Professional Self-Care Guidance

In the context of health, “self-care” means an individual’s ability to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness or disability without the intervention of a healthcare worker. According to the International Self-Care Foundation, it includes activities that help people understand their own health information and manage their own health.

Professional Self-Care Guidance  a wide range of behaviors and activities from socializing with friends to taking a break every 90 minutes to focus on nothing. It also encompasses mental health practices like decluttering the mind and engaging in activities such as crossword puzzles. It also involves identifying and managing stress. It includes coping strategies, such as breathing exercises and practicing mindfulness. It can also be as simple as making a mental note to take a step away from work for lunch or scheduling time in your calendar to relax and unwind.

The Art of Balance: Understanding the Importance of Personal Boundaries

Nursing can be emotionally taxing. Nurses often experience the highs of helping patients succeed and the lows of watching patient conditions deteriorate or losing touch with clients who have become part of your work community. It’s important to make sure you have a healthy emotional outlet and support system, both professionally and personally.

Professional self-care is a process of using habits, systems, and communities to make your work life sustainable. It usually happens after a work crisis and involves debriefing the situation and creating a strategy to ensure that similar crises in the future remain briefly uncomfortable problems.