Self-Care for Nurses During the Holiday Season

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Us nurses we already have a hard enough time prioritizing ourselves and our own needs throughout the year. Throw holidays in the mix, and all self-care practices basically go out the window for nurses! We put so much of our energy into taking care of others, at work and in our own personal lives. This holiday season you should give yourself the gift of self care, and take some time out of your chaotic schedule to dedicate to yourself.

Remind yourself daily if you need to, that you “can’t pour from an empty cup.”

If you are a nurse, or any kind of healthcare worker for that matter, then you know how hard it is to take your focus away from others. Especially during the holiday season. As someone who works in healthcare, then you are already hardwired to tend to the needs of others before your own. This time of year, those needs can be anything from creating a cozy Christmas atmosphere in your home, being present at all holiday get togethers, or making sure that every family member has a gift or five waiting for them under the tree on Christmas morning.

Nurses, this holiday season I challenge you to give yourself a fraction of the care and attention that you’ve been giving to others for countless holiday seasons over the years. To support you in doing that, I’ve created a list of things you can do for self care this holiday season as a health care worker. Things that will support self care in all aspects. Your physical, mental, and emotional self care needs, which a re all equally as important as the other.

Physical Self-Care

If you’ve been a nurse for any amount of time, even just being nursing school in itself you know how heavily this line of work impacts your physical health and well being. Especially if you work in a hospital working twelve hour shifts. Shout out to those nurses who push through three twelve hour shifts in a row every week.

What are you doing with yourself on that first day off after working three plus days in a row and your body is feeling like it could sleep all day long? Are you giving it the rest it needs, or are you pushing it to get up and be productive regardless of how exhausted you are?

Hey night shift nurses, can we take a minute to talk about your meal schedule and what exactly those meals consist of? Or are you eating random meals, no meals, or just a consistent flow of snacks to help you stay awake all night long?

Nurses, let’s talk about some things you can be doing for yourself this holiday season to take the best care of your physical well being.

Prioritize High Quality Sleep

Nurses love to sleep, so you’re probably already saying “you don’t have to ask me twice!” But how often do you stay up for 2-3 hours after your shift to “make up on lost time” or get ahead on some tasks you need to get done. Instead of getting adequate rest after working hard all day (or night).

When I say “high quality” sleep I am referring to sleep hygiene. This, if you haven’t heard the phrase, refers to the environment you set up for yourself for sleeping. Everything to do with your bedroom and area that you sleep should be set up in a way that promotes rest, relaxation, and comfort. For example, if my bedroom is a mess and incredibly disorganized I don’t feel like I am resting as well as I could other wise. So to promote my own sleep hygiene I take the time to keep my sleeping space clean and tidy.

Sleep hygiene also includes whatever nighttime routine promotes rest and relaxation for you. Your shower, skin care, and anything else that’s part of your wind down time are a part of your sleep hygiene. You don’t need to fix every aspect of your sleep hygiene all in one day. If you do nothing else for your sleep quality in the next month, pick at least one aspect of your sleeping environment to improve upon.

Focus on Better Eating Habits

I know from personal experience that it takes some real effort to maintain a balanced diet while working as a nurse, for several reasons. Most commonly the time and energy it takes to meal prep and pack meals to bring to work every shift(Not to mention how expensive most things are at the grocery store these days). Take a moment to weigh out your options here and go through some pros and cons.

Cons to Meal Prepping for Work:

• It takes some time and energy to meal prep
• Groceries can be costly these days if you aren’t shopping methodically
• You could get sick of having the same meal over and over

Pros to Meal Prepping for Work:

• You get to choose what you are eating
• You can choose food that keeps you full and fueled longer
• Your conscious is free of guilt from poor food choices that you might make otherwise
• You can support yourself in personal health goals that you have set
• In some circumstances meal prepping can save you money
• You can pack lots of healthy snacks, which can especially come in handy if you are night shift
• You can prep a weeks worth of meals for work, in just one day if you plan accordingly
• You can prep a variety of foods for one weeks worth of meals if you make options to interchange

Did I miss anything? Are there other cons to meal prepping that I didn’t include here and should be included? If not, I think it’s safe to say the pros far outweigh the cons when it comes to being mindful about healthy eating habits and meal prepping for work.

