S1E4 – Nursing Work/Life Balance

This podcast is available on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Google Play

Who You’ll Hear

Kati Kleber, MSN RN CCRN-K – Nurse educator, former cardiac med-surg/stepdown and neurocritical care nurse, author, speaker

Melissa Stafford, BSN RN CCRN SCRN – Highly experienced and currently practicing nationally certified neurocritical care nurse

Elizabeth Mills, BSN RN CCRN – Highly experienced neurocritical care nurse, current Stroke Navigator for a Primary Stroke Center

What You’ll Learn

• Being Prepared
• Communication
• Advocating for yourself
• Giving grace

“Putting the wants of yourself over the needs of others is selfish.
“Putting the needs of yourself over the wants of others is self-care”
-Unknown

Be practically prepared

• Do laundry ahead of time
• Plan meals, or at least your meals and snacks for work
• Set out what you need to so that you’re not frantically searching for things right before leaving – starting a shift frazzled is too much stress
• Have a back-up set of scrubs at work
• Prioritize sleep + Eat well + Exercise
• Create a sleep-friendly environment (good sheets, supportive mattress, dark room)
• You must take extra time and care to get quality sleep before 12 hour shifts – go to bed when you need to, even if it’s early
• Don’t mistake exhaustion as something to be proud of – it’s not! “Ugh I only got 2 hours of sleep last night…”
• You can easily make a mistake if you are not well-rested – your mental clarity will be compromised if you are sleep-deprived. Seriously.
• Set yourself up for success for eating well

Communication

• Essential to communicate expectations to those with whom you share life
• Easy to get frustrated when someone fails to meet unsaid expectations
• Even really good communicators mess up and miscommunicate
• Share the work so you’re not in a constant state of being overwhelmed, meeting the wants of others before the needs of yourself
• Be quick to forgive and slow to anger

Advocate for yourself

• No one will do this for you – you must do this for yourself
• You may need to tell people no, which is challenging for people-pleasers
  • As nurses, we live our lives to care for others so it can be challenging for us to advocate for ourselves sometimes
• You may get called for overtime or to come in and help on your day off, but know your limits and don’t be afraid to say no
• Think about sustainability
• Know when to say no, know when to say yes

Give yourself some grace

• Transitioning from nursing school to bedside nurse is challenging mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually
• You are learning a large amount of new information quickly, want to make a good impression, and your body is adjusting to shift work
• At the beginning, work will be more exhausting because you are unable to quickly do things independently
• You can’t chart, start an IV, hang meds, draw labs, bathe a patient, round with an MD, etc. all quickly like your experienced coworkers can
• Don’t compare yourself to them as you’re learning – they are experienced and can do many things fluidly. It’s frustrating when it takes forever to do simple things but it will get easier. You will get faster.
• Being disciplined early in your career will make it easier in the long run; you won’t have to break yourself of bad habits
• Have people around you who support you that you can go to when you need to process work situations

Resources

• The Simply Reason Nurses Should Put Themselves Before Their Patients by Nacole Riccaboni, BSN RN CCRN-CMC
• Practicing Self-Care for Nurses: A Nursing Program Initiative by Cynthia L. Blum, PhD, RN, CNR
• Should Young Doctors Be Allowed to Work 24-Hour Shifts? by Healthline
• The Longer Shifts For Hospital Nurses, The Higher Levels of Burnout and Patient Dissatisfaction published in Health Affairs, written by Amy Witkoski Stimpfel, Douglas M. Sloane and Linda H. Aiken (Linda Aiken is a big nursing deal, y’all)

• Becoming Nursey by Kati Kleber, BSN RN CCRN – I have an entire chapter on this in my book
• Why Working Three Days a Week is Utterly Exhausting by Brie Gowen, RN (this is not to scare you, but to let you know how intense working 3 days/week and you truly need to take time for yourself)
• Self-Care Strategies for Nurses by Marsha Battee RN (aka the Bossy Nurse)