Decreasing Stress and Promoting Self-Care. 

Do you find yourself more stressed nowadays? You’re running on empty and not happy performing the simple tasks in life. For example, waking up! 

Here are a few things you can do to decrease stress and promote self-care so you can bring back joy into your life. 

Keywords:

stress, stress management, time, self-care, nurses, nursing, planners

Ways to Decrease Stress and Promote Self Care. 

More and more health issues are experienced as a result of increased stress. There is good stress called eustress which is positive, motivating, and manageable to improve functioning and wellbeing. However, most of the time we’re dealing with the bad stress, called distress. Distress leads to dysfunction like physical illness, mental fatigue, and emotional depletion in our lives (habitsforwellbeing.com). As nurses, we all know that exercising and eating healthier is a great start to decreasing stress, but stress is unavoidable. What are some other ways to manage stress and promote self-care in our lives?

Here are steps to manage stress right now:

Change your perspective.

Here me out. A wise woman once told me that we can’t control anyone but ourselves. So, we have to find ways to protect our mental, physical, and spiritual selves. You can start by reframing the way you think. You shouldn’t feel like you “have to do” most of the things that you perform on a daily, or weekly basis but that you “want to do” these things. Creating a mindset of gratitude will help change your perspective as well. 

For example, even when short staffed at work, you have to choose to be thankful and hopeful that you’re able to safely take care of patients vs. being a patient who needs to be cared for.

Plan your day. 

Write down your routine and refer back to it throughout the day at work, and yes at home too. If you don’t have a routine, then it may help to create one. This allows you to be intentional about your time and productivity. Write down the tasks that you need to perform for the day. Create lists that work for you. It may be in digital form or old school pencil and paper. This will help you see what is really important to get done and the ability to prioritize, while hopefully decreasing stress as well. 

For example, write down your “to do” list the night before and number them in order of importance.

Schedule time for yourself. 

Every week, take time for you. Whether it is a whole day or a few hours, take time for yourself. Watch a movie, take a walk, get your nails done or go get a massage. Do whatever you like to do that brings joy and peace to you. You will feel rejuvenated and more focused. 

Another example would be sitting in the car for 10-15 minutes without any interruptions before proceeding into the house afterwork.

Delegate tasks.

This is not only for your active nursing role but home life too! Do you have too much to get done? It is okay to get help. Ask for help from friends, family, or co-workers, as applicable. Or hire someone, as applicable, to take some of the workload off of you.

For example, get a housekeeper to help with light house duties, or deep cleaning, every now and again.

Start saying “No”.  

When you try to do everything, stress takes over. Your life will start to collapse or collapse in cycles. Maybe this can be avoided if you build a strong “No” game. It’s okay to not be available to everyone, every time, and in every way physically possible. Kids are resilient and spouses will figure it out (checkmate!). Seriously, re-evaluate your yes responses. Rather it’s saying yes to yourself, when no one has asked you to do anything in the first place. Allow others to do whatever it is that they are capable of doing, even when it doesn’t meet your expectations. 

For example, tell yourself “No” by allowing your spouse to pick out the children’s clothes or to pick up dinner if he/she does not cook on certain days of the week.

Conclusion

These steps are a start to getting a handle on stress and promoting self-care. Pick two easy steps and start utilizing them today. It is time to get back to a better career and overall life.  Please leave a comment on any self-care tips and ways to decrease stress you’d like to add to this topic and check out links* below for additional information and resources to decrease stress.

References

Eustress vs Distress (habitsforwellbeing.com)

What’S The Difference Between Eustress And Distress? – CookingTom Diet

*Check out Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation to participate in challenges to stay healthy.

*26 Best Stress-Relief Techniques According to Psychology (positivepsychology.com)

Sincerely, 

All One Nurse

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