So you want to be a nurse and are thinking about the nursing school supplies you will need. First of all, congratulations! You are embarking into an incredible profession, filled with an enormous amount of career opportunities. As a nurse, you will give back to your communities, help patients during some of the most challenging times of their lives, help the sick regain their health, relieve patient’s pain, and even save lives. You will learn to be a healer in your community.
But to learn as a student nurse, there are several nursing school supplies and tools that you will need to have. Most of the nurse essentials on this list, you will be able to continue to use after you graduate and throughout your career as a nurse. So it is crucial to think of this list as an investment towards your entire career in nursing – not just as items you will use short-term.
Try to stay as organized as you can and remember to take good care of yourself (just as you will be instructing your patients to do!). Without further ado, here is the essential list of the top 30+ nursing school supplies you will need for your nursing education.
(This list includes affiliate links. See our disclosure page here.)
The Top 30+ Nursing School Supplies: The Ultimate List
One of the most important supplies for nursing students is the stethoscope. You will be required to have one with you for all clinical rotations and skills labs.
Whether you are trying to obtain a manual blood pressure or listening to lung sounds, every nurse needs to have a quality stethoscope. I bought a 3M Littmann Classic in nursing school, and I have been using it ever since. They are available in many different colors and have a non-chill rim, so your cold stethoscope doesn’t you don’t shock your patients and make them uncomfortable.
It is a good idea to label all of your nursing supplies, especially ones that are more expensive.
With so many nursing students carrying stethoscopes into skills labs and clinical rotations at the hospital, it is effortless to get yours mixed up with another nurse. Having a stethoscope identification badge is the best way to prevent this.
Keep your stethoscope in a designated place where it will stay clean and in good condition. A stethoscope case helps to keep your scope clean and in good working condition throughout an entire nursing career.
Scrubs are the universal uniform for nurses for a good reason. They are very comfortable, designed for long hours of work, allow for easy assess to tools (with pockets), and they are durable to withstand frequent washing,
Most schools require that students all wear the same color of scrubs. Fortunately, every brand of scrubs has a variety of different scrubs to choose from.
The key to being a successful nursing student is staying organized and being prepared to learn. The nurse clipboard is an essential nursing student supply to keep your confidential documents and medical notes with you. Nursing clipboards also give you something to write on while getting a shift report or while in a patient’s room. They also help you store needed writing tools, such as your retractable pen or highlighter.
Students in the clinical setting need a way to get to their nursing supplies fast. The fanny pack is a great solution for this. You can keep it with you each clinical rotation to carry several nurse supplies, including trauma shears, alcohol swabs, pens, a penlight, notes, and extra needles and syringes. Also, having a “nurse hip pack” can help prevent nurses from having to make additional trips back to the supply room for things they might have forgotten.
For some nursing students, the fanny pack may feel too bulky. If that is the case for you may want to consider getting a pocket organizer to store needed nursing school supplies and tools. Knowing you have the essentials you need within your reach at all times will not only keep you calmer in stressful situations, but you will appear more professional to boot.
Color-coding your notes can be a helpful way for nursing students to memorize terminology, medications, anatomy, or NCLEX test preparation.
Retractable 4 color pens are also great for color-coding your work notes or written patient information. Also, having retractable pens are lovely to have for when you are studying for certifications! You can keep a few in your workbag, pocket organizer, or fanny pack.
The penlight is a staple nursing student tool for assessments. You will need a nurse penlight for assessing extraocular movements. And these are especially great because they have pupil sizes right on the pen for a more accurate assessment. You can’t complete a neurological exam correctly without them.
Learning how to start IV’s as a nursing student is one of the most challenging skills to learn. It takes a lot of practice, but over time your skills will improve. A vein finder is a helpful tool for nursing students to visualize a vein, so you know exactly where your target is. The vein finder is also a helpful learning tool in the classroom where you can take turns observing, feeling for vessels, and using the vein finder to help visualize where you are going to insert your needle.
Nursing students must learn how to organize their patient’s information cohesively during clinical rotations. The nurse report sheet notebook helps you keep your patient’s information organized and in one place. These brain sheets include areas for: vital signs, medication times, assessment notes, labs, patient history, and space for free text and notes. Nurse report sheet notebooks also make a great gift for new graduate nursing students.
The laptop computer is an essential nursing supply for obvious reasons. But your education in the nursing profession will go far beyond the classroom and continue throughout your whole career.
Nurses are lifelong learners. Not long after nursing school, you will be achieving advanced certifications within your specialty, and possibly get an MSN or doctoral degree in nursing. To do that, you need a dependable laptop computer to do your work.
The Apple Watch is a stopwatch, a timer, and allows you to set the alarm to remind yourself of tasks as a nursing student in the hospital setting. It also makes it possible to receive and send text messages without having to use your cell phone on the unit.
But what many nurses love most about the Apple Watch is that it records how much you stand, exercise, and move throughout your shift (it breaks them down into colorful rings). You will also know how many total steps you walked during your clinical rotations.
