Saturday, May 6th marks the beginning of this year’s National Nurses Week. National Nurses Week is about honoring your community’s hardworking and often underappreciated nurses, as well as reaching out to the community and providing information about how to become a nurse. The 2018 theme of National Nurses Week is: “The balance of mind, body, and spirit”. In order to celebrate this delicate balance, which is crucial to the mental welfare of all nurses, here are some ideas about how to carry this out in daily life.

Organize a Community Yoga Session:

Reach out to a public space like a community park or a local mall and see if you could get a volunteer to lead a yoga, barre, or spinning session for the public in honor of National Nurses Week. A huge part of maintaining a healthy mind, body, and spirit while enduring the physical and mental stress as a nurse requires an outlet. Exercises like yoga are a fantastic way to eliminate stress while also promoting healthy behavior.

Host an Educational Session on Stress:

Whether just for nurses, or for everyone in the community, host an engaging, entertaining, and educational assembly on stress and anxiety. Mental health disorders still have a stigma attached to them and many people choose to ignore symptoms instead of recognizing them. Nurses, especially, must cope with building and breaking relationships with vulnerable patients, dealing with loss of patients, routine twelve hour shifts and overnight shifts, all while having very limited bathroom and food breaks. They must deal with all of these stress factors added to the pressure of not making a single mistake, one of which could harm a patient and risk their well-being or future. An informational lecture on healthy ways to relieve stress is a great way to promote a healthy balance of mind, body, and spirit.

Ask Your Health Care Employer for Healthier Food Options:

A massive part of keeping a proper mental, body, and spiritual balance involves how we fuel our bodies. As previously mentioned, nurses often have shortened time for food breaks due to their work load. This means that vending machines are sometimes one of the only options for nurses. Healthy vending machines are popping up across the country and National Nurses Week is a fantastic window for petitioning your hospital to include some healthier options. For example, a lunch consisting of cashews and almonds with a flavored water will power you through to the end of the shift, while a candy bar, potato chips, and soda will make you feel bloated and sleepy.

Celebrate:

You are a nurse and this is your week. This is a great opportunity to reflect on some of your accomplishments. Think back to patients’ lives that you’ve touched, and who has touched you or made a difference in your own life. Look back at some of the cards family members have written to you for your compassionate care, and appreciate yourself. People who are proud of their work and feel a sense of accomplishment suffer less from anxiety and depression and look forward to going to work more. By simply taking twenty minutes out of your day to reflect on your achievements, you could make a great improvement on your mental health.