4 Essential Self-Care Tips for Nurses

Being a nurse is not easy – in fact, it’s one of the hardest jobs out there, and requires a lot of strength and resilience. For this, you need to make sure that you’re looking after yourself and giving yourself the love and attention you deserve, both for your sake and that of your patients. Here are some of our favourite self-care tips to help keep you motivated and strong through whatever challenges you may come across as a nurse.

Watch Your Diet

As a nurse, you’re constantly busy and on your feet, leaving little time for breaks. This means it’s so easy to opt for “quick food” in your free time – and though that chocolate bar to keep up your energy may not seem like much, these snacks often add up and can cause you both physical and mental strain. This is particularly true if you’re opting for fast food at lunch – and though it may feel like the easier option, it ends up making your life a lot harder in the long run.

One of the best ways to deal with this is meal prep. Although the last thing you want to be doing before you go to bed is cooking, you’ll thank yourself the next day! You can meal prep often a whole week in advance, and freeze the later days, or you could opt for something easy to put together such as a salad. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some tasty meal prep ideas to get you started.

The other important thing to do is to make sure you drink enough water. Water has so many benefits – not only does it keep you hydrated and avoid headaches, fatigue, and thirst, but it can improve your energy levels to help you feel more motivated during the day. Along with a healthy diet that helps keep your energy levels stable, rather than in short bursts from sugar, this is one of the best ways to help keep your mood manageable.

Boost Your Confidence

All it takes is one wrong move to completely lose your confidence. You know the feeling – suddenly you’re uncertain if what you’re doing is the right thing, or you’re doubting your ability to do something well? Don’t worry – we’ve all been there! One of the best ways to tackle this is to take on a combination of large and small activities to boost your confidence and keep you sure of yourself.

Some smaller activities include surrounding yourself with positive quotes, positive people, and positive things. Being around things that make you happy can easily influence you to feel happy, and thus happier in yourself. You could also try keeping a small book with you, and use it to remind yourself of your strengths, especially by writing down your accomplishments. This way, you always have something to remind yourself of how brilliant you are.

In the long term, it can be useful to make sure you feel as confident as you can in your role. This might involve taking some extra training or a qualification to improve your knowledge and abilities. There are plenty of opportunities out there, but we recommend something online, especially since in-person courses can be difficult to fit around a busy schedule. Click here for more information on graduate online nursing programs to guide you on your journey to confidence!

Try Out Mindfulness

Mindfulness has become a huge thing lately, and for good reason – there’s a lot of research that suggests mindfulness can have huge positive effects on your mental health, particularly in terms of stress management. One of the greatest things about mindfulness is how flexible it is, and how it can be used in almost any situation – so whether you’re using it to help yourself relax after a tough day or using it in the middle of work to regain some composure, it can fit around you and your own individual needs.

Though it may feel a little confusing, there is no wrong way to do mindfulness. The easiest way to get started is to simply experience what is around you and how you’re feeling, without attaching meaning to it – as if you’re observing. So, noticing you’re feeling stressed, but not letting your thoughts run away with it, for example. It also goes for physical sensations – noticing the tension in your chest, or the way the floor feels under your feet. If you’re looking for somewhere to start, apps like Headspace do simple guides that last only 5 minutes, so they can easily be fitted in during a break or in the car before work.

Keep A Routine

Routines are really simple but make all the difference when it comes to self-care. Firstly, keeping a routine can help get your body into different modes – work mode versus relaxation mode, for example. This may be a little bit harder if your shifts change often – for example, you might alternate between day and night shifts. But having a routine planned for the days ahead can not only help you get into the right mindset for the days ahead, but also make sure you have enough time for sleeping, eating, working, and relaxing.

Another reason why routines are so useful is that self-care can become a huge part of them. Once you start to involve self-care activities into your routine, such as mindfulness, you normalise them as part of your day and start to include them more and more. This way, you can make self-care part of your daily life. It may feel difficult at first to add some self-care activities into your life, particularly if you’re working long shifts, but starting with small moments – even just 5 minutes – can make a huge difference and help you work towards larger self-care goals. The point of self-care is to make life easier for yourself, not harder – so aim to fit in whatever works and feels best for you!

Self-care isn’t always easy but thinking ahead a little and making time for it can help reduce your stress in such a high-pressure, fast-paced job.