The Apple Watch is a great nursing school tool that will serve you well into your nursing career, both professionally and from a personal health standpoint.
If the Apple Watch is too expensive, consider getting a less expensive watch with a second hand. Having a second-hand makes it possible for nursing students to track important patient vital signs such as respiratory and heart rate.
As most ER nurses will attest, the Raptor Shears are one of the greatest nursing student supplies to have. And that you will use them throughout your entire career (these have a 25-year limited warranty).
Raptor Shears are very functional, and handy shears are six tools wrapped into one, including medical shears, strap cutter, ring cutter, ruler, oxygen tank wrench, and carbide glass breaker.
You can hook raptor shears to a belt or secure it to your scrubs using the pocket clip.
Hand sanitizer is the number one nursing student supply for preventing the spread of infection. As a nursing student, you will wash your hand’s dozens of times a day and often use hand sanitizer in-between. Travel hand sanitizers are always great to have in your nursing bag at all times.
With nurses washing their hands so frequently every shift, it is no wonder that so many suffer from dry skin. Whenever possible, use hand lotion to prevent dry, chapped hands and protect the barrier of your skin. Many nurses keep extra in their nursing bags and car to use whenever they remember.
Highlighters are a useful nursing school supply for organizing and memorizing medical terminology and studying for exams. You can even hook these on your badge reel to have handy and make sure you don’t lose them.
Keep a portable nursing drug handbook to make it easy to find the most vital information on the drugs that you administer as a nurse most frequently. This is an excellent tool for helping you learn more about medications while you are on the go and help keep your patients safe.
You can also lookup generic and trade names for drugs, find black box warnings, understand safety information for medications, and help you teach patients about potential side effects of medications.
Many nursing students don’t drink nearly enough water and end up going home after class or clinical rotations wholly dehydrated. Therefore, a great sealable water bottle is an essential nursing student essential to always keep with you.
The Hydro Flask Water Bottle is a high-quality water bottle that can be used for many years and still look brand new. It is made out of food-grade stainless steel and is BPA free. Also, it has excellent insulation, which prevents condensation from forming on the outside of the bottle.
But the best part about the Hydro Flask Water Bottle is the TempShield Insulation, which keeps beverages at the same temperature for many hours (hot drinks for 6 hours & cold drinks for up to 24 hours!).
Regular coffee mugs can spill in the classroom or clinical setting. It is important to have a mug with a sealable lid.
The Hydro Flask coffee mug is a popular nursing school essential for those who are pulling all-nighters to finish papers or cramming for exams. It has a leak-proof lid (when closed) for on-the-go activities. Also, drinks stay hot up to 7 hours and cold up to 18 hours with vacuum insulation.
There are a lot of supplies that nursing students need to keep with them: ID, wallet, pens, highlighters, a computer, notebooks, planners, or other personal items that you might need. A great nursing bag will help you keep all of your nursing school supplies in one place, so you don’t forget anything at home.
Having a badge holder makes it easy for you to display your ID to patients and other staff members in the hospital. Badge holders allow you to let others know who you are, and they don’t get in the way of your work the way lanyards do. There are also several personalized options to choose from.
If you are a nursing student, then you should get used to wearing compression on your legs now. Compression socks are so beneficial for nurses and students because they prevent or reduce varicose veins, they improve blood flow, and they decrease the risk of blood clots. Many nurses even say that wearing compressions socks make their legs feel lighter, even after a shift.
Many nursing students learn very quickly that they need to prepare and pack their food for two reasons – hospital food usually isn’t delicious, and packing a healthy lunch in advance ensures that the nurse will eat healthier throughout their shift. Otherwise, when lunch comes, and they are stressed and tired from studying, there is a chance they might reach for more unhealthy choices.
You can keep your ‘lunch bag” habit well into your career as a nurse as well. Use a lunch bag that is waterproof, leak-proof, super easy to clean, and lightweight.
Nursing students must have great shoes because not having them can be an occupational hazard. Hospital floors are regularly being cleaned in between patients, and there are occasional spills that can sometimes result in unintended nurse falls.
Nursing shoes also need to give great support, protect your back, reduce stress on joints, and be comfortable to wear for long periods.
A sphygmomanometer is a tool that nursing students can use to take manual blood pressure measurements and to have an accurate, reliable instrument to diagnose hypertension accurately. This is a great nursing school supply because it is so important to know how to take a manual blood pressure if you need to. Many experienced nurses forget because they haven’t done one in so many years.
Clogs are a staple of the nursing student uniform. They can provide better support to help them minimize foot, ankle, knee, and back pain, which is very important as nurses can spend long hours on their feet with little downtime.
Many nursing students (as well as experienced nurses) will switch off between clogs and other sturdy nurse shoes.
Your hospital will have a specific type of thermometer that you must use on patients. But as students and nurses, it is great to have a way to monitor a patient’s vital signs if we ever find ourselves in an emergency away from the hospital. Having an infrared thermometer is a great non-invasive way to monitor a temperature away from the hospital.
