Living a healthy lifestyle as a nurse has so many benefits. Healthy nurses take care of themselves with a holistic approach, making sure they prioritize their mental, physical, and emotional health as much as possible. This in turn leads them to live a better, fuller life where they can show up every day as their best selves.
What Is a Healthy Nurse?
There are 3 main types of health that make up your overall welldoing. Let’s break down each component of what makes up a healthy nurse.
Mental Health
Everything you do in life, the way you think, feel, act, make choices, all starts with your mind. It is by far the most important part of your overall health.
Your mental health is what leads the rest of your health components. Think of it as the captain of your health ship.
Prioritizing your mental health at the top of your list is key to becoming a healthy nurse.
As the front runner and what drives the rest of your body’s overall health, strong mental health will reap so many benefits.
Physical Health
It’s a well-known fact that moving your body and exercising are pillars to a healthy lifestyle. Nurses who take care of their physical health become better healthcare providers. Being physically healthy leads to a clearer mind, an increase in self-confidence, and stronger self-discipline. These benefits spread into the work of a nurse, allowing nurses to feel happier and more in tune with their skills.
The number one reason people do not want to exercise is because they do not know what to do. Lifting a few dumbbells and running on the treadmill here and there will not build any type of routine or consistency, two things you need to see changes in your physical health.
Learn how to get fit as a nurse in my blog post here!
Emotional Health
Emotional health is how you react to situations and control the way you feel about them.
Nurses go through a lot of emotions on a daily. They witness a variety of things, from trauma, to loss, to new life, to second chances, and so much more. Oftentimes, it can be a combination of these in one day. Talk about an emotional roller coaster!
With that being said, taking care of emotional health is fundamental for self-awareness and overall contentment. Having good emotional health does not mean being happy all the time. It means you know how to manage the sorrow, the excitement, or the anger in a healthy, appropriate way.
Barriers To Being a Healthy Nurse
Living a healthy lifestyle as a nurse certainly takes a lot of work and breaking barriers. Most of these barriers come with jobs themselves. There is no “perfect nursing job” out there that has great hours, low workload, high pay, and all of those wonderful things. Barriers that make it difficult to be a healthy nurse will exist in every nursing job.
Heavy Workload + Minimal Rewards
Nursing is a demanding career, full of juggling numerous tasks at once, quick thinking, and the repercussions of staff shortages.
With all of this workload, there still exists a lack of formal rewards. Bonuses and raises are uncommon in the nursing world, and there is just no logic in that, to be quite frank. It’s infuriating for nurses, which just adds to their stress levels.
Tough Work Schedule
Healthcare is needed 24/7/365, and that will never change in the world. A tough work schedule simply comes with being a nurse.
Of course, you can work for outpatient centers or offices that have better working hours. However, a large portion of the world’s nurses works in hospital settings, where the work schedule can be all over the place.
Living a healthy lifestyle as a nurse when working odd shifts, such as the night shift, can be very difficult.
Compassion Fatigue
Compassion fatigue is a type of stress that results from taking on the suffering of patients and trying to feel what they feel.
Nurses are dealing with other people’s pain and trauma day in and day out. There comes a point when compassion fatigue sets in, and it is one of the toughest barriers to a healthy lifestyle.
Compassion fatigue affects nurses and is often described as the “cost of caring”. Personally, that sounds super dismissive, but I get the underlying meaning. Caring so much and dedicating your career to it must have a downfall; it’s just how life works. Compassion fatigue is that downfall.
Creating healthy lifestyle changes when you take on the suffering of patients can feel extremely difficult.
Why Nurses Should Be Healthy
The ANA defines a healthy nurse as one who “actively focuses on creating and maintaining a balance and synergy of physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, personal, and professional wellbeing.”
When nurses are healthy, they will reap so many benefits in their personal and professional lives.
A Fulfilling Career
A healthy lifestyle allows nurses to have a more meaningful and intentional career. With a clear mind and a strong body, a human can feel damn near invincible.
When nurses are healthy, they can feel like no issue is too big for them to tackle. As mentioned before, a sense of confidence and discipline is built which crosses over into the workplace.
Nurses deserve a fulfilling career and to truly enjoy what they do.
So much of healthcare is broken and corrupted, and it has caused so many nurses to despise the profession and even leave the field.
It truly makes me upset that the system has failed us in this way, but that can be turned into fuel that propels nurses to work on themselves.
Less Nursing Errors
Making healthy lifestyle changes can lead to fewer nursing errors.
A cluttered mind, a sluggish mood and a constant lack of energy are contributors to making medical errors on the job.
When nurses are unhealthy, their thoughts have a harder time staying organized, and they are quick to react instead of respond.
I’m going to be honest. I have seen a stark difference in my own work output from the time I was not taking care of myself to the time I was. It truly was like night and day.
