Night time munching...

[SweetLemon]

So I am really new to working nights and am currently on an acute psychiatric floor in which I have anywhere between 8-12 patients per night. Some nights it seems all I end up doing is giving a few PRN meds for the insomniacs and complete the night auditing paperwork while other nights its all about trying to extinguish one fire after another. On the nights when things become really busy and we are trying to avoid a behvioral emergency my stress level goes way up and all I want to do is eat junk food(which there is ALWAYS plenty of on my unit). To be honest I really like the nights when things are a little more chaotic I just dont want to end up gaining a bunch of weight because of bad habits at work. So my question, while your actually on the unit and things like a warm path or a nap are not available how do you cope with the stress????

[SweetLemon]

LOL.... so what I am getting from all the posts is to give in and buy the next size up in pants... Oh great.

[geocachingRN]

I can't speak from personal experience yet (Hopefully soon. I'm a new grad). But my friends who work nights tell me they need to unwind before going to sleep. One does a morning yoga class, the other goes to the gym before going home. They both are in pretty good shape!

[firstyearstudent]

One of the ways I have found to avoid snacking/overeating, is to prepare ahead of time and schedule snacks. And that's all the food you can have period.