The pulse oximeter is a non-invasive method for monitoring a person’s oxygen saturation. If you work in a hospital or other healthcare facility, you will use your facility’s pulse oximeters. However, many nurses have a supply kit in case they need to check a patient’s vital signs in an emergency away from the healthcare setting, in which case, a mobile pulse oximeter is a great tool to have.
Going to nursing school is a challenge (many say its the hardest thing they have ever done!), but if you work hard and have the right nursing school supplies you need to succeed, you will excel in your studies and make a great nurse. Stay organized, keep learning, and take care of yourself in the process – the same way you will be taking care of your patients.
Most of all, know that you are a valuable contributor to what has been considered the most trusted profession for decades – nursing. Best of luck to you, student nurse!
A sports shoe designed with the needs of nurses in mind?
There are thousands of different types of shoes on the market designed for various athletes.
But until now, sports shoes didn’t exist for nurses. (Even though the physicality required to be a nurse can be just as strenuous as any other athletic performance – but without the recognition).
The Nike Air Zoom Pulse is here and will be the first athletic performance shoe for medical professionals.
Nike Air Zoom Pulse: Nike Shoes For Nurses & Other Medical Professionals
Nursing is a sport of its own
It requires the same hustle, grit, and tenacity that many athletes are portrayed as having every single day in the media. But its more than just sweat and tears – nurses are also saving lives and helping humankind in the process.
There are 3 million nurses in the United States – many struggle with chronic foot pain, back pain, and generalized pain as a result of the intensity of our careers. Primarily because, as nurses, we are on our feet for so many hours a day.
In fact, as an Emergency Room nurse, I am always standing and moving for 12 hours a shift. And after only seven years in the profession, I am already struggling with chronic back and knee pain.
The Nike Air Zoom Pulse shoes: occupational hazard prevention for nurses?
Nike says this shoe is for the everyday hero: nurses, doctors, home health providers and other medical professionals who are working round-the-clock to provide patient care.
At first glance, the shoe appears to be a hybrid of a cross trainer and a clog – making it easy to slip on and off, but still sturdy like a tennis shoe.
They are lace-less, which most nurses can appreciate. Working in the hospital setting means coming in contact with fluids and nasty germs – and shoelaces are impossible to get clean.
Also, Nike states on its website that the upper section of the shoes have a protective coating, which makes them easy to clean.
Working in the hospital setting can get slippery
It is no surprise that not wearing a slip-resistant nursing shoe is an occupational hazard for nurses. We are frequently walking around on hard and sometimes wet surfaces. The floors are regularly being cleaned in between patients, and there are occasional spills that can sometimes result in unintended falls.
It happens so frequently that some facilities even pay for nurses to receive a new pair of nursing shoes every six months! In turn, this helps protect nurses from injuries that could have otherwise resulted in an injury and disability from work.
The #1 feature of these shoes that caught my attention was how NIKE is promoting them to be especially slip-resistant on hard surfaces, such as hospital floors. (I once slipped in a patients room and sprained my ankle when I was wearing running shoes that I had been wearing for only a month).
The NIKE Air Zoom Pulse shoe: designed with medical professionals in mind and engineers even worked one-on-one with nurses in the hospital setting during development.
Product testing with nurses in a hospital
What I appreciate most about what I have read about this shoe is that it has been tested on actual medical professionals during working hours at a hospital. All of their product testing was done at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital located in Portland, Oregon. The NIKE Air Zoom Pulse designers worked with nurses in the healthcare environment to create a shoe that works for long stretches of standing and quick movement when emergencies strike.
Can a shoe be both comfortable for long stretches of standing and versatile enough to support the fast movements required in emergencies? The NIKE website states that the Air Zoom Pulse shoes have the following features
Easy to get on and off
Super simple to clean
Have the right cushioning and traction to secure the foot in all hospital conditions
Slip-resistant “water dispersive traction”
Nike Air Zoom Pulse: game-changer for the nurse athletes?
Time will tell how well these perform on nurses, but I am very interested in finding out. The release date for the Nike Air Zoom Pulse is on December 6, 2019. It is perfectly timed for right before the holidays.
If you are a medical professional who has wear shoes in the workplace, please share your thoughts!
There are a whole lot of NEW nurse bloggers and influencers showing up in 2020.
Many nurses are doing more than just working at the bedside these days. In fact, there are a few taking the interweb by storm as nurse bloggers and healthcare writers.
But many of the best nurse bloggers I follow these days aren’t always necessarily writing about nursing, or even healthcare, for that matter. They have their own unique brands and personalities – and many intertwine both their personal and professional lives within their online businesses.
To make this list, the nurse influencer needed to also have their own self-hosted website in addition to their other social media handles. It’s wonderful to be an Instagram sensation, but it’s also important to have a home base (er, blog!) to call your home. (After all, that is the only platform out there that you can actually own).
