Hope Starts Here: A 3-Minute Daily Reset for the Exhausted Nurse

Most nurses come home from work pretty exhausted.  

The question is, do you come home exhausted or EXHAUSTED EXHAUSTED? You may know the answer right away but have you given any thought to the difference between the two; the difference between regular, “expected” exhaustion versus emotional exhaustion? 

Many of us feel emotionally exhausted on a regular basis. It seeps into other parts of our lives. Unfortunately, it doesn’t just evaporate when we get out of the car after a long day of work.

Emotional exhaustion doesn’t feel like something you can solve for.. After all, it isn’t that you hate your job or our coworkers, it isn’t that you don’t like the interaction with patients, it isn’t that you don’t feel confident in the care you give. Because of this, it can be hard to identify what IS causing the emotional exhaustion. Some nurses ultimately conclude that something must be wrong with them.

Emotional exhaustion + self-judgement = burnout

Do you know what burnout feels like?

It feels like being disconnected from the work you do or from your team.

It feels like difficulty sleeping and lack of energy both in and out of work.

It feels like a lack of control.

It feels like being too tired to care anymore.

It feels like fatigue, irritability, loss of purpose and loss of interest.

It feels like not being able to help yourself.

The key is not waiting for all these things to be true before taking action. The key is prevention and early intervention.

There are multiple approaches to prevention and treatment of emotional exhaustion but sometimes we need to start with a really small step; something that won’t feel like one more obligation, something that we can see positive returns on quickly.

If you feel like you may be losing yourself to emotional exhaustion, I invite you to try this. 

At the end of the day, either before you walk in the door after work or before you go to bed, try this 3 minute strategy.

Get a piece of paper and a pen or open a new note on your phone.

Take 2 long slow breaths.

Now for three minutes only, make a list of all the things that worked out or went well today at work. 

Don’t be surprised if you feel some resistance to this, your first impulse will be to think of all the things that went wrong- this is the normal human response- but we aren’t looking to be normal humans, we are looking to be proactively happy and fulfilled nurses.

It doesn’t have to be life shattering things. Here is my list from yesterday.

• I got to work with my favorite coworker.

• The providers I work with really care about the patients.

• I had the answers/knowledge I needed to care for my patients. 

• I was able to compassionately help a patient take the first steps towards weaning their medication..

• I had brought a healthy lunch and time to eat it.

• Having the ability to do telehealth allowed me to see a patient who was sick and couldn’t get to the office.

• I finished all the prior authorization paperwork so that patients can get their medications

• I was able to spend some time with a patient with a new cancer diagnosis.

• I was able to fit someone in who had new onset shingles and needed immediate help.

We know the importance of evaluation when measuring patient interventions, the same holds true for making positive change in our own lives. 

Here the intervention IS the evaluation.

The intervention is giving equal airtime to the things that ARE going well at work. I could have told you all the things that didn’t go well yesterday, all the struggles, annoyances and stressors. Recapping these adds to emotional exhaustion.

I don’t want to suffer from emotional exhaustion and I know you don’t either.

Working in healthcare, there is always some component of the day that went well, some part that had a positive impact on someone’s life, a part where people work together for the common good.

You are part of that. 

We want to come home tired from a job well-done, not emotionally exhausted. 

And it can all start with one simple list. 

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If you need someone to help you come back from burnout, to recover from emotional exhaustion, please reach out. Coaching did this for me and I know it can do it for you too. Message me at Megan@NursingBeyondtheJob.com and we can set up a time. You don’t have to suffer from the work you do.