5 Most Effective Stress Reduction Techniques for Nurses September 2, 2007

5 Most effective Stress Reduction Techniques for Nurses

 

   The workplace stress represents a major health problem for many employees.  Especially when we are talking about chronic stress, which represents the stress accumulated on a longer period of time and which has remained unleashed, we can experience physical and psychical exhaustion, anxiety or frustration.  Those serious stress symptoms can result from excess of work or performing intense professional activities.  Some of the most stressing jobs in the present are accomplished by surgeons, nurses, air traffic controllers, business executive or psychiatrists.  

   Nurses are one of the categories of professionals continuously confronted with stressful and pressing situations.  The first stress symptoms on nurses resulted from too much work or exhausting night shifts are intense headaches, accentuated discomfort in the cervical area and eye pain.  In addition stressed nurses experience a low capacity of focusing on their job tasks and the overall tonus of their body breaks down, affecting the physical and psychical capabilities.  If not treated on time, stress at medical nurses can develop and begin to damage the immunity system, leading to serious disorders such as:

• - insomnia;
• - nervousness;
• - high levels of cholesterol;

   The researchers consider that the stress state is closely related o the nurses’ capacity of organizing their activities and relationships.  The nurse job is not stressing itself.  It can become stressful through the meanings that the employee usually relates to it.  The truth is that the nurse job implies a great responsibility due to the fact that the patients’ lives depend on the nurse professional abilities in most of the times, and that is what turns it into a profession that has high chances to cause stress.  Professional nurses that experience high levels of stress have admitted that they find it hard to take all sorts of decisions and they usually prefer to isolate themselves from other people. 

   One of the statistics that focused on the stress effects on nurses has indicated the following results:

• - 57% from the nurses suffer from insomnia;
• - 55% are constantly tired at the hospital;
• - 44% have frequent headaches;
• - 55% have complained about muscular tensions and physical pain;
• - 43% have admitted that they are more nervous and anxious than their colleagues.

      Here is a small relaxation guide for all stressed nurses.  It includes the 3 most effective stress reduction techniques for nurses.  Take a minute, relax and take notes, as this might be the beginning of your road to a stress-free life:

• 1. Make place in your schedule for all the important things in your lives (and this excludes the nursing job):
• - go to the gym at least twice a week;
• - get your rest (leave everything else after a tiring night shift and get a good sleep, otherwise you will end p messing other stuff as well);
• - meet with your friends and spend a nice night (or lunch ) in the city;
• - Try to analyze your personal relationship: when was the last time you had a romantic evening? No job is more important than that: get some classic music, light up some candles and invite your partner to a romantic dinner.

• 2. Try to put yourself as a person in front of the nursing position. This doesn’t mean you will leave the work behind. In fact, you will make it work for you!
• 3. Think for a moment if the nursing job is the job that offers you the most satisfaction, if it truly represents you. When you will find the things that determined you in the first place to get a nurse job, like the passion of helping people, stick with them and trey to create the situations that will bring you satisfaction and joy in every working day.