Here were a few other things taken into consideration:
Interesting topic selection
Original content ideas (there is a lot of regurgitation out there!)
Has at least one self-hosted website to match their brand
Consistent publication
On multiple social media handles
Check out these amazing nurse bloggers you may not have heard of yet!
Sarah K. Wells, MSN, RN, is the founder and innovator at NewThingNurse.com. Her passion is to help nurses of all ages, specialties, and experience levels harness that power to accomplish their academic, professional, and personal goals through supportive coaching and advisement.
As part of her book of business, Sarah also offers social media consulting and 1:1 content writing coaching.
In addition, Sarah is a nationwide educational and motivational speaker on many subjects, including finding your first job as a new grad, keeping your nursing career fresh, workplace violence, mock code creation, RNs and social media use, and bridging generational gaps within the nursing profession.
Sarah is an emergency room nurse who, you guessed it, loves a farmer. She frequently writes about her life raising three little boys on their family farm while managing her career as a nurse.
Sarah’s niche topics include farming, home-cooked recipes, family life, all things motherhood, and photography. She is very active and has a large following on Instagram and Facebook.
In addition, she has contributed to the Huffington Post, Yummy Mummy Club, Parent-Tested Parent-Approved (PTPA) websites, as well as The Western Producer. She also previously wrote for Rocky Mountain Equipment’s internal newsletter and is a regular contributor to Grainews Magazine.
Nikki, an ICU nurse and yoga instructor, is the creator of Nurse Tribe, a website dedicated to helping nurses overcome burnout through yoga and meditation.
On her website, she teaches nurses how to stress less, stay fit and cultivate holistic wellness from within. She offers helpful guides for self-care goal setting and actionable videos to help improve the physical and mental health of nurses, both in and out of scrubs.
Damion Jenkins, RN, MSN, is the CEO of The Nurse Speak, a boutique nursing education and consulting company. He specializes in creating individualized consulting, mentoring, and tutoring services for nursing students, new graduate nurses, other healthcare program students, and healthcare-related companies.
Jenkins was also a speaker at the 2019 National Nurses in Business Association. He spoke about “building your brand identity from idea to reality.” So not only is he an interesting nurse influencer to follow, but he’s teaching other nurse creators to do the same.
Carol Bush, RN, BSN, is a self-described “crazy Memah” and woman of many talents: oncology RN, podcast host, writing coach, connector, healthcare writer, and entrepreneur.
As co-host of The Savvy Scribe Podcast, she provides business-building strategies, systems, and success stories for high-performing health writers to her students in The Savvy Scribe Tribe.
One thing that makes Carol especially unique is how she is encouraging many retiring nurses to take on “high-performing healthcare writing” as an encore career.
Janine Kelbach, a labor and delivery nurse of 13 years, is the creator of Write RN, a business platform for coaching nurses on how to become successful healthcare writers. She is also a co-host of the Savvy Scribe Podcast, where she provides business-building strategies, systems, and success stories for high-performing health writers to her students in The Savvy Scribe Tribe.
Kelbach started writing for different healthcare blogs and websites in 2012. Currently, Janine is currently writing articles and social media content for publishing companies and various clients, including Motherly, parenting websites, and online nursing magazines.
(You can find more of Janine’s work and janinekelbach.contenly.com).
Emma is a Clinical Nurse Specialist who works rotating shifts as an emergency room nurse, as well as a primary nurse blogger for their website, The Other Shift. Her husband, Dan, is the backbone of all things “techy” in the business.
Together, Emma and Dan created The Other Shift, a blog dedicated to helping shift workers manage sleep fatigue, find time for exercise, stay healthy, and find the right balance between ‘you time’ and managing relationships.
On their website, you can find helpful courses, survival guides, meal plans, and advice for nurses who want to find control in having an irregular schedule.
Sarah, BSN, RN, is an emergency room nurse, Urban Zen Integrative Therapist, healthcare writer, and blogger at MotherNurseLove.com. She also has a prior bachelor’s degree in Journalism.
After becoming a parent and finding that there was a lack of support for RN moms, Sarah created Mother Nurse Love, a resource that helps inspire the Nurse Mom to recognize their own self-care needs, provide useful nurse & mom lifestyle information, and thrive in both family and career.
Her writing has also been featured on other popular nurse sites, including Nurse.org, Very Well Health, Health.com, Everyday Health, and the Huffington Post.
Cat Golden, RN BSN, is a pediatric RN with a prior business degree and the creator of Nine Lives Health. Her website provides nurses with a centralized community of support and a variety of tools that provide structure to the nurse mindset.
She founded the LEAP LAND LIVE Method, a personalized mentorship program, to help nurses find routine and stability in what is normally the chaos of nursing.
In addition, Cat founded the #nursesinspirenurses movement to help nurses take control of their current work situations and inspire positive changes in the nursing profession by supporting one another.
