18. Foundations of Self-Care: Why Self-Care is Essential for Nurses and Beyond

In this episode of The Nurses' Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, we explore the foundations of self-care and why it’s critical for nurses and healthcare professionals. Jenny shares her personal journey through nursing burnout and the emotional impact of losing her mother, highlighting how neglecting self-care can lead to physical and mental exhaustion. With key statistics from the 2023-2024 State of Nursing Report, we examine the growing rates of burnout, mental health struggles, and stress in the nursing profession. This episode provides practical self-care tips for busy nurses, encouraging them to prioritize their well-being and understand that self-care isn't selfish. Learn how you can make self-care part of your daily routine, enhance your mental health, and avoid burnout in your career.

Don’t miss this essential guide for nurses looking to regain balance and find relief from stress in their personal and professional lives.

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If you're feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or like there’s never enough time, I’ve got something just for you! Head to https://selfcareisntselfish.com to grab your FREE copy of my book, Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: The Compassionate Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief. It’s packed with simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize your needs—without guilt—so you can feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. Go to https://selfcareisntselfish.com 

Looking for connection with people who get the stress and self-care struggles of nurses and caregivers? Check out https://thenursesbreakroom.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennylytlern/

More ways to connect here: https://linktr.ee/jennylytle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Nurses' Break Room with Jenny Lytle RN. I'm so glad that you're tuning into this episode because we just completed our Lies we Tell Ourselves series and now we're jumping into the foundations of self-care. My new book, self-care Isn't Selfish the Compassionate Nurse's Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief, is now available and it goes into these areas that we're going to be talking about. But as we look at the foundations of self-care, one of the most important pieces, if not the most important piece, is to at least start to consider that you are worth taking care of. Taking care of yourself is something that would benefit you and would benefit those around you. That self-care isn't selfish. Self-care isn't selfish and maybe it's something that you need to do. So just a couple of statistics from the annual State of Nursing Report from November 2023 to February 2024. It showed that nurses are feeling more positive about the profession and their work, which is great, but over half of nurses felt burnout in the past year. Almost 25% felt unable to turn down extra shifts and two-thirds felt that their mental health has suffered. That last one really got me, that two-thirds feel that their mental health had suffered. Now there are a lot of challenges that are unique to nursing and to health care, but the fact is, lots of people, whether in health care or not, are struggling with these issues.

Speaker 1: 2:38

If you don't know my story, I've been a nurse for 30 years and my mom and I went to LPN school together. When I got out of high school, she was a single mom who had always wanted to be a nurse, and so once I graduated from high school, she applied as well and we went to school together. High school, she applied as well, and we went to school together. Mom was a typical caregiver in terms of taking care of everyone but herself, and I'm not saying that all illness is brought on by neglecting our own needs, but I think we can agree that a lot of it can be. We put everybody else's needs to the forefront so much that our own take a backseat and maybe never really get handled. My mom was somebody who would do anything for anybody except herself, and she passed away suddenly. She was 61 years old. And that in addition to my own struggles with taking care of myself and my own issues with putting my work and my family everything else above my own needs and really not even taking time to consider what my own needs were. That all led me to a place of burnout and frustration and despair, and that was even prior to my mom's passing. But once she died, I really had to take a look at how I was living, and it kindled this passion in me for helping people working in health care, whether it's nurses or others, and really just people in general. But as nurses, we're so bad at taking care of ourselves, and so my goal, my passion, is helping people to understand their own worth, their own needs and the fact that to take care of others long term, we've got to take care of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And so I just invite you to consider how you feel when you hear someone talk about self-care or when you think about taking care of yourself. What comes up when you think about that and maybe do a bit of journaling or just jot down a couple of words. Even Things that kind of rise to the surface when you're thinking about that and think about how you are doing right now. Do you feel like you're doing what you need to be to take care of yourself? And if the answer is no, are you doing anything that would help to take care of yourself? And if not, maybe why not?

Speaker 1: 5:51

Again? Asking these things without judgment, without any guilt, just being curious about how things have gotten to this point. I'm so excited to jump into what we can do and how we can make it a part of our day-to-day lives. Despite the busyness, despite all of the roles that we play. How can we fit taking care of ourselves into our rhythm? And, as we'll chat about next week, we'll see that. First of all, that starts out with seeing where are we right now. Until next time, remember, not only is self-care not selfish, it's essential if we want to continue to care for others and live our best lives.