Any person, who is engaged in a certain type of work, knows what it feels like being engaged in long hours of work, heavy workloads, workplace conflicts, staffing challenges among others. Job stress is present in each and every institution, and they happen in real time working hours. Stressful situations are for real in the work place, and nurses are not an exemption (Rana & Upton, 2013).Nurses sometimes find themselves in overwhelming situations like emotional demands of patients, families, co-workers and other pressures. Nursing has thus been considered as the most stressful profession.
The risk factors for stress in nursing profession include long working hours, insufficient resources, job conflicts, inadequate rewarding system, physical violence and bullying from patients relatives or co-workers. Signs and symptoms of stress include lack of sleep, loss of appetite, increased blood pressure, anxiety, memory lapses, increased use of alcohol or other drugs, nausea, nail biting and feeling overwhelmed by even minor problems (Cheng, Liou, Tsai & Chang, 2015).
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Strategies for Managing Stress
Identifying the Sources of Stress
It is an easy task to identify the sources of stress for any profession worker. It is also an easy thing to overlook one's thoughts, feelings and behaviours that contribute to the stress levels. A person should therefore not assume the little things that happen daily at the job place. Every individual should look closely at their habits, attitude and excuses. Just like a person keeps a dairy, a stress journal is important as well. The journal helps in tracking the daily stressors at the workplace and how individuals cope.
Create a Culture of Purposeful Communication
Communication is one of the most ideal ways that medical caretakers can diminish the anxiety in their everyday work. The pressure situations in hospitals are unavoidable, but with proper communication techniques, it can easily be managed. According to Goh et al., (2015) a culture of purposeful communication helps people share information fully and openly decreasing the stress levels. The patients in hospitals as well feel secure as they can trust the nurses as they feel fully informed. Besides, Nurses can do their jobs more confidently as they can communicate effectively.
Lifestyle Management
The nurses should maintain a balance between their tight schedule of work and rest. It is wise to keep a healthy diet and exercise regularly. They should learn to recognise their needs and should thus not overwork themselves. Learning to relax helps the brain to have a cooling effect. A person can listen to cool music, soak oneself in the bathroom, read an interesting book or watch a movie. Physical exercise is also an excellent way to manage stress since it burns excess adrenaline and releases endorphins making the hormones relax. Physical exercises can include swimming, jogging, working out at the gym, playing soccer and other outdoor activities.
Connecting with Others
Social engagements are the quickest most efficient way to help in coping with stress. Physical Social interaction quickly calms down a person. By keeping up a system of companions, a nurse can enhance the versatility of work stressors. On the other side, the more desolate and separated a person is, the more vulnerable they are to stress. A nurse should, therefore, find means and also create time to reach out to their family members and friends. Friends and relatives will give a listening ear as the nurse narrates to them the stressful moments that she is undergoing. As the nurse opens up, it makes the burden of stress loosen up strengthening the person.
Accept the Things that cannot be changed
In the nursing profession, some things cannot be prevented from happening like the death of patients, working long hours and being bullied by families who have lost a loved one. In such cases, the most ideal approach to adapt to the results is to acknowledge things as they seem to be. In spite of the fact that acknowledgment may sometimes be hard, it is a good strategy to manage stress. The nurse should not try to control the uncontrollable like the behaviour of various patients or co-workers (Taylor et al., 2015). In fact, the nurse should focus on ways to react to such people and how to treat them. In the nursing profession, employees should learn to let go of anger and resentments as well as learn how to forgive more often. A nurse can look back at a stressful day and lack peace of mind. This should not happen as nurses should be able to learn to reflect on the things that occur in their environment and appreciate each one of them. This simple strategy can help a person keep things in perspective.
Deal Effectively with Mistakes
In the nursing profession, mistakes do happen. A patient can be given the wrong medication which might lead to death. An error can also happen in the surgery room that can also result in the passing of the patient. A patient can be neglected in one way or the other by their practitioners among other medical mistakes that occur daily. When such cases happen, they should not pull the nurses down forever. The nurse should thus find means to deal with these errors efficiently and move forward.
Counselling
Counselling helps a person to reflect on the things that are happening emotionally, mentally and physically. The feelings and thoughts that seem out of control are addressed in counselling sessions, and a person can experience a new change. The counsellor helps a person acquire new skills on how to cope with stressful situations (Lachman, 2016).
Avoiding unnecessary stress at the workplace is possible and can be avoided.
References
Cheng, C., Liou, S., Tsai, H., & Chang, C. (2015). Job stress and job satisfaction among new graduate nurses during the first year of employment in Taiwan. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 21 (4), 410-418.
Goh, Y., Lee, A., Chan, S. W., & Chan, M. F. (2015). Profiling nurses' job satisfaction, acculturation, work environment, stress, cultural values and coping abilities: A cluster analysis. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 21 (4), 443-452.
Lachman, V. D. (2016). Ethics, Law, and Policy. Moral Resilience: Managing and Preventing Moral Distress and Moral Residue. MEDSURG Nursing, 25 (2), 121-124.
Rana, D., & Upton, D. (2013). Psychology for Nurses. New York: Routledge. Print.
Taylor, B., Roberts, S., Smyth, T., & Tulloch, M. (2015). Nurse Managers' strategies for feeling less drained by their work: an action research and reflection project for developing emotional intelligence. Journal of Nursing Management, 23 (7), 879-887.