Kate is an ICU nurse, mom, and enthusiastic foodie turned blogger at RealFoodRN.com. In her years of nursing, she found herself disappointed with a healthcare system that often pushes pills instead of focusing on disease prevention. This leads her to go back to school for holistic nutrition and learn to counsel people on how to live a better life through nutrition.
Not only does she blog regularly about delicious, healthy recipes, but she also started the Real Food RN Wellness Podcast, where she talks about all things healthy eating.
Kate has been featured in publications such as Nurse.org, Healthy Holistic Living, and Health Starts In The Kitchen.
Nurse Mike, Have Mursy
Michael Ward is an acute care nurse practitioner student, critical care nurse, keynote speaker, fitness enthusiast, dad to 5 boys, and creator of the blog HaveMursey.com.
As a self-proclaimed advocate for men in nursing, Mike states that his mission is to change the stigma associated with men in the profession. In addition to his blog where he writes about various nurse education and lifestyle topics, he has a very strong influencer following on Twitter.
K Chandler, a pediatric RN, goes by the name “The Traveling Nurse” and strives to motivate her readers to work hard and travel harder. On her website and blog, TheTravelingNurse.com, she strives to give back to others through donated medical supplies and sharing valuable nursing lifestyle information.
In addition to her globe-trotting as a travel nurse and on medical missions (most recently in Kenya!), she really shines as an Instagram influencer. Her gorgeous feed documents her amazing nursing care and highlights her travels around the world.
Anna M. Rodriguez, BSN, RN, CCRN, PCCN, is an experienced nurse all over the hosptial setting: medical/surgical, telemetry, cardiovascular ICU, nurse manager, and even travel nursing. She created her website TheBurnoutBook.com to highlight issues within the nursing profession, such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress.
As a nurse influencer, Anna is a blogger, conference speaker, and AACN ambassador. In addition, she is an Instagram favorite among many nurses, where she provides honest personal candor and inspiration for many nurses struggling within the nursing profession.
Amanda is an Ivy-league-educated nurse practitioner, twin mom, freelance writer, and content creator at TheResumeRX.com. She states on her website that superb grammar is her love language and has a passion for helping nurses create clean, modern resumes and cover letters that make a memorable first impression.
But she not only creates incredible nursing resume templates and provides courses to help nurses find their dream job – but she also manages to blog frequently on her website. Her content is original, inspiring, and actionable.
Her Instagram account is as clean and beautiful as her templates, and she has a large (and growing) following among nurses.
Lindsey is a nurse practitioner and yoga instructor with a passion for teaching nurses preventative holistic healthcare from the yoga mat. Her mission: to help nurses transform and live their best nurse lives.
She offers online programs, live programs and even does private coaching, all of which can be accessed from her website YogaHealthNurse.com. If you become a part of her email list, she has fantastic bi-weekly doses of yoga inspiration and offers a way to connect with a group of other like-minded nurse yogis (including many first-timers!)
In conclusion
I hope you enjoyed reading about these up-and-coming nurse influencers! If you haven’t already, take a moment to check out some of their websites. You may find a new nurse influencer that resonates with you and can help inspire you within your own personal and professional life!
*This post about compassion fatigue in nursing may contain affiliate links. You can find our disclosure page here.
I first realized that I was experiencing compassion fatigue as a nurse after only two years in the profession.
That’s correct. After only TWO YEARS, I was already feeling overstressed, exhausted, and cynical about my career.
When my mind finally wrapped itself around this understanding, I thought I’ve barely graduated with my BSN, and I’m ALREADY burned out? How am I going to continue in the nursing profession for an entire career?
I was frustrated, confused, and, to be honest, a little heartbroken. I was passionate about helping others, and I did enjoy the mental stimulation that I got as a nurse. But I couldn’t figure out how there were nurses on our unit who had been doing the same thing for the last 5, 10 or even 20 years. Didn’t they feel the same way?
Lately, I have spoken with a lot of nurses about their experiences with compassion fatigue. The truth of the matter is that most, if not all, nurses feel spent and exhausted at some point throughout their careers.
What is compassion fatigue in nursing?
Simply put, compassion fatigue is the gradual lessening of compassion over time due to extreme caregiver stress and overwork. Compassion fatigue in nursing is also almost always tied to the chronic stress that comes with working 12-hour shifts, which can be very physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging, even on a good day.
Unfortunately, compassion fatigue is prevalent in the nursing profession. But with awareness and the willingness to make a change, it is possible to overcome this chronic, stressful state and learn to thrive within your nursing career again.
Here are seven tips to help deal with compassion fatigue in nursing:
1. Find a better work-life balance
Are you rotating days and nights? Constantly working overtime? Or maybe just working too many hours per week?
That may work for a while, but it is not a very good long term plan. Everyone needs a break, especially nurses.
Consider taking a vacation (or stay-cation) and plan a few solid days of “me” time. A little TLC can go a long way. You simply can’t continue to take good care of others before taking care of yourself first.
