You want your nurses to feel and perform their best. To do so, it is paramount to implement strategies for supporting nurses’ physical, mental, and emotional health. You can use these strategies to ensure your nurses get plenty of support. Plus, the strategies can help your nurses maintain a healthy work-life balance.
There are many strategies you can use to support your nurses’ overall wellbeing. These include:
1. Promote Exercise and Healthy Eating
Exercise can make a difference, as it triggers the release of endorphins — aka “feel-good hormones — in the brain. To promote exercise, you can provide your nurses with access to an on-site gym. Or, you can give gym membership discounts or other similar incentives.
Along with exercise, healthy eating is crucial. If you want your nurses to eat healthy, you can add a wide range of healthy snacks in your kitchen or break room. Offering these snacks free of charge can help your nurses save money and eat healthily.
2. Teach Your Nurses About Burnout
Nurses are prone to burnout. They can experience fatigue, depression, and other burnout symptoms without realizing why these issues are occurring. However, with a clear understanding of burnout and its associated dangers, you can help your nurses guard against such issues.
Provide your nurses with tools and resources to explain burnout. Be accessible and ready to respond to any concerns or questions your nurses have about burnout as well.
If a nurse reports burnout symptoms, provide assistance. You can work with the nurse to determine how you can help them manage their workload to reduce burnout. Also, you can encourage the nurse to consult with a doctor so they can work with a medical professional to address their burnout symptoms.
3. Foster Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence
Self-awareness refers to a person’s ability to focus on and understand their actions, thoughts, and emotions. Meanwhile, emotional intelligence is the capacity for someone to manage their emotions and handle interpersonal relationships with empathy and care.
Both self-awareness and emotional intelligence can help nurses cope with stressors. By fostering self-awareness and emotional intelligence among your nursing staff, you can help your nurses manage problems like never before.
Training programs can help you introduce the concepts of self-awareness and emotional intelligence to your nursing staff. You can then open discussions with your nurses about both topics. This can help your nurses become self-aware and build emotional intelligence. Over time, your nurses may be well-equipped to resolve conflicts before they impact their physical, mental, and emotional health.
The Bottom Line on Strategies for Supporting Nurses’ Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health
Strategies for supporting nurses’ physical, mental, and emotional health are essential. You can develop and execute these strategies right away. From here, you can monitor the results. You can also get feedback from your nurses and continue to look for ways to improve these strategies.
Lastly, BOS Medical Staffing can help you find quality nursing professionals to join your team. For more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today.
