Stress Management for Nurses is a short booklet published by the NSW Nurses Association. It has been written by a group of mental health nurses to provide some simple reflective exercises and strategies to manage stress in our workplace.

( It is ) a fact that in their daily work nurses confront emotional and professional demands that are unimaginable to the wider community.  Let’s face it: spending your working life taking responsibility for the quality of people’s lives and their deaths is a heavy burden, even for the broadest of shoulders. Nurses have a habit of putting the needs of our patients ahead of our own.  The community regards us as tough, able to cope in all situations, resilient, always caring, loyal to our patients, dedicated, committed, the list goes on. These expectations are put on us by society, managers, organisations and sometimes ourselves.  How do we as nurses react to these demands, what choices do we have and how do we put ourselves first?

Stress Management for Nurses discusses some so-called cognitive-behavioural interventions which are based on the theory that our emotions and behaviours are governed more by our thoughts about a particular event than the actual event itself.

By modifying our usual reactive thougths and learning to respond with a new line of thinking, we can begin changing the way we perceive and feel about these life situations.

The the workbook looks into many of the common forms of reactive thinking such as:

• Black and White thinking.
• Filtering.
• Overgeneralising.
• Mind reading.
• Fortune telling.
• Personalising.

It then works through a series of exercises exploring your own processes and beliefs surrounding stressful situations and strategies for replacing them with more realistic responses.
It also presents some simple breathing and relaxation techniques that can be utilized throughout the day.

Stress Management for Nurses is short, easy to read, and  presents a very useful tool that should be opened by many (read as: most) nurses on a quiet evening of reflection and self-exploration.

Download: Stress Management for Nurses as a free pdf file.

And whilst you are in the mood for some deep reflection…. don’t forget the free impactednurse ebook:
How to BE a Nurse.