How to Beat Nurse's Burnout
Nursing job can be a rewarding profession but it can also be exhausting. Just like in any profession, job burnout is evident. Burnout is the frustration, loss of interest, decreased productivity, and fatigue caused by overwork and prolonged stress that is common among nurses.
Job burnout can affect the quality of care nurses give to the patients. That’s why it is important to address this because it may lead to diminish health, psychological distress, and poor work performance.
But how would nurses recognize that he or she already has job burnout? What are the signs to watch out? The following are some of the signs of job burnout:
- Having less energy to perform the responsibility or duty;
- Unexplained headaches, backaches, or other pain;
- Eating more junk food;
- Exercising less;
- Appearance of health conditions such as digestive troubles, heart disease, or depression;
- Being critical of others;
- Withdrawing and becoming less social or outgoing;
- Strained relationships at home or with friends;
- Irritability or being short-tempered;
- Less pride and satisfaction in work than what you used to feel;
- Boredom with your job or lack of motivation;
- Difficulty focusing on your patients when they engaged in a conversation with you;
- Inability to stop thinking about work when you go home
If these signs are evident to you as a nurse, it’s time to focus on your job burnout and do something to stop or prevent it. It will only get worse if you leave it as it is. Take steps to get your life back into balance, to prevent job burnout from becoming a full-blown breakdown.
Learn to manage stress. As nurses, we must learn how to manage stress to regain balance and have control over it.
Take a daily break from technology. Latest technology breakthroughs may help us make our jobs easier, but these are also factors for stress and burnout. We nurses may give a few minutes of our day to be away from our laptops, phones and other gadgets.
Start the day with a relaxing habit. Some of us nurses, because of too much exhaustion and lack of sleep from previous duties, tend to enjoy sleep too much. So when we wake up a few minutes late than we should, we jump off to bed and hurry to prepare. This is not right. We should take at least twenty minutes to be calm and relax, like reading a few bible verses, meditating, and stretching or flexi exercises to wake up our muscles and nerves for the day ahead.
Have a healthy diet, proper sleeping habits and exercising. When we nurses eat right, engage in regular physical activity, and get plenty of rest, we have the energy and resilience to deal with the day’s hassles and demands.
Develop your creativity. Find ways to nourish our creative side. Do activities that are new, or start a fun project.
Know your limits. If you know that you are too exhausted to do anything more, say “no”. This will allow you to regain your strength to be able to do more important and much needed task later on. It’s not a crime to say no, it’s more unacceptable if you fail to take care of yourself when you are a healthcare practitioner.
Protection and conservation of your precious resources, which is your time and energy, is the key to prevent burnout.
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Published at: 11/18/2015
