Taking Time For Yourself as a Travel Nurse

Career Advice, Life on the Road, Travel Nursing

Keeping yourself in balance between work and life is very important because not only does it make your life less stressful, it also

Yoga is a great way to relax in between shifts

makes it more enjoyable. When you’re spending too much time in one area of your life at the expense of others your body can tell. It can result in unneeded stress and the bad effects stresses have on your body. Being travel nurses you need to take care of yourselves more than others because so many people depend on you. Below are a few tips to help you keep your life in balance as well as what blocks your balance and what benefits come with your changes.

What blocks your balance?

  • Lack of motivation
  • Running out of time
  • The load on your plate
  • High levels of stress
  • Thinking negatively

Changes in your work life:

  • Take breaks:
    Make time for yourself throughout the day. Even if it’s just a short 10 minutes, it can help you relax a bit and come back to work with more focus.
  • Choose a new position:
    Sometimes we put so much effort into our work we find ourselves not feeling as passionate as we once did and a lot more stressed. Try talking to your employer and see if there is the possibility of a hospital rotation to place in you a new position for a while to help bring you back to your passion for nursing and a renewed balance. Of course, you could try a travel nursing or travel allied health position.
  • Use healthy communication:
    You spend a lot of time in hospitals, and with the same people day in and day out so there are a few things to do to help keep your stress to a minimum. First, make sure if you have a problem you address it right away, so you don’t let things build up into larger issues. Second, try not to gossip, it is a sure fire way to make your working environment tense, not only for you, but for everyone working. Third, use the chain of comm and appropriately, always talk to your boss first, if nothing changes it is at that time you could go to their boss.
  • Create a healthy work environment:
    Luckily being travel nurses or allied health professionals, you get the option to choose which area of the country you work best. By picking the environment that fits your personality you will be less likely to be as overwhelmed as you would if you hated snow and were placed at a location where it snowed non-stop.
  • Share the load/simplify:
    We all tend to think we can take on a lot more then we actually can. Sometimes it is okay to ask for others for help instead of always feeling you’re the only one who can do something.

Changes for your home life:

  • Create a break: Don’t go right home from work and think you’ll just be relaxed. Try going to the gym first or take a nice walk, just finding ways to relax will help you to have a “buffer” between work and life.
  • Eat healthy: Just by eating healthy you will have more energy, which will not only help you with your family life but also at work.
  • Pick up a hobby: Either with others or alone. By having a hobby you can use it as a break, a time to relax and let all the days worries go away.
  • Mix up family roles: We all tend to get stuck doing what we have always done but maybe now is the time to switch things up. If you always make supper then have your spouse do it for a week, or if your spouse always does the laundry, you do it for a week.
  • Get enough sleep: When you don’t get enough sleep it can affect how you do your job, at times even making costly mistakes. Not to mention when you sleep your body is repairing itself, so give your body some good R&R so you can be well rested for the work days ahead.
  • Break out of your every day routine: Just by changing things up you will be more likely to have less stress. For example, instead of going to the gym to do your workout try running around your area or try some workout routines on DVD.

Benefits for your changes:

  • Reduced stress
  • Rejuvenated immune system
  • Improved physical health and energy
  • Higher sense of happiness
  • Increased self esteem

Now that you have some great tips for helping keep your work-life more balanced, take the time to try out a few and see how much better your days feel. If not right away, eventually, you will notice that by implementing these small changes, each and every day, you will come back into balance and start to wonder how you made it all these years being out of balance.