One of the best things a nurse can do to help prevent nurse burnout is to take good care of themselves. Often this notion is counter-intuitive to nurses because the nature of their job is to put others’ needs in front of their own continually. Ask yourself, what do I need to be healthy? Here are a few suggestions:
Make sure you plan for your 12-hour shifts, so you have healthy snacks while you are at work.
Get at least 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep before a shift.
Try meditation or just sit alone with your eyes closed for 10 minutes during your lunch break.
Create a calming environment (at work or home) with a stress-relieving essential oil such as Lavender.
3. Find the “why” in your compassion fatigue
What is it that is causing you to feel compassion fatigue? Try writing your thoughts down at the end of a few shifts to help figure out what is overwhelming you.
Is there a pattern? Perhaps you need to plan your shifts differently. Are there a few personalities in your workplace that you are not jiving with?
Or, maybe you just are not inspired by your chosen specialty. Permit yourself to be brutally honest. If a change is what you need, then make a change.
Compassion fatigue and nurse burnout are so common among nurses. Left unchecked, they can lead to mistakes, unhappiness, or even depression.
Share your nursing compassion fatigue struggles with a close comrade from work who can empathize with your effort. If that doesn’t help, consider talking to a trusted mentor, a therapist, or find a career coach that can help you work your way out of nurse burnout.
Nurses are self-giving creatures by nature, but we must give to our own needs as well. Crawl out of your shell and start talking it out.
6. Find an outlet
What do you do on your days off that may you happy? If you don’t have a stress-relieving outlet, then its time to find one.
Is your inner artist craving a creative outlet, such as painting, designing, or even scrapbooking? Does a day on the golf course or an afternoon on the tennis court bring you joy? Maybe you have been so busy that you have forgotten how wonderfully distracting it can be to become enveloped into an activity that you love to do.
Research has shown that finding a joyful outlet can enhance your mood, increase energy, lower stress levels, and even make your immune system stronger. Find out what makes you happy outside of the nursing profession.
7. Consider new options
Do don’t have to stay in the same place throughout your entire career. If fact, one of the greatest benefits of becoming a nurse is that there are so many types of nursing careers out there.
Have an honest discussion with yourself about your career. Are you a med/Surg nurse who has always dreamed of working in the ICU? Or maybe you are an ER nurse with interest in becoming a flight nurse. A change in specialty might be what you need to tackle your compassion fatigue as a nurse.
On another note, nurses don’t have to work in a hospital. Perhaps working in a dermatology office or as a home healthcare nurse would be a better fit. There are so many nursing careers to choose from. The sky is the limit. Find your passion!
*This post about diet plans for nurses contains affiliate links.
Written by Adela Ellis, RN, BSN
In theory, dieting is an easy concept. After all, it’s merely a process of eating less and exercising more to achieve a calorie deficit that allows us to reduce body fat, right?
Anyone who has dieted, however, will tell you just how challenging it is to stick to that seemingly simple plan, and for nurses, adhering to a diet on a hectic schedule can seem nearly impossible.
For nurses, finding the time for regular meals on alternating night and day shifts can be a hassle.
But it doesn’t have to be! When many of us think of dieting, we think of harsh, impossible to follow restrictions that are doomed to fail, leading to yo-yo dieting and repeated unsuccessful attempts.
So how do nurses lose weight and get proper nutrition to fuel even the most hectic schedule?
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to make radical changes to begin losing weight: You simply need to stick to a series of small ones. A healthy diet plan can teach you to reconsider how you eat, not only what you eat. The following diet plans can help nurses develop a new lifestyle while boosting metabolism, energy, and weight loss for overall well-being and a longer, happier, and healthier life.
#1. Plant-Based Diet
There are many plant-based diets to choose from, and all emphasize consuming foods that are known for their heart-health benefits, including veggies, whole grains, fruits, legumes, nuts, and oils. Based on the consumption of foods that are found in Italy and Greece, such as fish and seafood, extra virgin olive oil and olives, vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts, the Mediterranean Diet is renowned as heart-healthy and waistline-friendly lifestyle, and is another healthy choice, though not entirely plant-based. It is one of several types of flexitarian diets you could try.
Plant-based diets are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber and help to lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
They are also known for their ability to reduce the risk of diabetes and help an individual maintain a healthy weight. Diets that are based on consuming nutrient-rich plant-based foods are particularly suited to the hectic lifestyle of nurses because they are based on a relatively simple concept of eating that encourages lifelong healthy eating habits.
An example of a plant-based diet meal. Adopting a plant-based diet offers an excellent nutritional benefit for nurses with a hectic schedule.
To follow a plant-based diet, adopt more plants, fruits, veggies, and healthy fats into your diet and lower your consumption or eliminate any animal foods, including red meat, cold cuts and processed meats, poultry, fish and seafood, and animal-based milks and cheeses. Look for plant-based milks and cheeses in your supermarket or health-food store.
