Saving Others and Saving Ourselves

Nurses are the real superheroes of our society by saving lives every day and committing their own lives to serving and helping others, and dedicating all of their energy to others well-being. This is an incredible and humbling concept, although while nurses are saving others (or in our case, training to save others) sometimes it seems that they can forget about themselves. Recently I have noticed how almost every single teacher has been fighting an illness, and every single nursing student around me has been incredibly stressed, worried, nervous, and quite frankly, not healthy or acting as themselves at times. Nurses have an incredible role in our world and we wouldn't be thriving without their service, but being so educated on how to help others achieve health, it seems that they are forgetting what they are teaching and how to lead healthy lifestyles themselves. I'm sure we have all heard the saying before, "Do as I say, not as I do," and in a sense, this can be enabled by the bad habits that nursing students or even healthcare professionals can get into.  For being educated on health, nurses or nursing students should also want to practice health!  Be proactive and take care of yourself just as if you were a patient of your own!! 

 Here are some considerations to living healthy lifestyles while teaching healthy lifestyles:

RISK FACTORS FOR NURSING STUDENTS:

• EXTREME lack of sleep
• Overexertion of the brain
• Bad eating habits
• Prone to loneliness or mild isolation
• Lack of exercise
• Lack of social life
• Becoming addicted to coffee or energy supplements
• Expecting perfection (especially first semester)
• Feeling inadequate
• Getting so consumed in academics, forgetting the true purpose and focus of nursing as God’s calling and a true compassion for helping other people.

PLAN OF ACTION, COPING IN CHAOS:

• RELAX!
• Pray, Pray, Pray!
• Take some time for yourself
• Take some time for your friends and family
• Give your brain a break
• Eat healthy and put the right foods in your system
• Practice what you preach
• Take some time to laugh!
• Make sure you are exercising periodically to keep your body functioning
• Sleep, Sleep, Sleep! It is SO important to get adequate sleep, especially when people’s lives are in your hands.  Make sure that sleep is written in your schedule as well because it will be much more advantageous being alert for your patients than getting an extra couple hours in studying and being lethargic.

I know we all feel like this but KEEP PERSISTING!!!

We are all in the same place nursing students

Eventually we will all be superheroes!!

Take care of your patients, take care of your health

BE SUPER!!