How Nurses Can Cope With the Cons of Nursing

Detmer and Brown recommend exercise for nurses. If you are able, exercise is foundational to good physical and mental health. Data suggests exercise helps alleviate stress and produces a calm mood. Brown recommends meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises. “Exercise allows you to let go of what frustrates you, improves energy, and helps you feel back in control,” Detmer says.

Food choices can help support your body and health during times of stress. It can increase your resilience by supplying the body with nutrients that may be depleted during stress. Eating processed foods also increases the risk of noncommunicable diseases.

Instead, choose to eat whole foods, meals you cook yourself at home, and avoid or eliminate processed and ultraprocessed foods.

Taking care of yourself also means incorporating stress-reducing strategies. For some, that can mean mindfulness or exercise. Others may find stretching, walking, relaxing with a book, praying, meditation, or focused breathing. It’s crucial you find the strategy that works for you.

In an effort to fit more into every day, many nurses reduce the number of hours of sleep they get each night. However, during sleep, your brain undertakes housekeeping duties to eliminate toxins and debris and performs functions critical to memory and cognition. These are crucial activities to reduce stress.

Lundberg recommends nurses seek out employment where they feel valued and supported. She believes a lack of overall support is a large contributor to nurses leaving the profession.

“Not all healthcare settings are supportive of their nurses … but there are some that exist. It’s ok to leave a job after 20 years if you just do not like it. Try something new,” she says.

For Brown, your mindset is everything. How you think about your situation doesn’t change the condition but it does change your perception and how you react to the challenges. You can cultivate a mindset or attitudes of beliefs that support your success.

How you handle a situation can trap or release you from self-defeating cycles of behavior. It can also make a significant impact on patient care or the way you interact with management.

Brown cautions nurses that they will never know if the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence unless they are willing to step outside their comfort zone. When you consistently operate in what you know without trying something new, it can stagnate your career and your life.

Working in a supportive environment that appreciates nurses can help advance your career and reduce your potential risk of burnout.

“We are there with people on the worst days of their lives,” Detmer says. “We are not just the nurse; we live and feel the losses too just as we celebrate the wins. Nursing is an emotional rollercoaster, and we need a strong support system/team behind us.”

Working with staffing shortages and supply issues can increase the need for strong time management strategies. Nurses have limited time to balance patient care, update medical records, and collaborate with physicians and other healthcare colleagues.

Establishing strong time management strategies is essential for all nurses on the unit. Strategies that help nurses work efficiently include delegating non-nursing tasks, documenting in real-time in the patient’s room, talking with patients while performing hands-on tasks, or collaborating while preparing for a patient-oriented task.

Nurses have a unique vantage point to identifying supply chain issues and can share how these impact patient care. Before making significant changes to the supply chain, it’s crucial that hospital systems seek input from frontline nurses to better understand how the processes can enhance patient care.

Nurses can assist in categorizing supplies, using appropriate terminology in a digital system for healthcare professionals, and gathering feedback from staff to share with the steering committee. Nurses are the end-users of the supplies, and they are usually the ones responsible for documenting use, which triggers unit supply orders.

Although nurses are quick to voice their concerns about patient care, they may not be as quick to have an honest discussion with nursing management or administration about the issues they face. Yet, it is essential that nurses become a part of the solution.

Many nurses are unionizing across the U.S. to improve working conditions and patient care. This increases feelings of control over the environment and encourages nurses to take action to help improve conditions. This in turn helps reduce the risk of burnout and improves nurse retention.

“As the health systems fail nurses, each individual nurse can advocate for themself. Be it a terrible manager, lack of wages keeping up with inflation, or even a safety hazard, the nurse can alter their circumstances,” Lundberg says.

In some circumstances, it is not the working conditions so much as the environment that is leading to dissatisfaction in your career. In this case, it is better to make a lateral move within the healthcare system.

“It’s more cost-effective for a company to hire internally, and you usually will get to keep your benefits. Called a ‘lateral move’ in the corporate world, this option may be best if you are consistently not happy in your job … because who wants a cranky nurse, right?” Lundberg advises.

Nurses have more power in numbers and more authority while working within hospital teams. In some circumstances, individuals offering creative solutions to management may not be as effective as nurses collaboratively working on safety teams or teams addressing staffing shortages.

It is important that nurses lobby for their profession at the state and federal levels. Being involved in change can make a difference in your career and the career of future nurses.

“Nursing is one of the largest professions in the United States and our pure numbers provide power. We need to use our numbers and our voice to work with our legislation, change policy, and continue to improve our profession,” Detmer says. “Be the change you want to see.”

Nurses can advocate for their careers by advancing their education. Whether you choose an advanced nursing degree or a move to another profession, education is a key to improving your professional life and taking a step to advocate for yourself.