It’s interesting to me that as nurses we can offer and provide holistic health and healing to our patients. We can take care of and cater to our families and friends. We can even show up as role-models in our communities. Yet when it comes to our own self, our nursing career stress can sometimes get the best of us.

In fact, I believe we know what to do. It’s not exactly that we need more information. We’ve got a ton of that! From career resilience to compassion fatigue; from burnout to goal-setting… we understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ behind taking care of ourselves. Maybe we just need some help with the ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘where’.

[Tweet “Here are my top 3 stress reducing tips for busy nurses”]

• How? As you read along, you might start thinking, ‘Well, that sounds well-and-good, but I’m a busy nurse! I don’t have time for whatever it is you’re asking me to do. Quite frankly I’m sick of hearing about it…’

[Tweet “How can I engage in stress reduction when I don’t seem to have time to breathe?”]

One thing I’d like to suggest to you is to open up to a shift in how you think about your time. Many of us spend our days, thinking engaged in thought about what’s to come. That or we are consumed with worrying about a mistake we believe we’ve made in the past.

The best way to have more ‘time’ to do the things you love to do (in our case here, more time to engage in a stress relief technique) is to actually stay as much as possible in the present moment. It’s tricky at first, yet gets easier with practice. I like to set a timer when I am working on a specific task. I get fully engrossed with what I am doing, turning off all of those potential outside distractions. Then when the timer is up: BING! I move onto something else.

• When? A great question you may wonder yourself from time-to-time. When will I be able to engage in stress relief? My answer for this is short (and it may irritate you some). All of the time. You can catch a stress reduction moment any time you are involved in your nursing career. Before you enter a patient’s room: exhale. As you sit at the computer doing your charting: relax your muscles (that means drop those shoulders away from your earlobes!). You can ‘catch’ a moment of stress relief at any time during your day. It’s just a matter of being mindful about it, and then allowing these brief moments of levity into your life.
• Where? Not to overdo this point, but anywhere and anytime. On my car ride into work, I turn off my radio and do some gratitude and intentional affirmations. On my shuttle ride up to the hospital, I close my eyes and focus on my breath. While I wait for an afternoon shuttle, I open up a self-help book and get some reading done. Anywhere is a place to find stress reducing tools; we just have to be on the lookout for them.

And here’s a final bonus tip. How, when and where can all be answered in two words: finding support. We’ve created a wonderfully supportive online group of like-minded nurse professionals. These men and women care about, embody and practice the art and science of nursing hand-in-hand. Come play with us by joining the Art of Nursing Facebook group.

Let’s hear from you! What would you add to the list above? How do you find moments of stress relief in your busy nursing career? What’s one thing you can share with everyone reading, as another tip for stress reduction? Leave your comment below, and as always, thanks for reading!