The times I wasn’t taking care of myself, I was more apathetic towards patients, I intentionally did not give it my all because I didn’t have the energy to, and I never felt fulfilled in my career.
Fast forward to when I started taking care of myself (beginning of 2020), things started to look up. Even though I was in a job that was going south due to extremely poor management, I was taking care of myself which kept me sane. It kept me grounded and gave me the strength and power to leave what was not serving me and find what worked for me.
The power in health is indescribable.
Become Better Role Models
Nurses are quick to become role models because there are always new nurses being onboarded and seeking advice from others.
A healthy nurse who practices frequent self-care and healthy behaviors can serve as a strong and reliable role model. I mean who doesn’t want to be healthy and live a fulfilling life? Everyone wants it, it’s just the getting there part that seems extremely hard.
Becoming better role models can impact so many lives for the better. The influence a healthy nurse has on not only patients but other nurses and peers go a long way.
How Nurses Can Promote Healthy Behaviors For Themselves
A Determined Mindset
As mentioned before, everything you do in life starts with your mind.
You have to think before you act if you want to act with intention and purpose. A determined mindset is key in adding in health-promoting behaviors. I will go through various health-promoting behaviors, but you first have to prioritize the mindset and commit. Only you can decide what your life looks like. Only you can make these changes!
Staying Organized
People can reach success in nearly anything they want to do with two things: organization + consistency.
It is really hard to stay consistent with something if you have to go through hurdles to reach it.
Add in the organization, and it becomes a whole lot easier. When you are trying to stick to a healthy habit, make plans and organize your actions.
Types Of Health-Promoting Behaviors
Prioritizing Nutrition
Nurses cannot make important decisions or show up with their best foot forward if they do not FUEL themselves with good nutrition.
Proper food intake= fuel. It is how we can function in our best form.
Rushing to work without breakfast, starving until 3 PM and grabbing the closest snack, and then sluggishly going home just to order take-out before bed is not going to fuel the mind and body.
In fact, it will damage it, making it more and more difficult to be focused and energized during the workday.
Eating healthy meals + snacks throughout the day are necessities to performing your best.
Scheduling Tasks
Nurses have countless things to remember and complete throughout the day.
One way to help minimize stress and organize thoughts is to schedule your tasks.
Scheduling your tasks can be done in many ways, such as using simple post-its to write down tasks, setting reminders on your phone, or typing them up on your work computer. Trial and error your way into finding what works for you.
There is no “one-size-fits-all” method to schedule your tasks, but once you find something you can stick to, keep on doing it day in and day out until it becomes a habit.
Task scheduling takes off so much stress on the mind and helps minimize what can look like a daunting amount of work.
Finding The Right Fitness Program
Finding the right form of movement that can become sustainable for you will help lead you to a healthy lifestyle.
The key here is sustainability. You want to find a workout you enjoy, even if you enjoy it a little. That’s better than doing something you really dislike but think it’s the right thing to do.
There is no one, right fitness program. There is only the right fitness program for you. You are not the man or woman next door, and because of your uniqueness and individuality, a fitness program has to fit your lifestyle and personality.
The Tone and Sculpt app was created by Krissy Cela, and the brilliance of the app is that it caters to home workouts, yoga, strength training, etc. There is something for everyone! On top of that, Krissy is a very relatable, genuine person.
I get nothing for promoting this app, and I’m sharing it because I genuinely love it and give it so much credit in transforming my life. I have been using it for 2 years now, and absolutely LOVE it. Try it out for free for the first 2 weeks!
Try it out and see which program and movements make you feel your best. If you absolutely dread cardio, don’t do cardio. Do not force what doesn’t feel right, because there is something right for you out there.
Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation
The ANA created an incredible campaign in 2021 called “Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation”. This campaign’s focus is to promote nurses to take better care of themselves which, in turn, creates a healthy nation! It has formed a community of nurses who share tips and ideas on health-promoting behaviors.
They created a fabulous video that depicts the absolute importance of nurses taking care of themselves, which in turn helps them take better care of their patients. Patients that are better-taken care of equals a healthier nation.
One of the best parts about being a nurse is the community nurses tend to form. Nurses are naturally big-hearted and love to share, so a community that focuses on promoting self-care and healthy behaviors is a powerful thing.
You can join this campaign and get all of the latest discussions, challenges, tips, and more by visiting the campaign’s main page!
Final Thoughts On Being a Healthy Nurse
These tips on how to make healthy lifestyle changes and practice health-promoting behaviors for nurses is not only beneficial for nurses themselves, but for everyone surrounding them!
When nurses live a healthy lifestyle, they can be better individuals, show up to work feeling good and return home feeling good. This is what it can be like for you if you implement these healthy behaviors.
Related Articles:
10 Effective Ways To Get Fit As A Nurse
Nursing Can Be Anxiety-Inducing. Here’s How to Help You Get Through It
How to Stop Bringing Work Stress Home
Healthy Tips For a Night Shift Nurse
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