Let’s Check In

By now, (hopefully!) you have explored the other chapters and have done some reflection on what life looks like for you right now. Let’s take a moment to check in.

How are you feeling physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Have you identified your stressors (and your strengths)? 

Great! Now it’s time to delve into the concept of self-care – what it is, how to practice it, and why it’s so important.

As a student going through the nursing program, you likely feel that your entire focus on life right now is about getting through the program and acquiring your degree. At the same time, you are expected to not only balance your coursework and clinicals, but also your work responsibilities and home life. Nursing education is fundamentally a stressful time for students and has been shown to be associated with high rates of anxiety, depression, and even burnout.^{[1] [2] [3]} Prolonged or chronic stress is more than just a nuisance, it in fact can destroy your health.^[4]  If you haven’t already, be sure to review the section “What is Stress, Really?” for an in-depth overview of what stress does to your health and wellbeing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has added stress for everyone globally, not only due to health concerns but associated factors such as economic instability, unemployment, and insecurity. A crisis may be defined as “an unexpected event or sequence of events of enormous scale and overwhelming speed, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty that gives rise to disorientation, a feeling of loss of control, and strong emotional disturbance”.^[5]  Crisis can be incredibly draining physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Crisis disrupts our sense of normalcy and way of life and can lead to negative long-term effects such as depression, anxiety, fear, mental health concerns, sadness, and post-traumatic stress disorder.^[6] Unfortunately, self-care is one of the first things that gets ignored and is not a priority during a crisis-type stress response process.

An important way to reduce stress and its health consequences is to engage in effective self-care. Self-care is multi-faceted and unique to each individual, and by building resiliency and practicing self-care, you will be able to limit the stresses that you encounter in your personal, academic, and professional career and have increased resilience to cope with those that do arise.

The reality is that your goal of being a nurse is a journey, not simply a destination, and the choices that you make can help that journey be more pleasant and easier to navigate. As nurses we are responsible to meet our professional standards by maintaining our physical, psychological, and emotional fitness to practice. After all, as a caregiver, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Since we’re accountable for our decisions, actions, and professional conduct, we can undertake self-care activities to improve our fitness to practice.^[7] Learning about the long-term ramifications of stress and starting self-care practices now will help you not only while you’re in school but also in your professional career and personal life.

The next chapters delve deeper into aspects of resiliency and self-care.