can help you work through and maybe even resolve the issue. 

Although self-regulation is key to healthy behavior, traumatic or emotional incidents can make this process difficult and even lead to self-dysregulation.

The key to learning emotional self-regulation includes:

1. Knowing your emotions:  While nearly everyone can determine the difference between feeling happy and sad, knowing how emotions like jealousy and envy, and shame and embarrassment differ is fundamental to properly dealing with emotions
2. Proper goal setting:  Know the importance of setting SMART goals for yourself and your career.  Know when to stay put and when to move on. Stand up for yourself.  Setting proximal, short-term goals will not just increase your self-regulation but also increase your motivation.
3. Practice adaptability:  Healthcare industry is constantly changing.  In order to optimize your potentials, you need to cultivate a mindset of adaptability to keep up.  People who resist change often experience unhealthy levels of stress and anxiety that can lead to poor physical and mental health.
4. Know your strengths and weaknesses:  What are your strongest triggers?  What kind of responses or behaviors trigger negative emotions in you?  What is your emergency coping strategy that has helped in the past?
   
   
5. Avoid stimulants. Coffee, tea, energy drinks – they all contain stimulants like caffeine and taurine which can make you feel wired, and in some cases, more prone to feeling stressed out.
   
   
   1. Avoiding or limiting your consumption of stimulant-rich foods and drinks can help your body to feel more balanced and lower your cortisol levels.
      
      
6. Engage in an activity that you love. Whether it’s a hobby, dancing, or playing with your kids, doing something that you enjoy takes your mind off work and melts away your stress. Taking time to do these things is never selfish, but a vitally important part of healthy self-care!
   
   
   1. Best of all, find an activity where you move around, like dancing. You’ll get a double dose of relaxation from the exercise and the enjoyment.
   1. Get a plant. Having something very simple to take care of and nurture can be a really easy way to limit your stress. Plus, if you grow food like a tomato plant, you’ll also get to eat the tomatoes! Growing your own food makes you feel good in so many ways!
      
      
7. Meditate. Meditating can reduce stress, strengthen your mental and physical health, and bring you the serenity of greater inner peace. All it takes is practice – daily is best!
   
   
   1. Meditating for a few minutes when your workday is done will give you that much-needed gap between work and free time, so you can leave your work stress behind and fully enjoy your off-work hours.

• Make friends outside of work:  We spend more than 40 hours a week at work.  It is only fair that we make a few friendships and engage in conversations outside of work.  Your local gyms, church groups or library groups can be great to cultivate some ‘non-work’ friendships.

There was a time when I felt like my life was nothing but, “wake up, commute, work, commute, sleep, repeat”.  I missed family occasion’s and festivals.  I often missed my children’s milestones, because ‘my organization was short-staffed; because my ‘patients need me’ mindset.  It wasn’t too long when I began to realize, I needed to care for myself if I had to care for others.  You cannot bandage others when your home-life is bleeding.

Don’t feel continuously tied to your work any longer! Try these tips and get the freedom from stress that you deserve.

Your takeaway:

Burn-out can be spirit crushing.  Never assume stress and burnout to be a natural result of many years, stress, or anything else.  It is not.  Stress is not normal.  It is intolerable and can make you miserable in the long run.  Always know that the same preventive medicine approaches that you educate your patients apply to you too.  Do something for yourself.  Be proactive.

Burnout shows up in different phases for different persons.  That is why it is critical to be self-aware.  Know what is normal for yourself, and note what normal is for those you work with.  If something changes, come to understand what the change is and whether you are moving in a healthy, vibrant direction, or your own fires of passion need kindling.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. What is one new skill I want to develop?

2. How can my hobbies help me to

strengthen my job skills?

3. How can I pursue opportunities for

growth in my current job?