Wellness
Long working hours, stress, and challenging work are major parts of a nurse’s job description. But in dispensing their duties to the best of their abilities, nurses fail to care for their health. They overlook that with compromised health, they won’t be able to work as efficiently as they should.
As a nurse ignoring your health and well-being makes you commit preventable mistakes that often have severe repercussions for your patients, families, and career.
Since healthcare is a tough job, you must maintain your health and wellness to have the energy required to perform your job well.
If you want to provide a safe healthcare experience to patients, some tips you must follow to ensure your wellness are mentioned below.
Cultivate a healthy routine
Developing a healthy routine is at the helm of maintaining your fitness. A healthy routine means prioritizing self-care activities by dedicating some time to them. Regardless of how packed your schedule is, you must make some “me time.” Doing that may require you to be more prudent in your life choices. For instance, instead of spending free time on social media, you must spend it with your family.
Similarly, if you make career development choices such as joining training programs and earning certifications, you should prefer doing it online instead of in-person classes. On-campus evening or weekend classes will make your life more demanding, and you won’t have time for yourself even after your shift or over the weekend. On the contrary, online education will let you design your schedule according to your work and life routine.
If you are considering earning a specialization, consider enrolling in a nurse anesthetic (CRNA) or a family nurse practitioner online program to give your career a new direction. Additionally, FNP and CRNA) programs are in demand and pay you well for your services.
Some nurses tend to miss visiting other medical experts as well for their checkups. Although you know how to take care of your body, especially when you’re sick, it is still vital that you check in with physicians and dentists in Shrewsbury MA so they can help you keep your health in check.
Improve your relationship with others
For most of part of your day, you stay at your workplace in the company of your colleagues. You have daily interactions and collaborate with them for patient care. Therefore, it is essential to create healthy relations at work. Strained ties with colleagues lead to stress at work.
The hostile environment at work makes it difficult to perform your job effectively. Stay away from negative people— who always focus on the toxic elements in the surroundings and have a scheming mindset.
Stress from the workplace directly impacts your health and well-being. On the contrary, healthy and positive relations at the workplace fosters trust and encourage you to have a positive demeanor. A positive culture at the workplace improves job satisfaction and induces feelings of happiness.
Along with cultivating positive relationships with your colleagues, you should also have healthy relationships with your family. To do that, spend time and share with them. Having good relationships with your family develops your personal support system you can get back to in times of stress and difficulty.
Eat a healthy diet
Even if it sounds cliché to hear that eating a healthy diet is essential for your body, you should still take it seriously. Without a nutritious diet, you cannot complete your fitness equation. In fact, a healthy diet is a primary factor that plays the most profound role in developing your capacity to function properly and live a happy life.
For nurses, eating a healthy diet is essential for fighting issues such as chronic inflammation, weakness, and so on. Chronic inflammation is so detrimental to your health that it can lead to stress, depression, and fatigue. All these problems reduce your ability to perform your job effectively and enjoy your work. Adding a diet that includes foods such as nuts, vegetables, etc., that reduces inflammation can be a great way to prevent health problems resulting from it.
At the same time, avoid fast food, processed food, and sugary snacks that give you no health benefits. However, it does not mean your diet should only contain salads to be called healthy. But, it should necessarily cut out foods that make you lazy and lose energy.
Don’t ignore your mental health
Due to the excessively stressful nature of a nurse’s job, their mental health can become very fragile. Witnessing their patients’ death, trauma, and pain in a routine can deplete their stores of mental energy.
Nurses must understand that feeling empathetic about patients does not mean they should carry that burden on their shoulders and compromise their mental health.
Mental health is powerfully linked to physical health. If nurses have compromised mental health, their physical health will also depreciate.
Nurses must take short breaks during their shifts to unwind and release negative energy. Additionally, performing some activities that surely deliver mental health benefits is a better idea. Practicing yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation should be part of their routine.
Don’t take your sleep for granted
Sleep is the last thing nurses should take for granted. The health benefits of sleep are well-documented. When you sleep, your body gets a chance to recuperate from stress and physical health issues.
Proper sleep helps improve cognitive functions such as memory, concentration, critical thinking, and reasoning. A sleep-deprived mind finds it hard to concentrate on work and makes more mistakes, which can be a death sentence for a nurse’s career.
Nurses don’t always get the opportunity to have a few hours of continuous sleep due to their work arrangements. Therefore, whenever they get this chance, they must capitalize on it.
Instead of wasting your time using the screen, let your body have some rest. Always get seven to eight hours of rest every day to replenish your natural energy stores.
Conclusion
Taking care of health and fitness is essential for delivering an above-par performance in a demanding profession like nursing. Without a sound body and mind, nurses will be short of achieving their performance targets. They may even jeopardize the life of their patients. Some ways for nurses to ensure their health are given above; following them can surely help nurses with their life and work.
