By Kathleen Boucher, RN
This article addresses two issues.
What specific techniques for building resilience are most effective for nurses in high-stress situations? What resources are available for nurses seeking support after experiencing an adverse event in their careers?
Nurses require resilience to remain in the nursing profession.
What is resilience?
The Cambridge online dictionary defines resilience as:
-the ability to be happy, successful, etc., again after something difficult or bad has happened.¹
Another description of resilience is the ability to deal with a situation, bounce back and keep working.
Think back to a crisis in your life. How did you work through it? Who gave you support? How did you take extra care of yourself?
Nurses advocate for patients. When unexpected adverse circumstances happen to patients, nurses feel the pain and grief of families and loved ones. It is unavoidable. So, how do nurses recover and move forward?
Here are a few ideas.
- Acknowledge how you are feeling and ask for help. It is not a weakness but a strength to ask for help. You develop awareness and deal with your feelings in real-time.
- Break down the problem. You learn from each crisis. What could have been done differently?
- In nursing, you never presume that your colleague is dealing well with an adverse event. You ask how they are coping and develop situational awareness, and they reciprocate.
- You build a support system that can always be relied on. This could be family, close friends, a pastor or clergy and colleagues.
- You practice extreme self-care. What is extreme self-care? You learn techniques that work to build resilience. Self-care is a life skill that improves over time.
Some techniques are:
- Journaling is a great way to deal with your feelings. After a difficult shift, I write my thoughts in a journal. I find a quiet spot and I write as fast as I can to the point that it’s illegible as I pour my feelings onto paper.
- Meditation may calm your mind when you keep reliving an event constantly.
- Prayer connects people to a Higher Power so they don’t feel alone. This is deeply personal on an individual basis.
- Talk to your colleagues who have been through similar circumstances and discover how they dealt with it.
- Take care of your mind and body. Go back to basics and take the time to eat nutritious food, sleep, stay hydrated, exercise and spend time outside in sunshine and fresh air. Sunshine is known to increase a sense of well-being.
- Research what services are available to help you deal with stress at work. In the hospital where I work there is a counseling service where nurses can access professional help when needed.
- Know that you are a valuable member of a team of professionals who care about patients. The public is fortunate to have you in healthcare.
In a previous blog article I mention, “Healing Canadian Healthcare: Ideas to Improve Nursing Enrolment & Retention”. This book educates Canadians about nursing and asks for public support in boosting nursing enrolment and retention. It is short book of less than 10,000 words or a ten minute read. The book is available on Amazon Kindle and as a softcover.
Healing Canadian Healthcare: Boucher, Kathleen: 9798319470188: Books – Amazon.ca
The public wants nurses to stay in the profession. Let’s teach resilience in nursing schools and support nurses throughout their careers.
