How To Cope With Stress When You Are A Travel Nurse

When one accepts a job in nursing, they go into it knowing they’re going to be under more stress than other career fields. However, many accept it as just part of their career choice. Unfortunately, for traveling nurses, the stress can be overwhelming. By having some go-to methods for coping with stress in your back pocket, you’ll be more capable of maintaining positive mental health throughout all of the jobs that you take in the future.

Create A Basic Routine You Can Stick To

One of the biggest factors that can elevate anyone’s stress level is not having a routine. While your routine may be shifted for a day or two while you travel, it shouldn’t completely change over the long-term. Your basic routine should look like adequate sleep, healthy meals, regular exercise, and having a relax and recharge time.

While the travel nurse jobs in New York only with other states that you take will have varying hours, you can still work around the new schedule to include your basic routine. Sleep should always be your number one priority. Everyone’s sleep hygiene looks a little different from the next person’s. You need to figure out what works for you. This could be blackout curtains and white noise. This could be meditating or reading before sleep. Just take the time to discover what works best for you and follow it regularly.

When you’re on the go, it can be easy to grab unhealthy meals. Take some time to plan ahead so that you know what options to choose when you’re on the go. Apart from retaining a healthy diet, you’ll also want to exercise regularly. This will help to reinvigorate your body and melt away stress. Lastly, a relax and recharge component needs to be included in your daily routine. This can be a number of activities, including yoga, meditation, journaling, and even a calming hobby.

Strive To Make New Connections

When you’re feeling stressed, the last thing that you likely want to do is exert effort to make new connections. However, it’s what you really need to do. When you make new connections, it helps to take your mind off the stresses of your life and indulge in learning about another person’s life.

It could be attending a local group event or just meeting up with other co-workers after a long shift. Say “yes” to going and try to enjoy yourself. You’ll find that the necessary time away from the norm that you’ve created does your mind good. Suddenly, you’ll start to put more of your own causes of stress into a more realistic viewpoint. It’s easy to think that our problem is gigantic. But, through evaluating what others are going through, we can easily realize just how minimal our stressors are.

Plan Something New To Do On Your Day Offs

When you’re under a lot of stress, you’re likely waiting for your next day off to relax and recoup. Unfortunately, doing nothing on your day off can actually add to your stress. This is because you’ll find that you spend your whole day off stressing about yourself. This is a vicious cycle that you’ll need to break.

Take a few moments in your downtime on workdays to decide something fun to do on your off days. This may be something simple like walking through a local park or taking a hiking trail through a state forest. You may want to hit up a couple of local shops to purchase some new clothes. Or you can attend an open yoga class at a local studio. Just pick something that requires you to go somewhere new. You’ll be so focused on the new area that you’ll forget about your stress.

Have A Go-To Comfort Activity

There’s no doubt that travel nurse jobs in New York can come with a lot of daily stress. If you find that your stress is compounding and it feels unbearable, you need to have a comfort activity to calm you. This particular activity is going to be different for every individual. But, it’s important that you discover what your comfort activity is so that you can do it at times of high stress.

For some, this may be going for a 10-minute walk to let off some physical tension. For others, it could be going inside of themselves to quiet their mind via meditation. You may find that calling a loved one to discuss the biggest stressors in your life is the way to go. Or, you may just need to listen to your stress-buster playlist. Whatever helps to drop your stress level instantly or in a short period of time can be considered your comfort activity. Remember it because you’re going to need it.

Stay Organized

Each traveling nurse will soon learn that organization is the key to alleviating a lot of the stress that comes along with this particular career field. After your first few assignments, you should have a good feel for what tasks need to be accomplished and when. Start by taking some time to organize how you perform different aspects of the job.

The first area will be applying for jobs. You should have your application ready to go and have a calendar for when you need to start applying for future jobs. Next, you’ll want to have your search criteria so that you can easily scan through the job listings and find the ones that fit you best. Lastly, you’ll want to have a strategy for dealing with setting up your new short-term home. This includes everything from obtaining the appropriate state license to booking lodging. By having a strategy for each area, you’ll know exactly what you need to do for each job, and you’ll have less stress preparing for it.

Coping with stress is a skill that everyone needs to learn. There are many different ways to do so, and what works best for you may be different than what works best for others. As a start, try out the coping strategies above and keep the ones that work best for your stress levels.