When composing a plant-based meal, half of your plate should be covered in colorful fruits and a variety of veggies. The other half should be divided between healthy proteins, such as nuts and seeds and beans and whole grains, including brown rice and whole-grain bread. There are many plant-based protein products available in most supermarkets, and more on the way, so be on the lookout for them. Remember, the types of plant foods you choose matter.
Plant-based diet tips:
Limit
Avoid
Choose instead
Butter
Trans Fats
Olive oil, canola oil, plant-milk-based butters
Animal-produced milk, Juice
Soda
Water, tea, plant-based milks like soy, oat, or almond
White rice, white bread
Sugary bread
Whole-wheat bread, whole-wheat pasta
All meats, animal milk cheese
Bacon, cold cuts, processed meats
Beans, nuts, seeds, nut cheeses, vegetable-based protein products
Meal Prep Tip: For an easy plant-based diet meal, try your hand at Vietnamese spring rolls with tofu. Traditional spring rolls are made of rice roll skins and filled with mint leaves, lettuce, prawns, rice noodles, strips of carrot and cucumber and accompanied with a peanut dipping sauce, but the above recipe substitutes crispy tofu for the prawns.
However, you can try any variation of veggies, lean vegetable-based proteins, whole grain rice, spices, and herbs for an easy make-ahead meal that is healthy, refreshing, and delicious and will have your favorite pair of scrubs fitting a little more comfortably.
Carbohydrate cycling diet plans have been used in the bodybuilding world for years as an easy way to monitor carbohydrate intake to build muscle while shedding fat. The basic principle behind carb cycling involves altering your carbohydrate intake according to your needs that week, month, or year. This revolves around the concept that, when your body consumes a limited number of carbs, it uses the body’s stored fat as its fuel source, which can boost fat loss and revamp the metabolism.
Carb cycling can help nurses meet their nutritional goals and help with weight loss on a busy schedule
By strategically eating carbs according to when you need them, you can more efficiently use them rather than storing them on your body as fat.
Carb cycling is an excellent choice for nurses because, just like a professional weight trainer, your schedule and energy needs vary throughout the week. For “on days,” your body requires more carbs for energy, and for “off days,” it requires less.
The beauty of carb cycling for nurses is that it is entirely customizable according to your schedule. For example, say you work three-night shifts per week. Your meals for those three days should be high in healthy carbohydrates, while your calories on the four remaining days should come from plant and other protein sources.
On high carb days, try to ensure you are getting about 60% of your calories from complex carbs. With carb cycling, it is essential to remember that quality matters: high-carb does not equate to pizza and French fries. In fact, on low-carb days, it is particularly important to choose fiber-packed carbohydrate sources, as achieving adequate fiber consumption every day is still essential.
Meal Prep Tip: For an easy, high-carb breakfast in the morning, prepare some overnight oats in a mason jar containing oats, almond milk, cinnamon, flax seeds, honey, and apples.
Conversely, for low-carb breakfasts, make muffin pan egg omelets that can be reheated in the morning containing eggs, peppers, shredded chicken, avocadoes, and a sprinkling of cheese.
Final thoughts
Don’t be afraid to change things up if your diet is not working for you. Part of finding a healthy and sustainable diet is finding the right mix of both habits and foods that contribute to your overall health and well-being, and that process is sure to involve trial and error. Developing a healthy lifestyle as a nurse may seem challenging, but it can be done. In a few months, your new diet will be so routine that you’ll only wonder why you didn’t start sooner.
About the author: Adela Ellis is a full-time nurse and part-time ambassador for Infinity Scrubs. Adela attended the University of Arizona and has been a travel nurse for the last six years. She enjoys working with different doctors, nurses, and patients from all over the country and blogging about her experiences. In her free time, she loves true-crime podcasts and cooking for friends and family.
(This post about nurse burnout prevention products contains affiliate links. You can find our disclosure page here.)
Nursing is not a career for the faint of heart. Humans are living longer with more chronic conditions, and nurses are working hard to care for more and more patients. But despite the many challenges, for most of us, nursing is a calling. We chose this profession so that we could help patients during the most challenging times in their lives.
But who is responsible for taking care of nurses?
The truth is, being a nurse is not for the faint of heart. It is an extremely physical and emotional career, and nurses deal with stressful situations such as traumatic accidents, chronic illnesses, demanding patients and families, and even death. We’ve pretty much seen it all and then some.
After all, they don’t say that nurses are on the front line of healthcare for nothing!
Nurse burnout prevention has never been so important.
Nurse burnout prevention needs to be a bigger priority in the profession. Nurses don’t want to also end up as patients too, but due to lack of time for self-care, it happens.
Fortunately, there are ways that nurses can help to rectify some of the wear-and-tear that we do to our bodies. By taking care of ourselves first, we can continue to give great attention to our patients and their families.
Stress in the workplace is not going to get easier for many nurses, especially those at the bedside. Now is the time to put your health needs first.
And you can start by giving yourself a little TLC on your days off.
