Negative Self Talk

Nurses get stressed. There's many reasons why, and is an independent feeling. In other words, what stresses one nurse out, may not stress another and vice versa. Chronic stress is not good for the soul. It can impede on your personal life to the point where nothing is fun anymore, and sleeping is a viable option to spend the day. When stress occurs with some frequency, a number of nurses begin the cycle of negative self talk, which then becomes engrained. Our job is not all glitter and rainbows. If you don't know that going in, then it is realized pretty quickly upon arrival. But how we see ourselves, and how we react to others can go a long way to effectively managing stress both in and out of our work lives.

Negative self talk is your inner critic that has the ability of when it fills you up, it comes out of your mouth. Sometimes our inner critic is a good thing. It is a small reality check, could make one take pause, try to amend how we do things. But when the critic is overwhelming to the point of "I am a failure" or "you are a failure" that is when it can be damaging to a nurse, or to the nurses around you.

One of the effective ways of silencing your self critic is to literally picture a stop sign. That reminds you to STOP. Put your negative thoughts on the back burner. Remind yourself that you are only one person, doing the best that they can.

When a co-worker starts to negative talk, put a positive spin on things. The goal is that you can only control your behavior, no one elses. Feelings of negativity are subjective. So you can argue, go tit-for-tat, and this is not going to change behavior or make a work environment that much calmer, bettter, or stress free.

The nature of our business uses a great deal of adreneline. The time constraints, policies, rules, and acuity of patients and the unit make for high stress, and for some nurses, chronic stress. To have it not then impede on your personal life, when you close the door of your work, it needs to stay there.

Put the radio up in your car, and go ahead, sing. Take a long, hot shower when you hit the door. Eat a bowl of cereal in front of some funny re-run. Continue reading that light, beachy read.

Even if you have to tell yourself each day you go to work "today is going to be a good day! As weird as that seems, it can be positive self talk that you can and will believe if said daily and with conviciton. Although, I am all for radio playing and singing to work as well....and have been known to have some 80's hair band song stuck in my head for the day.

In a work enviroment that is all about others, we need to be sure that we stay balanced, focused, and not let the effects of long term stress define us.