27. Escaping or Recharging? The Hidden Ways We Avoid Stress and How to Truly Rest

In this episode of The Nurse's Breakroom, I’m getting real about something I recently discovered in my own life—how easy it is to mistake escape for rest. Between work, passion projects, and personal commitments, I found myself constantly consuming content—whether it was psychological thrillers or TV—thinking I was taking a break. But was I really?

Join me as I unpack the difference between distraction and true recharge, how my morning devotional and journaling shifted my perspective, and why embracing life’s challenges instead of avoiding them might actually bring more peace.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed and turned to TV, books, or scrolling as a way to "relax," this episode is for you. Let’s explore better ways to find real rest and renewal.

Key Takeaways:
✔️ How to recognize when you're escaping instead of truly resting
✔️ The power of intentional quiet time and reflection
✔️ Simple ways to integrate more meaningful recharging practices into your day

🎧 Tune in now and remember—self-care isn’t selfish, it’s essential!

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 Nurse's Break Room with Jenny Lytle RN. I want to share a little bit of something that I have figured out over the past couple of weeks honestly, and I wonder if it might be something that you are dealing with too or maybe you've ever experienced. So I have a lot of things going on right now in my life. I am working full-time hours, but I work PRN jobs to allow me flexibility to be able to do the things that I'm passionate about, like really building my business really building my business. My faith is very important to me and I believe that several years ago 19 years ago now God led me to hospice and there is so much that I love about that. But I also believe that for the past several years he's been leading me in a different direction, and I am so passionate about working with nurses and other caregivers just to really help you realize how important it is to take care of yourselves, and in doing that, it helps keep that at the forefront of my mind too. But here's a funny little confession for you I realized that in all of the things that I'm doing and the connections that I'm making and the people that I'm talking to and the things that I'm reading and learning and all of that that I was getting rather overwhelmed in a lot of ways myself and I realized that I was struggling with being able to fit everything in that I wanted to fit in, and that kind of added to my stress. That kind of added to my stress, and so I was escaping. I started I hadn't done a lot of fiction reading for a long time and over the summer I started doing a bit more of that, but again I didn't feel like I really had the time that I wanted to spend on that, so I was listening to audiobooks instead, and I was listening to some psychological thrillers and I really enjoyed that. But what I realized is that that was my escape from all of the things that I had to do and wanted to do, but sometimes I just felt like my brain needed a break and so I would listen to those while I was doing different things, and so I really wasn't giving myself much downtime.

Speaker 1: 3:26

I've constantly had something going, and not only that, but the things that I was listening to weren't things that were making my life any better, giving me any new ideas. Things like that I guess you don't want to get a lot of new ideas from listening to psychological thrillers, doing that, taking that escape time, which can be. It could be that it could be TV, and I've done that with TV too, where I'm just like, oh, I just need a break. But yes, it's a break, but it's a distraction, it's not really a recharge. Now, I'm not saying that you know that TV or books are bad. That's not what I mean at all.

Speaker 1: 4:20

But I really personally had to question is this what I want to be doing?

Speaker 1: 4:30

And I had realized over the past couple of weeks, when I restarted my morning devotional time, that having that time to spend in quiet and yes, I'm reading things, but still my mind is slower and I'm able to spend some time in prayer and just really in reflection about everything that's going on in my life, and I've been doing some more journaling and as I've done that, I realized that I'm more aware of the things that aren't fitting well into my life, and a big part of that is listening to a psychological thriller over the course of a day or two or maybe three.

Speaker 1: 5:23

And so yesterday I went to church and before and after that I was doing some things and what I found is that in that time, I was able to instead of listening to something that was an escape but wasn't really making me feel better or more rested that I was able to listen to a podcast that I'd been meaning to listen to as a preview for possibly wanting to get on their podcast, and I listened to a couple of other short things that are things that are going to enhance my own life and my practice with clients, and I felt more rested because I had done those things that were important to me and that are going to enhance my life, and it's made me more curious about what are other ways that I am trying to maybe escape from things that if I just embraced them and handled them without trying to avoid them, then maybe I would have more peace and not feel like I needed an escape as much.

Speaker 1: 7:00

So something for you to consider as well, and I just I thank you so much for tuning in. This is the start of season two and I'm so glad that you're here, and I want you to remember that, in the midst of everything that you are doing for everybody else, self-care isn't selfish. It's essential if we want to continue to care for others and live our best lives. Have a great week.