Helpful nurse burnout prevention products to help manage nursing stress:
These are items I have personally tried, either at work during a 12-hour shift or at home. Using some of these nurse burnout relief products during and after a 12-hour shift has made a world of difference in how I feel. I hope these items help you de-stress and take better care of yourself as well.
How sore are your back, neck, and feet after a busy 12-hour shift? The Body Back Buddy is a big winner when it comes to loosening up during and after a busy shift.
I was introduced to the Body Back Buddy by a co-worker of mine in the emergency department where I work. He brought it to work with him as a way to help him loosen his muscles during his night shifts. At first glance, it looks a little silly, but when he showed me how to use it, I couldn’t believe how great it felt on my neck and back.
It didn’t take long for other nurses to ask if they could use it, mostly out of curiosity. But it did help loosen up my neck and back and felt amazing on my pressure points.
I liked it so much that I ordered one that day and have been using it at home several times a week ever since. This is a fantastic product for long- term nurse burnout prevention.
During National Nurses Week in 2019, I tried this cordless neck, shoulder, and back massager during my lunch break in the staff room. I liked it because it stays around the muscles you put it on and doesn’t move around like many self massagers. It also isn’t very loud and applies just the right amount of pressure to the muscles.
This device is excellent to use during breaks or after a shift at the hospital. It also doesn’t require much effort to use, which makes it uniquely relaxing. And it is cordless so that you can use it anywhere.
Cordless & hands-free design: equipped with a built-in rechargeable battery that lasts up to 100 minutes on a full charge.
Advanced heating: The infrared heat provides necessary warmness to ease muscle tension, stress, and promote blood circulation. It can be turned off manually, but will also shut itself off after 15 minutes of using (to prevent overheating).
Full-body relaxation and pain relief: comes with eight big nodes and eight small nodes, which provides deep tissue massages on your neck, shoulders, upper back, lower back, waist, foot, tights, calves, legs, feet and arms
Adjustable intensity and two massage directions: The massagers for neck and back cordless have three adjustable intensity levels, which allow you to get suitable pressure to relieve your muscle pain. And the body massager has built-in bi-directional movement control, which also auto-reverses every minute
Meditation has changed my life for the better, especially as a stressed-out nurse. Before I started meditating regularly, I used to have semi-regular anxiety attacks!
The Muse Brain Sending Headband is for someone ready to take their meditation practice to the next level. If you do not already practice meditation, I wouldn’t even recommend purchasing this device. (However, if you want to find a helpful way to find stress relief as a nurse I do highly recommend developing your meditation practice).
Many studies have shown benefits from regular meditation, including reduced stress, lowered blood pressure, increased focus and energy, and improved performance in many areas. And, as nurses, we can use all the stress reduction we can get!
Here is how it works:The headband fits across the front of your forehead and wraps around your ears. A metal strip can detect electrical brainwaves. When specific brainwaves are very active, the weather noise increases. As you calm your mind, the weather noise grows fainter and — here is the genius of the device — if you are very calm for several seconds, you can hear birds chirping. In the end, you get a graph of your performance and a score.
Makes meditation easy– is like a personal meditation assistant
Muse will guide you to a calm mind: Sometimes your mind is calm, and sometimes it’s active – Muse will teach you to recognize a quiet mind and help you get there
Allows you to immerse yourself in meditation: Put on the Muse headband, plug in your earbuds or headphones, start the app, and close your eyes. Immerse yourself within the sounds of a beach or rain forest
Real-time tracking and feedback: While you meditate, Muse measures whether your mind is calm or active, and translates that data into weathers sounds
You can review data after each session: After each session, review your data, set goals, and build an enriching meditation practice that gets better every time
Like many other nurses, I carry most of my internalized stress in my neck and shoulders. This, combined with too much computer work and lifting and pulling patients, often leaves my neck in knots, and sometimes the pain keeps me from being able to relax completely.
For the longest time, I used a regular old heating pad on my neck and back- but the one I had didn’t conform well to my body. So one day, I was looking through Amazon for something to help my neck and back pain, and I came across the Huggaroo.
The design is versatile; if I don’t want it on my back, I fold it up, so it’s concentrated on my neck, and I also like to put in on my chest, almost like a weighted blanket. The quality is excellent, and the fabric is plush but durable. It’s a frequently used staple in our house. I also take it with me when I travel as well!
Melts away pain, tension, and stress with heat, soothing aromatherapy, and deep pressure stimulation
The perfect heating pad for cramps, neck pain relief or joint pain relief
Use as a cold compress to alleviate migraine headaches or a cold pack to soothe strains or a fever
Huggaroo is a market leader, featured in Forbes, Women’s Health, Inc, Parade, Reader’s Digest, etc.
In conclusion
Nurse burnout prevention is possible and we need to manage our stress better, so we don’t end up as patients ourselves. By setting aside a little time every day to relax and de-stress, you will be a happier, healthier nurse and better role model for patients.
After all, everybody wins when nurses are taken care of too!!
