Stressed at Work? Tips to Regain a Healthy Balance

Is it any wonder that in a day to day job that focuses on precision and organization, a lot of nurses, and of course other professional, find themselves feeling stressed and overwhelmed? Balancing both a busy career and busy home life, sometimes while working multiple shifts and midnight shifts, can leave you feeling exhausted. Fortunately there are several small lifestyle changes you can make to help you reestablish balance in your life.

Recognizing Stress

It is a fact that many people see their busy lives as simply that – busy. The fact that they have very little time to relax and decompress at the end of a day almost seems normal. The headaches, the aches and pains, the short temper, loss of memory and focus, all seem to be symptoms that a lot of busy nurses see as a result of living an active life. After all, having a lot to do and juggling a lot tasks is in the nature of any good nurse, right? Well, this may not be the best way to look at things. Recognizing when you are stressed is critical to your health.

So what is stress? Simply stated, stress is a physical response to anything that makes you feel threatened or upset. Your body will step into the stress response mode. Stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline flood your body and get your ready for action as your blood pressure rises and your focus increases. While this reaction is great if you're in an emergency situation, going through this routine day to day can cause a lot of physical problems including:

High blood pressure
Decreased immune system
Increased risk for heart attack and stroke
Infertility
Anxiety
Depression
Fatigue
Body aches
Early aging
Disturbed digestion
Sleep disorders
Skin disease

In addition, work productivity can suffer, with the eventual outcome potentially being that you may need to leave your job and take stress-leave or time away to recover and relax.

Finding Balance: Ways to Reduce Stress

There are several ways to help bring calm and balance into your life. The key to making any of these changes actually work is to recognize that you need to make your wellness a priority. As caregivers nurses are trained to put the wellness of patients ahead of their own in a healing environment. Now is the time to stop and put yourself back on the priority list as your number one patient in your life.

Yoga

To some people Yoga seems like a simple sit-and-twist type of exercise that may not have any relevance to their own personal lives. On the contrary! One of the best forms of Yoga for stress relief is Hatha Yoga. This practice involves moving the body in precise ways along with controlled breathing and a clearing of the mind. Focusing on peace and inner tranquility, Yoga practice allows the body to move slowly, stretching out knotted muscles, filling the lungs with fresh deep breaths, and relieving tension and anxiety. You do not have to be a flexible to begin a Yoga class. A beginner's class typically runs for 30 minutes and you can easily practice your Yoga at home or even on breaks at the hospital if there is space available. Yoga has been proven to reduce stress, reduce blood pressure, relieve pain and improve physical wellbeing.

Meditation

Meditation can also reduce stress. While stress creates a stress response in the body, mediation creates the opposite reaction. In fact, a meditative technique called the "Relaxation Response", which was created by Herbert Benson of Harvard, has been used widely as a therapeutic relaxation practice among doctors and therapists. In this quiet practice, a simple word such as "peace", "balance", or "om" is quietly repeated as you sit quietly for up to 20 minutes. Muscles are relaxed, breathing is deep and natural, and the worries of the day are slowly wiped away from your mind. The result is that your body and brain will slow down and react to the calm, rather than the chaos of your day. Dr. Benson talks about this technique in his book "The Relaxation Response" and believes that meditating once or twice a day can make a huge difference in your everyday health and wellness.

Exercise

As we have stated, stress raises your stress hormone levels and can lead to anxiety, body aches, skin disorders, heart disease, and other painful and dangerous health conditions. One of the best ways to counter the body's natural stress response is through exercise. (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise-and-stress/sr00036 )

Physical activity actually reduces the body's production of stress hormones as it increases the production of endorphins in the body. These are tiny neurotransmitters that lead to positive feelings and help the body and mind relax into a state of calm and well being. Just walking 20 to 30 minutes each day can make a difference. While walking the halls in the clinic or hospital for fitness may seem like a simple solution, if you are looking to walk for stress reduction it is more beneficial to go outside and get fresh air and have a change of scenery than it is to walk within the already stressful setting of where you work.

Eating to Reduce Stress

What you eat can play a big role in how your body and mind react to stress. It's a fact that many people who are stressed simply don't take the time to eat properly and either end up overeating or under eating, or simply make poor nutritional choices that leave the body vulnerable to the effects of stress. A diet that is low in caffeine, artificial preservatives such as MSG, and low in sugar and processed carbohydrates is important. Be sure to eat fresh fruits vegetables, healthy grains, lean meats and low-fat dairy products in well balanced portions. Think of your eating as "food therapy", and each item you eat being part of a prescription for a clean-running, whole body wellness program.

Stress-free Living: A Realistic Goal?

Let's face it – life can be crazy. Like a rollercoaster there are ups and downs that we simply cannot avoid. Taking steps to reduce stress in our lives and better manage those times we are faced with stressful situations is an important life skill we all need to work on for the sake of our health and our overall wellbeing.

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