Stress is a part of life — we all deal with it from time to time. But too much stress can wreak havoc on our minds, bodies, and souls. When you have chronic stress, your body is continuously flooded with stress hormones (like cortisol and adrenaline) that make your brain more alert, your muscles tighter, and your pulse rate faster.
Over time, this constant state of heightened alertness can lead to health issues like:
- Depression or anxiety
- Diabetes
- Heart disease
- High blood pressure
- Menstrual problems
- Obesity
- Skin problems like acne or eczema
You can’t always change the source of your stress, but you can often modify how you deal with it. Find activities that lower the amount of cortisol flowing through your body to improve your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
During this 10 day challenge, we’ll share simple ways to soothe the tension you feel after a long workday, a difficult patient, a restless night with the kids, an uncomfortable conversation, or other stressful scenarios. No matter what you’re facing, we hope these tangible stress reducers help you feel calmer moving forward.
Are you ready to cope with your stressors in a healthy way? Let’s go.
Starts April 10, 2023.
Join us by clicking "Yes," under "Ready to Join?" and invite a #healthynurse you know or share the challenge on your social media by clicking the links on this page. Are you ready?
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How are you doing in the challenge?
As a faculty, we are often overlooked in discussions on stress and burnout. It's as if we cannot appear tired or vulnerable. We are also human and the last two and one-half years have been challenging for us. We've dealt with COVID, death of loved ones, other illnesses in ourselves and family members, emotional exhaustion, etc. But, it's not acknowledged and we're expected to continue on, educating students who are emotionally drained. Who cares for us? Certainly not administration.
I definitely agree with today's tip about forming connections and that having others to talk to and share experiences with is crucial to improved mental health!
Something I am trying when anxiety starts to take over my thoughts. I hope it helps you, too!
@LP0214 this is such a great and helpful technique!
Clicking Yes doesn’t seem to be working, so I’ll post my thoughts. As a psych NP I think part of mental health is acknowledging that it’s both normal and okay to feel anxiety or sadness over our current state of the world. Mindfulness practice gives us the skills to acknowledge and embrace all emotions, not just those we’ve learned to view as positive or acceptable.
Too many patients come in expecting medication and therapy to help them reach a permanent state of happiness and joy, labeling emotions as good/ bad, desirable/ undesirable. We gain so much more from acknowledging, embracing, expressing and releasing emotions as our normal human experience - without judgment.
@Kir beautifully said!
Is your “Yes” a darker blue color than the other options? If so, when today's tip goes out, you should get a message to your inbox. Or you can text HEALTHYNURSE to 52886 to get them as text messages.
Hello, I am excited to share that I have begun an Instagram account titled @Wholefirst centered on helping health care workers recapture your joy and purpose through cultivating a culture of well-being. I encourage you to be Whole First before caring for others.
This idea stemmed from a project I am currently working on within my Magnet facility. This week, I will submit an abstract for a national conference!
Please follow along on Instagram at @Wholefirst and join me on this journey of work-life integration!
I have returned to work from a week-long vacation. My mind is renewed and I am ready to come up with topics to share during morning huddles. I want to challenge the nurse while also letting them know I am right there with them. I love my position as Charge and my team works well together. Although, we are short staffed at this time. We do have new employees doing their onboarding. I am excited for this challenge to see what God has planned for me.
@tmc I love your positivity!!
For some reason I'm not able to join this challenge in the typical way, so I'm just going to post my dilemma. Feeling overwhelmed at work with the undervalue on nonclinical nursing departments. I work in education and coordinate nurse residency, onboarding, and CE programs. Despite the need for adequately trained nurses, I am told over and over there is NO time for education and staff nurses are overwhelmed with patient cares, etc. I realize that patient care comes first, but at what point do we realize that good patient care comes with proper training and place just as much priority on that?
Rhonda, I appreciate you speaking out about non-clinical positions. I'm faculty, and I am stressed. I would say “we” are stressed but I'll speak for myself, even though I know it's not just me.
Hi Rhonda, I hope your organization comes to see that staff training and well-being directly effect patient care.
As for the challenge, there should be an option at the top of this challenge page that says Ready to Join? And just make sure the word Yes is clicked/highlighted. Otherwise, you can text HEALTHYNURSE to 52886 to get the daily tips sent to your phone.
The heat of summer and the list of activities to fit into our short summer is exhausting. Work is extremely busy and the team seems to be falling apart. This Healthy Nurse challenge will be my reminder to take a breathe and focus to keep myself together and moving forward. Better days are coming!
Coming from an emotional weekend with family, celebrating the loss of a loved one who I miss daily. Started amazing new job. My kids are going to high school, entering as sophomore and juniors for the first time after two years of being home related to Covid. Child with chronic illness trying to adjust to going to school. Will he be able to tolerate school? If not, then what? Feeling overwhelmed. Excited, worried. Trying to juggle it all.
I'm feeling overwhelmed right now with the world and what is going on around me. This challenge came at the perfect time .