Top Techniques for Building Emotional Endurance in Healthcare

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Healthcare isn’t for the faint of heart. In fact, it’s typically rated as one of the most stressful careers. Your day is often a rollercoaster of highs and lows, and your ability to stay emotionally stable directly impacts your ability to care for patients. Building and maintaining emotional endurance is critical to prevent burnout in the healthcare field. It’s about staying strong through challenging situations and having the proper tools and support to bounce back, ensuring that everyday challenges don’t overwhelm you.

I’ve been a registered nurse for over eight years and have noticed an increasing awareness among healthcare workers regarding the importance of safeguarding their mental health. As a yoga instructor, mindset and somatics practitioner and the founder of ZenNurse, I specialize in helping nurses create boundaries and cultivate resilience through mindset and movement, offering strategies to achieve lasting emotional well-being in demanding healthcare environments. 

Healthcare workers are cut from a different cloth, and working in the healthcare environment can be intense. Our work goes beyond dealing with things and materials or completing tasks for a checklist. In real time, we deal with real people in critical health scenarios that demand quick thinking and constant readiness, so the pressure can be overwhelming. If you don’t take time to release tension and prioritize self-care, stress can build up and turn your empathy into exhaustion.

That’s why you need practical tools for building emotional endurance and reducing stress to help you navigate your professional demands and personal life without burnout. Let’s explore how to strengthen emotional endurance and understand its critical importance for healthcare professionals like you.

What’s Emotional Fatigue?

Emotional fatigue is a state of mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress and emotional strain, leading to feelings of overwhelm, burnout and decreased motivation. It’s that feeling you get when you manage to hold it together at work, maintaining professionalism despite feeling stretched thin. However, once you step away from the demands of your job, you find yourself breaking down and unable to cope. Emotional fatigue highlights a breaking point that many healthcare professionals face. 

After speaking with many healthcare colleagues about emotional fatigue and burnout, it’s clear that these issues don’t entirely stem from providing direct patient care. Lack of support from management, working short-staffed, being underpaid and feeling undervalued all play a role. The constant pull to stay late, come in early, work overtime and support your colleagues without leaving your patients abandoned also leads to emotional fatigue in healthcare. Many nurses and healthcare workers love caring for patients, but the constant bureaucracy and being treated poorly get in the way of our natural caring ability.

Are You Emotionally Fatigued?

Emotional fatigue manifests in several ways. It can lead to a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness, causing a lack of compassion and empathy towards patients and colleagues. Physically and mentally, it leaves you drained and exhausted. Some signs and symptoms of emotional fatigue may be:

• Persistent feelings of irritability and anger
• Increased stress levels
• Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
• Withdrawal from social interactions and activities

Emotional fatigue may also manifest in physical and mental health symptoms and illness, such as: 

• Chronic pain
• Sudden weight gain or loss
• Muscle tension
• Sleep disturbances 
• Headaches
• Anxiety 
• Depression

In your professional life, emotional fatigue may affect your work in the following ways:

• Impaired attentiveness
• Increased errors 
• Poor decision making 

Balancing Professional and Personal Well-Being

Often, the initial signs of emotional exhaustion manifest in our personal lives, where we feel safe to express vulnerability. Although it’s important to have a safe space to process your emotions, many healthcare workers underestimate the impact of their professional lives on their personal lives.

In your professional life, emotional fatigue is linked to decreased job satisfaction, more sick leave and higher turnover rates, straining team dynamics and workplace productivity. Learning healthy coping mechanisms to manage the increased stress from work obligations is essential. To effectively tackle these challenges, it is crucial to create a supportive work environment with mental health resources, promote work-life balance, encourage self-care, provide stress management, offer training and build strong peer networks.

How to Build Emotional Resilience

Emotional resilience is your capacity to navigate unexpected challenges and crises effectively. Just as in managing pain levels for a postoperative patient, where prompt intervention at a pain level of four prevents it from escalating to a more difficult-to-manage six or seven, cultivating emotional resilience involves proactively regulating emotions before they escalate out of control. 

You can build resilience by facing your stresses head-on. If you’re having a difficult day at work, instead of sitting in the break room, scrolling on your phone and complaining with your coworkers, create healthy habits and seek a change of scenery. 

Some ideas to create healthy habits include:

• Eat nutrient-dense foods high in protein, nuts, fruits and veggies to keep you nourished.
• Stay hydrated by drinking lots of water and decaf beverages instead of getting hyped on coffee. Green and herbal tea can be a great afternoon option.
• Take a walk outdoors to get some light exercise and fresh air.
• Practice some stretching to stay limber and focused.
• Read an interesting book to engage your mind and imagination.
• Unwind by listening to soothing music you enjoy.

Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation provide mental and physical health benefits, including stress reduction, improved mood, emotional regulation and enhanced well-being. These practices also improve focus, concentration and productivity. Physically, mindfulness lowers blood pressure, enhances sleep quality and boosts immune function. Integrate mindfulness into daily activities like eating or walking by fully engaging in the experience without judgment.

