nursingmymind

Thank you so much for the reply! It's njce to know that others out there can relate. See definitely helps with all of my symptoms and I think switching from days to nights and back to days is really making that difficult. Thanks for the tip on stretching and tai chi :)

I am a nurse with depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia. I work in the hospital where I am required to do rotational shift work ie: day, day, night or day, night, night followed by 4-5 days off. I have been working back on the inpatient unit for 7 months now and I feel like my depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia have all been flared up lately. I've had to take quite a few sick days this month due to a major flare up in symptoms. I am going to have to meet with my manager about sick time and I am so worried! I honestly feel terrible all the time, it is such a struggle to get through my 12 hour shifts even on a "good" day. I wonder if any of you also struggle with any of these conditions and if you have any tips for me?

I work 12 hour shifts with a mix of days and nights. I typically work three 12 hour shifts in a row ( day, night, night OR day, day, night) followed by 4 or 5 days off. I have been chronically exhausted for the last year and my exercise routine has definitely suffered. My doctor keeps telling me that I need to be exercising daily but I am finding this impossible with my work schedule! I work on a busy inpatient oncology unit where I am running around on my feet for 12 hours. I walk 10 minutes from my home to the hospital and I walk my dog 20-30 minutes either before or after work (although walking my dog isn't really exercise). Taking the stairs to sneak in extra exercise on work days isn't really an option because it's 21 flights of stairs to my unit. Most days after working all I want to do is crash on the couch. And when I work two night shifts in a row I am completely out of commission on my first day off. I really do believe in the power of exercise to improve overall wellbeing, energy levels, and mood, I'm just not sure how to accomplish this in real life. I would love to hear how you manage to stick to a regular exercise routine with shift work! :)

Hi there. i am a registered nurse, in Canada, working on a busy Leukemia BMT floor. I have been really struggling with my schedule lately. I work 12 hour shifts: 2 days followed by 2 nights and then either 4 or 5 days off depending on the week. This works out to approximately 14-16 12hour shifts a month for full time employees like myself. Lately, I have found the accumulating exhaustion to be negatively impacting my relationship with my boyfriend, my friends, and my family. I often spend most of my days off recovering from my work days and nights. I am starting to notice symptoms of depression in myself. I am so worried that my life is going to fall apart if I don't make some changes. Do do any of you have any tips on keeping your personal life together with this crazy schedule??

HI there fellow nurses, I'm a new grad (graduated December 2013) and have been working as a registered nurse for the last 9 months. 6 months in Acute Medicine and the last 3 months in Leukemia / Bone Marrow Transplant. I am tired ALL THE TIME. My schedule generally is as follows 2 day shifts (0700-1900) followed by 2 night shifts (1900-0700) after which I get either 4 or 5 days off. This depends on the week. Keep in mind there are no other shift schedule options available where I work. All nurses work 2 days 2 nights unless you shift trade to get all days / all nights which can be complicated.... My question to you all: If you have a schedule similar to mine, how do you cope? With the physical, mental, and emotional demands of my job I find that I am too exhausted on my days off to do much of anything at all aside from sleep and laze around. My house is a mess. I haven't been able to stick to a regular exercise plan. I feel like everything is falling apart! When I'm at work I find that I can do nothing apart from work. I get up go to work, go home, sleep, repeat. Then switch to nights where I sleep in, get up go to work, sleep all day, go to work, sleep, and then try to transition back to a daytime schedule. Does anyone have any tips for dealing with the mental / physical / emotional exhaustion during my work days so that I have more energy to put towards fulfilling activities (and towards household chores) outside of work? Thank you so much I really appreciate any advice you may have!!

I wanted to ask about -the fear of making mistakes- Now i'm not even talking med errors here... I'm talking forgetting to fill out patient flow sheets, forgetting to change IV tubing on a busy day, forgetting to file something in the chart and having it inadvertently become lost temporarily, little things. Little things that aren't particularly life-or-death things, but things that are part of the job and that sometimes get overlooked when you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off. When does that anxiety go away? And how do you deal with making mistakes? I find it really difficult to let go when I make little errors like these. It kind of eats away at me. How do you get over that? Thanks.

Thank you TriciaJ for the comment. This forum is so so great for tips, advice, and talking with others who actually GET your situation. I might look into camp nursing actually. Or just try to get a job in a coffee shop while I wait it out and figure out where I want to be. The job market where I live is so tough right now. You can't get a job in any area without having at least 2 years experience. But you can't get the two years experience if you can't get a job in that area. It's incredibly frustrating. Thanks so much.

Thanks for the reply. I do hope that it's not this stressful everywhere I go... though I am in Canada so I do hope that our system has some areas of lower stress work

Hello fellow nurses! I am a relatively new grad. Graduated from nursing school in December then proceeded to start nursing in February as a new graduate nurse. I did my orientation shifts and after two weeks I was out on my own. Things were okay for the first little bit. It was incredibly stressful and I hated it but I kept telling myself - ok, this will get better, you can do this. I never really enjoyed the job. I should probably mention here that I worked on an acute medical floor at the busiest hospital in my area. After 3 months, it wasn't getting better. In fact, it was getting worse. I had so much anxiety I wasn't sleeping on my days off, I had to run to the bathroom to cry at least once a shift, staffing had been reduced on the ward and the workload had increased. This was not what I had signed up for. I tend to like routine and predictability and there is none of that on that ward. It is predictably unpredictable and a very high stress work environment. I don't really know why I started working there, I suppose I just fell into it after my preceptorship. Let me tell you - preceptorship did not prepare me for real life on that floor. Since I had a casual position I chose to not pick up any further shifts after my last shift at the beginning of June. I have been having SUCH bad anxiety. I am crying all the time. And completely miserable. This is not what I thought my life would be like after finishing nursing school. I absolutely hated nursing school. I hated the stress of it. I was so glad to be finished with it. But this is nothing better. I have been desperately looking for jobs in an area that I might like such as in postpartum or neonatal but they are not taking new hires until later this year. I think that ideally I would do well working in the community but I can't get a job in community without having at least 6 months public health / community experience or 1 year in maternity or pediatrics. I understand that anxiety is normal as a new grad. And I also understand that feeling overwhelmed at times is part of the job - and that stress is part of any job. However, this feels like something else. I mean, I am having near panic attacks. I also believe that you have to like your job in order to get through the stressful times. And I HATE working in medicine. It is SO NOT FOR ME. And now I am planning to quit. And I have no idea what I am going to do. I have applied for both maternity and neonatal but haven't heard anything yet. Just thinking about going back to work in medicine gives me such bad anxiety that I break down and cry. Now I need to find a job for the mean time. I'm worried that I won't be able to pay rent! And not working is giving me too much time to sit and think about how stressed I am about finding a job. Anyone out there have any similar experiences? Any suggestions on what I can do in the mean time? I am completely stressed out of my mind. Thanks for reading :)