New nurse anxiety

Nurses New Nurse

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New member to site, and Have a question for you all. I am a new grad RN, and am working at my first Job at a Rehab institute on the brain injury unit. I have been at this job for about three months now, and am beginning to experience a great amount of anxiety, and even slight depression about my work. Every time I leave I'm constantly thinking I missed something, or that I did something wrong. I decided to get on an antidepressant/anti anxiety medication to control these feelings. I am now on Lexapro 10 mg, and am hoping this helps.

My question to everyone is, is this a normal feeling? Have any of you new, or even veteran nurses had these feelings, and if so, do they improve with experience? I hate going home wandering if I picked the right career field, I know I love being a nurse, but I believe the stress is just overwhelming me. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

I struggle a great deal with anxiety as well. I just was recently hired as a new grad nurse and the anxiety literally eats me alive. And it's true, I feel so alone in the way that I feel right now, but hearing how others feel makes me not feel so alone ( not that I wish these horrible feelings on anyone ) but you know what I mean! I hope now you guys feel better. I'm litterly in my first month of nursing and hope it gets better! I really can't see myself living the rest of my life feeling this way!

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Hey I hear you! I'm still in my orientation, actually going to my first night shift tonight, and I needed some guidance! Couldn't sleep before this shift, but hopefully the night goes well... Sigh!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

Anxiety happens to nurses. I'm a new grad with about 6 mos experience and it has gotten better.

I have a Friend who developed a stomach ulcer due to work stress. I used to have to take tums because I was developing sx of an ulcer.

I'm better now. I feel slightly more comfortable with my nursing practice.

Just try hard to do your best. Look at other successful nurses with experience do and copy their habits.

Be confident in yourself. Cover your @ss!

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Thanks. Yeah I'm still struggling a lot with organization and I hate being so task oriented. I'm trying to take peices of others nursing practice to incorporate Ito mine, but definitely still a long way to go for myself. I just keep trying to tell myself that I'm still new, always lots to learn, and that I'm only human :)

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Specializes in Critical Care; Recovery.

Well I have to say that it was helpful to go to nightshift and I worked 2 years on nightshift. For me it took about a year to get semi "comfortable". Everyday is different, because the patients, families, physicians, and situations that you deal with everyday are somewhat different. Nightshift is a little better though because hopefully you can have a few minutes to get caught up and not feel so overwhelmed. I've been a nurse just over 2 years and moved to ICU and the feeling of incompetence started somewhat over again. The difference is that I understand that I should not be expected to know everything (or that much at all really) about ICU nursing and I ask for help. I do what I can first to find the answer and then I don't hesitate to ask a colleague that I trust for assistance/the answer. In return I don't hesitate to help others without even being asked most of the time. Your anxiety level will go down as you work out a better system for yourself. What helps me is to follow the basic principle to round, then chart, round, then chart. By chart I mean as much as you can before you have to get up again. Just try to get a little charting done at least before you round on all your patients again. Don't leave any big tasks (like a bed bath) till the end of the shift, or you will get out late. Lastly, I think anxiety can be helped by increasing knowledge. There are plenty of good threads that you can search for on allnurses.com for virtually any subject or question. If you desire to increase your knowledge level as a new nurse you can look up David Woodruff, Michael Linares, and medcramlectures on YouTube.com for free. These are excellent resources in my opinion that will boost you confidence level.

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Hi,

I'm in the same situation. I spend nights awake thinking about work and all the things that could of gone wrong. I'm really anxious about making a medication error and cry before and after each shift.

I hope my anxiety will go down and also that you enjoyed the rest of your year.

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