What do you do to calm yourself at work?

[dano]

I'll be starting my clinicals this semester and I'm a little bit nervous, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. I am hardly full of myself and I know I'll be learning a great deal fairly quickly. My one fear is being such a wreck that I begin to hinder my work performance.

Clinicals are probably nothing compared to what some of you folks do in and out every single day. I'm still in the opening stages. What do you do at work to relax yourself? The deep breath/count to 10 thing can only work so many times before it's a futile effort! Let's hear what works for you.

[luvmy2angels]

I must agree with Lori on the ciggy break. In fact I hadn't smoked for a good 3-4 years until I started my new job (which I LOVE) EXCEPT for one other LPN that works on my nerves SOOOOOOOO bad that I had to buy a pack of cigs. Thank God I only work with her a couple times a month!!!

[grace90, LPN, LVN]

If I can get away, I sit down for a bit with a cup of coffee, orange juice or water and take deep breathes with my feet up. If I can't get away because my team is hectic but I can feel myself stressing, I will quietly take deep breathes slowly for a minute or two. Or else I'll run in the nutrition room and slam a couple cups of orange juice. Orange juice does wonders for my energy level. Since I work night shift, the sun usually comes up before we go home so often I take a moment to look at the sunrise. Quite often that's when docs are starting to make rounds, too, and they'll even look out the window and enjoy the sunrises. Using humor with patients or other nurses, when appropriate obviously, helps decrease my stress level too.

Sitting down when I give an IV push med, unless it's a stat situation, gives me a chance to catch my breath also. I try not to talk on my cordless while I give IV pushes if I can avoid it, for safety reasons. Once 1.5 yrs ago I *almost* forgot to push the 1 cc of air out of a pre-filled syringe of Demerol 25 because I was talking to a coworker on my cordless. :trout: I had gotten as far as connecting it to the port but hadn't pushed anything in when I realized my error, disconnected it, pushed the air out and then slowly gave the Demerol, shaking. All that's to say that it's important to keep your cool and not let being rushed and stressed get in the way of always ensuring your patient's safety when giving medications. If you have to make a patient wait 1 minute before a routine/prn med administration so you can collect yourself, take a deep breathe and double check your 5 rights, they will benefit.

[SmilingBluEyes]

DEEP BREATH!!!!!!! as many times as it takes to literally feel the calm wash over me. It works!!!