The Importance of Self-Care for Nurses
The Importance of Exercise and Other Self-Care Modalities for Nurses
The profession of nursing requires a capacity and joy for caring and healing others both mentally and physically. Nurses spend their careers caring for patients and their families often in the worst and most frightening periods of their lives. Nursing responsibilities can be lengthy, stressful and physically and emotionally demanding. The demands of the nursing profession coupled with the nursing shortage and longer work hours put even more stress on nurses. Despite these extreme demands, many nurses do not fully appreciate the importance self-care. Yet without proper care for themselves, nurses are not able to provide the best care for their patients. “Self-care and self-healing is a critical component of being able to provide holistic nursing because holistic nurses recognize that they cannot facilitate healing unless they are in the process of healing themselves” (Cohen, 2010, p.1). For this reason and many more, nurses need to allocate time and energy for caring for their own needs as well as needs of their patients. With this is mind I adopted an exercise program as self-care modality for my independent study. Over the course of my independent study I researched the importance of self-care, how exercise is an effective self-care modality and the how I used my self-care modality for my personal and professional development as a nurse. In preparing for my independent study I did a literature review of the importance of self-care for the nurses. The literature review showed that without proper self-care strategies nurses have higher burnout rates and their job satisfaction is significantly decreased. When nurses do not care for themselves adequately they become stressed, frustrated, and overwhelmed. When nurses become stressed, frustrated, and overwhelmed this has a negative impact on patient care, which leads to poor patient outcomes. Lack of self-care also leads to poor
The profession of nursing requires a capacity and joy for caring and healing others both mentally and physically. Nurses spend their careers caring for patients and their families often in the worst and most frightening periods of their lives. Nursing responsibilities can be lengthy, stressful and physically and emotionally demanding. The demands of the nursing profession coupled with the nursing shortage and longer work hours put even more stress on nurses. Despite these extreme demands, many nurses do not fully appreciate the importance self-care. Yet without proper care for themselves, nurses are not able to provide the best care for their patients. “Self-care and self-healing is a critical component of being able to provide holistic nursing because holistic nurses recognize that they cannot facilitate healing unless they are in the process of healing themselves” (Cohen, 2010, p.1). For this reason and many more, nurses need to allocate time and energy for caring for their own needs as well as needs of their patients. With this is mind I adopted an exercise program as self-care modality for my independent study. Over the course of my independent study I researched the importance of self-care, how exercise is an effective self-care modality and the how I used my self-care modality for my personal and professional development as a nurse. In preparing for my independent study I did a literature review of the importance of self-care for the nurses. The literature review showed that without proper self-care strategies nurses have higher burnout rates and their job satisfaction is significantly decreased. When nurses do not care for themselves adequately they become stressed, frustrated, and overwhelmed. When nurses become stressed, frustrated, and overwhelmed this has a negative impact on patient care, which leads to poor patient outcomes. Lack of self-care also leads to poor
References: Chittenden, E. H., & Ritchie, C. S. (2011). Work-Life Balancing: Challenges and Strategies. Journal Of Palliative Medicine, 14(7), 870-874 Cohen, R. (2010). The Importance of Self-Care and Self-Healing. American Holistic Nurses Association Donaghy, M. E. (2007). Exercise can seriously improve your mental health: Fact or fiction?. Advances In Physiotherapy, 9(2), 76-88 Gabrielle, S., Jackson, D., & Mannix, J. (2008). Older women nurses: health, ageing concerns and self-care strategies Gibb, J., Cameron, I., Hamilton, R., Murphy, E., & Naji, S. (2010). Mental health nurses ' and allied health professionals ' perceptions of the role of the Occupational Health Service in Henwood, T., Tuckett, A., & Turner, C. (2012). What makes a healthier nurse, workplace or leisure physical activity? Informed by the Australian and New Zealand e-Cohort Study Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 21(11/12), 1746-1754. Saxena, S