How to Mitigate Nursing Stress

Anyone who has worked in nursing, around the nursing field, or in anything even remotely related to nursing is well aware that it can be a stressful occupation. While it's a highly rewarding job, and nurses have the privilege of watching their patients heal as a direct result of their compassionate care, there are also many challenges. The saying that "those who care for others must first take care of themselves" is true. Those whose own needs aren't being met will have difficulty coping with the stress of nursing and are prone to becoming burned out. As a nurse, it's necessary to be your own advocate in addition to being your patients' advocate. Stress management skills are a must-have in order to survive and resist burnout. Some naturally cope with stress better than others, but fortunately, it's easy to add more stress-management skills to your repertoire. Here are a few suggestions to give your coping skills an edge.

Take a Few Minutes to Keep Emotion in Check

Nursing is an inherently emotional field. Nurses often are on the frontlines of highly stressful situations. Caring for the sick (who also have various levels of coping abilities) requires patience, and keen assessment and prioritization skills to be able to manage the workload. Add in the possibility of needing to assist with rapid responses and codes of various types, and you have a recipe for a high-adrenaline day. While compassion and empathy are important characteristics for nurses to possess, it's also necessary to be able to distance yourself emotionally from situations. Stressful situations activate the "fight-or-flight" response, which causes the brain and body to release a cascade of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. This is the body's response to a stressor, and for better or worse, it's easily triggered - even by minor events that don't warrant such a response. It's important to be able to take a step back, take some deep breaths, and look at a situation logically because sometimes the brain likes to tell us that a situation is worse than it is.

A poorly balanced emotional state has also been shown to decrease reasoning performance, whether emotions are more negatively- or positively-focused. Those in a neutral emotional state tend to perform better in reasoning - yet another reason to take an emotional step back and distance yourself. It's not necessary to lock yourself in the bathroom in order to find a better balance. Simple techniques, such as taking a few slow, deep breaths, or focusing on a repetitive saying or word, called a mantra, are helpful for mitigating stress.

Emotional Support for Yourself and Others

Strong emotional support has been shown to promote recovery after a stressful event. Emotional support needs vary from person to person. Some people need more social and emotional support than others. If this person is you, it's especially important that you recognize that need. Reach out to a close friend, or family member that you feel comfortable talking with. In-person communication tends to be more effective at providing emotional support satisfaction. In our technological world, it's easy to rely on text messaging for communication. However, make sure you're getting enough real-time with your loved ones.

While it's important for you to make sure your own emotional needs are being met, make sure that you are also offering emotional support to those around you. If you see that a co-worker is feeling stressed, or is in a stressful situation, take a few minutes to listen sincerely. Creating a culture of emotional support on your unit at work will help boost teamwork and reduce stress levels.

Consider Changes to Your Schedule

In some cases, it might be worthwhile to consider making changes to your work schedule. If you tend to work multiple days in a row without a break in between, investigate the possibility of breaking your work week up; that way you have a day off in between work days to rest, decompress and recover. If you find yourself especially stressed and fatigued on your last day of work in a row, breaking your schedule up may help relieve some stress.

When looking into a new job, be sure that you and your new manager are on the same page regarding scheduling and your workload. Know what your weekend and on-call requirements will be (if this applies). This will help alleviate some schedule disillusionment.

Pursuing Higher Education

If you find yourself having trouble coping with work-related stress, consider advancing your education. Nurses have the option of obtaining the education to become a nurse practitioner. If you enjoy being a nurse and performing direct patient care, earning your BSN may help give you a broader perspective. Furthering your nursing education does require investment, especially in time, but this can be alleviated by pursuing an online RN-to-BSN program. Earning a BSN can afford a nurse greater autonomy, a broader perspective when it comes to decision making, and better outcomes for patients. Higher nursing education has been linked with lower patient mortality rates in hospitals, as well as fewer occurrences of failure-to-rescue events.

Earning a BSN also positions you for career advancement. With many hospitals seeking to earn Magnet status, you'll have an advantage as a holder of a BSN: Magnet hospitals must maintain a certain percentage of BSN-educated nurses. You may also enjoy a higher salary and better job benefits with advanced education.

Improve Your Diversity Mindset

A change of mindset works wonders for reducing stress levels. Remember that different age groups, personality types, generations, and cultures all have different ways of approaching situations, including the stressful ones. Embracing this diversity and improving your emotional intelligence work together synergistically. You may not understand why a co-worker wants to approach a certain situation one way, or why a patient has a firmly-rooted daily ritual that they must go through. Disagreements regarding approaches to situations are bound to happen. However, the importance of the situation is that you acknowledge and respect your differences.

Focus on What You Can Control

When absorbed in the job, especially during busy times with a list of tasks that need to be done, it's easy to form expectations of how the day is going to go. Prioritization is a necessity. You plan on treating this patient first, administering those meds second, and you know you're going to have blood ready for a transfusion soon. However, there are always happenings that we can't control - surprise critical lab results, rapid responses and code blues, being short-staffed, the tube station being out-of-order, etc. Sometimes things happen that interrupt your mental plan for the day. Many of these things are out of our control, and we must focus on what we are able to control. Try to maintain a more fluid mindset when planning for the day. Expect ahead of time that some things will not go according to plan, and it is in your power to accept this and work around the happenings of the day.

Nursing is not a profession for the weak of heart or mind. Those who care for the sick must be empathetic, compassionate, and resilient. As a nurse, you must also be sure to care for yourself and be aware of your stress levels. There is plenty that you can do for yourself to help mitigate stress and avoid burnout. Remember that you are important too, and deserve to relax!

(Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University (FranU) provides online education opportunities for nurses. Contact us to find out more about our 100% online RN-BSN. Learn more here.)

Sources:

Blegen, M.A., Goode, C.J., Park, S.H., Vaughn, T., Spetz, T. (2013). Baccalaureate education in nursing and patient outcomes. Journal of Nursing Administration, 43-2, 89-94. doi: 10.1097/NNA.0b013e31827f2028.

Holtzman, S., DeClerk, D., Turcotte, K., Lisi, D., Woodworth, M. (2017). Emotional support in times of stress: Can text messaging compete with in-person interactions? Computers in Human Behavior, 71, 130-139. Redirecting.

Harvard Health Publishing. (2011). Understanding the stress response. Retrieved from Understanding the stress response - Harvard Health.

Jung, N., Wranke, C., Hamburger, K., & Knauff, M. (2014). How emotions affect logical reasoning: evidence from experiments with mood-manipulated participants, spider phobics, and people with exam anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 570. Frontiers | How emotions affect logical reasoning: evidence from experiments with mood-manipulated participants, spider phobics, and people with exam anxiety | Psychology

National Communication Association. (2015). Providing emotional support that facilitates stress recovery. Retrieved from Providing Emotional Support That Facilitates Stress Recovery | National Communication Association.