The Need for Self-Care with Emotional Exhaustion
Emotional departure has been demonstrated to play an essential part in the performance of daily activities. So, when nurses are emotionally exhausted, what are they supposed to do?
It is not a secret for anyone, related or not, to the healthcare system that nursing is an emotionally charged and challenging profession that can cause exhaustion. Changing schedules, having to adapt to the night shift, working a large number of hours a day and resting on days most people are working can make nurses isolate from the rest.
In a deeper way, EBN has published a report saying how interpersonal behavior and personality may affect nurses. This study was based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which was the main research tool for the investigation. Maslach incorporates 2 new concepts that may affect nurses during their performance which are personal accomplishment and depersonalization.
Most nurses have been through emotional burnouts which cannot be considered a new phenomenon in this area. However, awareness of how much this can affect nurses has been raising, most likely because of how common it is for nurses to be affected by it. Speaking about this topic has become mandatory due to how important it is to be emotionally sober in order to ensure a great performance.
Getting to know emotional exhaustion
On the other hand, emotional exhaustion is sometimes the reason why some people do not make the decision to become nurse practitioners. In some cases, it works as a filter for determining whether someone is able to work as a nurse or not. Although there are many other aspects that play essential parts in daily activities carried out by nurses around the world, the 2 concepts have shown to have an important weight in the attitude nurses have when going through daily activities, however, emotional exhaustion is able to completely drain the mentality of the nurse.
Although there are ways created to help nurses avoid these kind of issues, it is important for nurses to evaluate themselves and put plans in place to mitigate the extent emotional exhaustion may have. This action of evaluating oneself as a nurse and their performance is called “Self care” and it should be the base of all organizational policies. This can consistently reduce the level of stress they are exposed to while working.
Taking this into account, it is important to promote education plans that help increase the level of awareness among nurses. Nevertheless, experts remain hopeful about this situation since it is known that nurses speak about stress with their colleagues.
Defining self-care
However, it is important to define what self-care is in an explicit way. What kind of measures can be taken when looking to ensure mental health regardless of the amount of stress a nurse may be exposed to during their working schedule? Experts say that important life-changing decisions need to be made when looking to ensure emotional peace and being able to cope with such a demanding lifestyle.
When looking for a way to achieve a daily routine that prevents nurses from having “burn-outs,” answers may vary depending on the person since not everyone reacts in the same way to the different types of self-care. In most cases it is mentioned that building an effective strategy to control emotions is a true challenge that takes a lot of effort and is an active issue in the mind of nurses since it cannot be a passive exercise.
It is essential to take the first step by accepting the issue of emotional exhaustion and then looking for a suitable self-care strategy to counter the effects. This is a difficult task that may take a lot of time but it is very important to put a lot of effort in it in order to keep up to the same level of performance.
Not alone in the battle: Nurses need to have someone to rely on
Nurses may need some assistance when looking to mitigate emotional exhaustion. The idea of having campaigns that help nurses get rid of their issues is extremely important. Said campaigns should constantly be updated, taking into account new currents of thinking. Also, it is important that family and friends take a responsible and supportive attitude for nurses in order to help them get along with their demanding working routines.
Isolation is probably one of the issues that play the most relevant part in these kinds of situations where nurses feel emotional exhaustion, mostly because of how long they spend apart from the rest. This happens more often when nurses have to face night shifts.
During the night shift, most nurses lose contact with their family, having to work all night long and arriving home just to find everyone sleeping or ready to start a new day. Many couples find it difficult to deal with these schedule difference, having a loss of communication and lacking the time to spend together, which are just some of the most common issues.
In order to take care of their relationships with their partner, relatives and friends, nurses need to speak about their jobs, highlighting that they will not be available during certain days of the week and then scheduling their spare time in order to spend quality time with their family or friends. It is also important to include hobbies and as many enjoyable activities as possible during their leisure time as a way to ensure they will rest enough during their days off.
Regarding the time they spend in healthcare facilities, it is very important for nurses to feel like they are in an appropriate working environment and to have good working relationships with their co-workers. Communication is a must in any working environment as well as having good policies that emphasize the rights of nurses and the kind of behavior expected from them as well. Breaks are necessary throughout the entire working day, along with a healthy lifestyle since the body and the hormones it produces play a vital role in having a good emotional status.
