While rewarding, being a nurse is an endlessly busy career path. It can often feel like you’re constantly on the go, which may well impact your physical and mental energy levels. Combatting this — and the potential for burnout — effectively requires a little focus on your downtime.

Finding ways to recharge during your downtime, whether during your days off or break periods, is critical to helping you thrive at work and home. However, knowing how best to approach this is not always easy. So, let’s look at a few areas nurses can focus on.

Getting Exercise

You need exercise for physical and mental wellness. It’s certainly no secret that nursing is a highly active profession, with lifting patients and equipment alongside a great deal of walking. Indeed, one recent study on nurses found that occupational physical activity

patterns of nurses found that most spend a significant proportion of their time on their feet, on average spending only 35% of a day shift seated.

Still, it remains essential to get some exercise during your downtime. Physical activity related to work isn’t always the best way to energize you or combat stress, particularly if work is a source of pressure and exhaustion. Workplace physical activity alone is unlikely to provide all the types of exercise necessary for maintaining both physical and mental health.

Therefore, it’s worth identifying some physical activities you enjoy that relieve stress. Fun physical hobbies like surfing and skiing can help you recharge and build endurance for long shifts. There are plenty of options, too. For example, aquatic exercise and stretching are great ways to have safe, fun, and effective workouts that keep you physically healthy while busting stress. The buoyancy of water can also put less pressure on your limbs while you exercise, minimizing the potential for strains or discomfort after a long day.

That said, even a simple yet regular gym routine can make a difference. One of the challenges here is squeezing in some time between your shifts and family time to head to a gym. An option is to turn your garage into a gym, enabling you to create a personalized exercise space to which you don’t have to travel. Doing so begins with some decluttering, followed by planning the layout of the gym to host the types of activities that serve your needs.

Eat Right

Nursing is an active profession, making it difficult to get a healthy, balanced diet. Proper nutrition is essential for keeping your mind sharp after those long shifts However, fast food is almost always more convenient than nutritious meals, and it’s all too easy to opt for a cheeseburger instead of a salad.

However, there are many effortless but nutritious foods you can eat. Here are just a few healthy snack ideas:

Jicama sticks with lime and cayenne pepper;
Seasoned edamame with salt and pepper;
Peanut butter banana toast with cacao nibs;
Toasted almonds and olives.

These snacks only take a few minutes to make and elevate your mood with nutrition. If you can fit them in your downtime, they’re a much better replacement for fried food.

Gaining Fulfillment

A career in nursing can be an enriching experience. You get to make a genuine difference in people’s lives every day. At the same time, recognize that your career is not the only way to gain a sense of fulfillment. Using your moments of downtime to pursue other fulfilling activities is a vital source of self-care that empowers you to maintain a healthy balance between your career and personal life and enriches your whole self.

What are some things that can fit into your downtime? Consider the following:

Creative activities

Creativity can be fulfilling on multiple levels. You get to express your thoughts and emotions through artistic means, which can be cathartic and an outlet for stress. It’s also a chance to explore a side of you that is not connected to your job. Importantly, there are creative activities you can do no matter how much time you have available, from painting on your days off to journaling during your lunch break.

Community initiatives

Engaging with community initiatives tends to be fulfilling because you spend time on actions aligning with your social and ethical values. Some projects can fit in with nurses’ schedules, from helping maintain local green spaces to coaching sports with young people in need of mentorship. You may also find you’re better able to recharge when you pair initiatives with your personal interests and get some outdoor exercise.

Disconnecting from Work

Being a nurse is an emotionally demanding career path. You give a lot of yourself to your role, colleagues, and patients every day. Unfortunately, a recent study into Emotional Labor and Depressive Symptoms Among Healthcare Workers found that depression rates tended to be higher and more severe among those experiencing higher emotional labor. One of the methods to manage the emotional and psychological weight of your role is to find moments to fully disconnect from work during your downtime.

Mindfulness and meditation are steps to take during break times and days off. These activities encourage you to focus purely on the present and pay close attention to your inner self. Even just 5 minutes spent checking in with yourself and relaxing can help you disconnect a little from the chaos of the workplace.

You should also get into the habit of performing a wind-down routine after work. Moving straight from your shift into your personal life can see you inadvertently taking your job with you. Take a little time on your own as a buffer and perform activities that allow you to shift from work mode to home mode. Some people make a ritual by shedding their scrubs, mentally coupling it with shedding their work selves. Even taking a walk alone to decompress can get you into a more relaxed state.

Conclusion

Using your downtime effectively can help you to recharge and thrive even through difficult periods. Introduce everything from regular exercise to setting boundaries to help you disconnect from work. Remember to talk to other nurses about this, too. You may be able to share techniques that are beneficial for everyone.

The post The Power of Downtime: How Nurses Can Recharge and Thrive first appeared on Daily Nurse.