Physical Activity(outside of work)

You might already be thinking (I literally bust my butt at work, that’s a lot of physical activity already.) It is, but it’s not the same as doing purposeful physical activities such as lifting weights, going for walks in nature, or doing yoga for instance.

Having an outlet for physical activity outside of work is important for nurses. just as important as eating meals that are nourishing and energizing. Not to say nurses should be at the gym sweating it out for over an hour every single day off they have. Unless, of course, that is something you enjoy doing. But Any kind of physical activity that can both get your body moving and give mental reprieve is important too.

Mental and Emotional Self-Care

Mental and emotional self-care are especially important for nurses to be mindful of during the holiday season. Burn out can sneak up on you, and before you know it you’re in the thick of being burnt out. Which, unless you’ve been there before, you wouldn’t fully understand how hard it is to recognize until it’s too late to easily recover from. Therefore, prevention is key.

With that in mind, let’s talk about a few self-care strategies for nursers to lean into during the holiday season. When things get busier and stress levels get higher. Mindfulness practices, stress management techniques, and relying more on your support system are a few of the topics that I’m gong to be covering here.

Mindfulness Practices

Lately, you’re probably hearing a lot more hype around being mindful and meditating on the daily. The hype is certainly worth looking into on this one! In the world of nursing there is far too much stimulation, in addition to information overload and burn out. Mindfulness practices are imperative to a nurses mental health.

Mindfulness can look very different from one nurse to the next, but the key is to do what works for you. Not what social media or some book tells you to do. Unless the thing that someone or a book told you to try doing works, then definitely keep doing it.

Looking for some ideas of what you can try for your own daily mindfulness practices? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Breathing exercises– Such as box breathing or deep breathing exercises.
• Daily meditation practices– Guided meditation can be done with the help of one of the many apps out there that can easily be downloaded to a smartphone. Headspace and Calm are two of the more popular ones out there.
• Journaling– Either writing down what ever you have going on in your heart and mind, or using journal prompts to guide your writing.
• Mindful eating – Taking the time to savor each bite and slow down. Nurses are notorious for inhaling their food in under 10 minutes.
• Walks in Nature-Mindful walking involves focusing on the sensations of walking, and what your body is experiencing.

Practical Self-Care Tips that Will Serve all Aspects of Well Being

These tips are vital skills for nurses, and will have a positive impact on all aspects off self care. Even though I am putting them at the end of the blog post, they are certainly some of the most important things that you can learn to do for yourself as a nurse.

• Time Management– As a nurse, you know how critical this skill is at work. It will come in handy just as much outside of work as you learn to set priorities of your own self-care and schedule time for yourself into every week.
• Setting Boundaries– This is a hard one for a lot of people, my self included. But knowing what your boundaries are at work will save you from unnecessary stress and overwhelm. Such as when your boss/charge nurse asking you to take on an additional patient in your assignment or to stay late/come in early. It’s important to know where your boundaries are and what tasks push your limits on what you allow yourself to handle.
• Being Okay with Saying No– This one goes hand in hand with setting boundaries, but they aren’t always mutually exclusive. Boundaries designate what you can/are able and willing to take on. Saying no, can strictly mean that you do not want to do a thing, and shouldn’t feel pressured to do it.

Conclusion

Nurses should really be taking care of themselves all year round, but during the holiday season it is especially important to focus on self care. Nurses are naturally caring and quick to sacrifice their own needs in place for the needs of another, which can quickly lead to physical and mental burnout during the holiday season. Taking the time to nurture yourself as a nurse is allowed, I promise. Time spent focusing on your physical, mental, and emotional health is what will keep you fueled to continue to care for others at your job as well as in your personal life.

What area of self care are you going to focus on this holiday season? A new skin care routine or weekend walks in the park with your significant other or a close friend to focus on your physical health and well being? Tell me what self-care aspect you’ve decided to focus on in the comments below!

Happy Holidays!