The Nurses' Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN

49. Shift Your Mindset in Seconds: Gratitude Tips for Overwhelmed Nurses

• Jenny Lytle. RN

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Feeling like you're about to explode from the pressure of nursing life? You're not alone. In this episode of The Nurses' Breakroom with Jenny Lytle, RN, we dive into real-life chaos and how a simple gratitude practice can help calm your nervous system, shift your mindset, and bring peace—right in the middle of the mess.

Jenny shares her own story of a stressful weekend on call and how she used practical, realistic self-care strategies to stay grounded. Whether you’re heading into a 12-hour shift or decompressing after one, this short episode gives you tools you can use now.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to find moments of gratitude in the middle of stress
  • Why your brain naturally focuses on the negative—and how to train it otherwise
  • 3 easy gratitude practices you can start today (no journal required!)

Action Steps:

  1. Pause and list 3 things you’re grateful for—right now.
  2. Shift your language from “I have to” → “I get to.”
  3. Set a 2-minute timer and write everything that’s going well.

Keywords: nurse burnout, gratitude practice, shift mindset, overwhelmed nurse, self-care for healthcare workers, stress relief tips, practical self-care, gratitude reset, nurse mental health

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



Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the nurse's break room with Jenny Lytle RN. Do you ever feel like you're under so much stress that you're just going to explode? Everything is going wrong and the harder you try, the worse it gets. I get that. I've definitely had days like that and yesterday was one of those days when there are so many things going wrong. Of course it can be easy to focus on that and to feel overwhelmed by it and disheartened. But if you start looking for good things and maybe it's not necessarily things that are going well, because maybe everything really is a mess right now but looking for anything good, thinking of things like the sunshine or maybe the clouds, if it's a super hot and sunny day or a fan or a wonderful, cool drink, maybe hitting all the green lights or having a great song that comes on the radio or listening to a wonderful book those kind of things can happen in the middle of the things that aren't going so well. So just a quick story.

Speaker 1:

I had picked up call this weekend. I knew that I was going to have a little bit of time at the lake and some downtime, family time. That was going to be enjoyable and I figured that I could also pick up a couple of extra shifts and that would give me some extra money and would give the regular nurses some much needed time off. And it was the first day was a normal day, it wasn't. It wasn't anything awful. I did a visit and then I did an admission, which I don't do a lot of, so it does take me a little bit longer, so I ended up working over that day, but it was all doable.

Speaker 1:

Then yesterday was a lot. Yesterday, both myself and the other nurse that was working. It was just call after call, and most of the time it seemed like they came in twos. As soon as I would hang up I would still have the phone in my hand and it would ring again with another call about another patient from another triage nurse. And it was a lot. It was frustrating, it was overwhelming, because of course you want to be able to meet everybody's needs immediately, but, like in so many situations in nursing and in life in general, it's hard to do that. Sometimes you can't be everything to everybody all the time, and so you have to triage, you have to prioritize and figure out who needs what the most. Right then, and be able to work as a team and pass some of those things off.

Speaker 1:

But then, of course, you know there gets to be that bottleneck, and it's something that can be frustrating and stressful, and so figuring out little ways to de-stress in the midst of moments like that are so important. So, of course, doing some deep breathing, taking time to go to the bathroom to stop and grab something to eat that you can eat while you're driving those are things that really are important, especially when you don't have time to sit down and eat a meal or take a real break. Being able to fit in those little things is so important in the middle of busy, stressful, emotional days, when you start feeling that tension in your neck or you feel your heart racing, you feel yourself tighten up and know that this is not the way that I want to be feeling, this is not the way that I want to go into my next visit or my next patient room, or, especially, into my time with my family, especially into my time with my family. And so being able to really figure out how to change your mindset in those moments when it's not so easy, when it's not so great, is a hugely important skill, and it's also incredibly simple, but it does take some practice. One of my favorite ways is just looking for the good. See if you can come up with three things that you enjoy or that are going well. Think three things you can be grateful for right now, and that may be looking around and seeing something, or thinking of a friend or somebody special in your life, or maybe a visit that went quickly or a toddler that went down for a nap. Easily, those little things that really add up to mean a lot.

Speaker 1:

And when we do those type of things that can help us to continue to look for the good, our minds are programmed to look for the negative, to be alert, to be aware, to keep us safe. Because that's the way things were. We really had to always be alert and looking out for danger so that we stayed alive. But now it's still easy to fall back into those things, and really what we focus on does grow when we are looking for something. The more we look for it, the more we're going to find it, and so it's.

Speaker 1:

If somebody tells you not to think about a pink elephant, what are you going to think about? Of course, a pink elephant. What are you going to think about, of course, a pink elephant. Or if you buy a new car, then maybe you didn't really notice this particular car that much before, but once you have one, you notice them all around you. Our minds focus on what we tell them to focus on.

Speaker 1:

So when we are looking for gratitude, it's not about pretending that everything's okay. It's focusing on what is okay now, because even in the midst of tough times, not everything is bad. And when we really focus on the things that are going well, the things that do bring us joy, then we'll be able to find more of those things. Find more of those things. So three practical things that you can do are one just pause and think of three things that are going right or that bring you joy, three things that that you're grateful for and those can be big or small and then doing a little bit of a mindset shift with words like I have to versus I get to.

Speaker 1:

So maybe I have to work this weekend versus I get to work some extra hours this weekend. And maybe there's maybe that involves extra pay, maybe that involves time off during the week, or maybe that just means that you're getting your time to work the weekend done and over with. And for the third thing, you can come up with a particular gratitude practice, like, maybe you start off your morning or you end your day with three things that went well, or maybe you just continue to name a bunch of things, set a timer for two minutes and write down everything that you're grateful for, everything that is going well, and as you do this, you'll find that you feel more grateful, that you feel less stressed and you're able to move about your day in a more positive way. So until next time, remember self care isn't selfish. It's essential if we want to continue to care for others and live our best lives. Thanks so much. Have a great week.