RELATED: 4 Easy Ways to Implement Mindfulness and Gratitude

Practical Tips for Practicing Mindfulness at Work 

If you’re anxious, taking a quick timeout in a private space like a bathroom or stockroom can help you regroup and center yourself. The rule of “3-3-3” is a practical technique for quickly refocusing and reducing anxiety.

Here’s how to use the 3-3-3 rule to release anxiety, become grounded and be more mindful in the moment:

1. Look Around: Identify and name the first three things you see around you.
2. Listen: Identify and name the first three things you hear in your environment.
3. Move: Move three parts of your body — fingers, toes, shoulders or any other body part that feels tense or that you can comfortably move.

Reframing Thoughts to Mitigate Stress

Cognitive-behavioral strategies, particularly cognitive restructuring or reframing, involve identifying and challenging negative or irrational thoughts contributing to stress. By altering these thought patterns, healthcare workers can reduce emotional distress and adopt a more balanced and positive outlook.

Practical Activity for Reframing Negative Thoughts

Transform your thinking and boost resilience by mastering these practical steps to reframe negative thoughts and cultivate a more positive mindset.

1. Identify and Challenge: Notice automatic negative thoughts during stressful moments.
2. Question Validity: Assess if these thoughts are based on facts or assumptions.
3. Reframe Positively: Replace negative thoughts with realistic or positive alternatives.
4. Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself kindly and with understanding, as you would a friend facing a similar situation.

Somatic Movement 

Somatic movements aim to enhance body awareness and release tension stored in muscles and tissues. These gentle exercises can regulate the nervous system, reduce stress and improve overall physical and emotional well-being. After a particularly challenging situation, I often find a private spot to recenter myself during my break with somatic movements, helping me reconnect with my body.

Physical Exercise

Regular physical activity is a powerful stress reliever. It releases endorphins, improves mood and helps reduce anxiety. Even short bursts of exercise, like a brisk walk or quick yoga session, can be beneficial.

Social Support

Connecting with friends, family or healthcare support groups can provide emotional comfort and practical advice. Social interactions help mitigate feelings of isolation and offer a sense of belonging.

How Does Diet and Sleep Affect Emotional Endurance?

Diet and sleep significantly impact emotional regulation, which is crucial for healthcare professionals managing high-stress environments. A balanced diet supports brain function and stabilizes mood. Stable blood sugar levels through regular meals and hydration help maintain emotional stability while limiting caffeine and sugar prevents mood swings. Ensure you eat a good breakfast before work and bring enough food to last through the day. 

Quality sleep is crucial for emotional processing, memory consolidation, mood regulation and stress management. For healthcare professionals with irregular shifts, maintaining good sleep hygiene is essential. Following these practices can enhance sleep quality:

• Create a dark, quiet and cool sleep environment
• Avoid caffeine and nicotine four to six hours before bed
• Engage in calming activities
• Limit screen time before bed

Creating a Supportive Work Environment

We’re changing the narrative in healthcare. It’s no longer a nurses eat their young world. 

However, the shift to creating a supportive work environment has to come from the top down and start at the management level. As nurses and healthcare workers, we can stand together and invoke change by saying no to extra work and resisting the pressure to fill gaps left by inadequate staffing. To create a supportive work environment, we need to:

• Foster a culture of mutual support and respect among colleagues.
• Advocate for fair staffing levels and proper workload distribution.
• Utilize available mental health resources and encourage peers to do the same.
• Document and report unsafe situations to create a paper trail highlighting staffing issues.
• Stand up for yourself by setting boundaries and promoting self-care.

With the rise of remote nursing, many nurses are leaving the bedside—but it doesn’t have to be this way. We need to realize it’s not all or nothing regarding bedside nursing. If you’re feeling burnt out from bedside nursing, consider changing roles or taking a step back from full-time and taking a part-time or per diem role. Many nurses also find great work-life balance in travel nursing jobs.

Long-Term Strategies for Sustaining Emotional Endurance

Building and maintaining emotional endurance is a marathon, not a sprint. Continuous education and training on emotional resilience can equip you with the tools to handle stress effectively. Regular self-assessment helps you stay attuned to your emotional well-being, allowing you to address issues before they escalate. A solid support network of colleagues, friends and mental health resources ensures you have the backing you need to navigate the challenges of healthcare work. 

Here are some essential resources to help you sustain your emotional endurance:

Online Courses

• Nursing Resilience: The Free Online Course for Nurses
  • Created by Osmosis through Elesiver
  • Earn 3.75 contact hours towards continuing education upon completion 
• Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART) Program
  • Created by Harvard Medical School for healthcare workers to understand how to:
    • Manage stress
    • Prevent burnout
    • Enhance patient care
    • Apply mind-body interventions
    • Promote integrative healthcare practices

Remember, maintaining emotional resilience is an ongoing journey—your well-being deserves this commitment.

Are you considering a change in work dynamics to safeguard your mental health and achieve a better work-life balance? Create a free profile on the Vivian Health app and receive tailored job offers right to your phone for a faster, easier way to find your ideal job.

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