Nursing Tips: The Ultimate Guide to Self-Care for Nurses

Being a nurse is not always sunshine and butterflies. They take care of other people so much that they forget to take care of themselves. How should nurses care for themselves? Here is the ultimate guide to self-care for nurses, especially self-care for nurses during the pandemic.

5 Types of Self-Care

1. Physical Self-Care

There are many activities that you could do to enhance your overall physical well-being aside from sitting down and binge-watching Netflix or a day at the spa. You could do more activities that can enhance your overall physical well-being like eating healthier, getting regular exercise, wearing clothes you like, and the like. 

2. Psychological Self-Care

This is one of the most neglected areas of self-care. An example of this is knowing to say no when you are too tired and cannot take extra responsibilities in your life. This may seem like a small thing, but it could really make a big impact. Just feeling like you have control over what you can and can’t do can be an effective way to reduce stress.

3. Professional Self-Care

Some of this is very basic but often missed throughout your busy day at work or school. This includes just taking time to chat with your coworkers, decorating your workspace, balancing your workload, and creating a quiet and reserved area to get your work done. 

4. Spiritual Self-Care

Whether you believe in God, Allah, or whatever religion you are, it is important to take care of yourself spiritually. It doesn’t refer to religion specifically, it is more in the sense since spiritual self-care is the act of getting in touch with your soul. This includes meditating, spending time in nature, and engaging in inspirational videos and literature.

5. Emotional Self-Care

Emotional self-care could simply be you allowing yourself to feel your emotions for what they are, without judgment. Some activities in this area include finding things that make you laugh, complimenting yourself in front of the mirror, and allowing yourself to smile when you are feeling happy or to cry when you are feeling sad.

What are the 4 ways to guide and analyze moral distress as a nurse?

1. Ask

You may be unaware of the exact nature of the problem but they are feeling distressed, so you have to ask “Am I feeling distressed? Is the source of my distress work-related? Am I observing symptoms of distress within my team?” Then this would give you more awareness of the moral distress that is present.

2. Affirm

After asking, you have to affirm your distress and affirm your commitment to take care of yourself. You need to validate your feelings and perceptions with others. In doing this, you make a commitment to address moral distress.

3. Asses

You need to source your distress. There are 2 possible choices; personal and environmental. So you have to determine the severity of your distress, contemplate your readiness to act, recognize that there is an issue and analyze your risks and benefits. Doing this will prepare you to make an action plan.

4. Act

After all the 3 steps, you have to prepare to act, take action and maintain desired change. You have to prepare personally and professionally to take action, implement the strategies that you have, and continue to implement the 4A’s to resolve future situations of moral distress. This would help you [reserve your integrity and authenticity.

What are the 5 core values of nursing?

1. Compassion

Compassion includes empathy, caring, and the dignity of a patient. You have to be patient with your patients and your patient’s family, so having compassion is a must. Treat every patient like they were your family member.

2. Trustworthiness

Patients and your fellow medical staff depend on their trust in you, your confidentiality, faithfulness, and responsibility to them and your patients and their needs. Nurses are one of the most trusted groups of people, patients, and their families trust you to take care of them.

3. Humility

Even as a nurse, you are required to be humble. Keep an open mind, an open heart, and improve on your skills. Keep learning.

4. Accountability

Taking ownership over your practice is extremely important, including every mistake, error in judgment, and failure to communicate.

5. Curiosity

Nurses hold the knowledge in all the theories, philosophies, research, and they practice the wisdom of the nursing profession and should never stop learning. Education is the most powerful weapon.

Balance is the most important thing in your life since it is easy to become overly stressed and things could easily become unmanageable. If you are looking for a job as a travel nurse, you could check out Advantage Medical Professionals travel RN jobs.