Why Work-Life Balance Is Important for Nurses? (part 1)

NURSING MADE EASY

For nurses, work-life balance doesn’t mean bisecting your time into 50% work and 50% leisure, nor does it mean completely separating these two halves. “Busy people who see work and nonwork as two separate spheres tend to get angry when one bleeds into the other.” Rather than looking at your work and personal life as two competing halves, he suggests looking at life as “one big pie.”

Nurses work and live in two separate worlds. In one world, they’re caregivers who often put the needs of patients before their own. In the other, nurses are steadfast friends, caring family members, and lifelong learners—individuals striving to find fulfillment in their personal lives. When worlds collide and nurses are unable to balance the contrasting demands of work and their family, wellness, and personal needs, it can lead to inner turmoil, physical and mental health concerns, and burnout.

When loved ones, personal goals, and a nursing career are all vying for your attention, how can you possibly balance all of life’s demands? As we look at the importance of and strategies for improving work-life balance as a nurse, you can begin your journey of self-improvement by being honest with yourself. What are your priorities? What’s holding you back? And what does a fulfilled, satisfying life look like to you while navigating these two disparate domains? As you’ll soon read, your two worlds may not be as separate as you think.

Another way is to imagine life as a wheel. The “Wheel of Life” is a tool that can help you visualize the varying areas of your life. In addition to work and leisure, the wheel of life generally contains:

• Family and friends
• Finances
• Health
• Personal growth
• Physical health
• Mental relaxation 

How to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Your first step in achieving work-life balance is to use your skills as a nurse to evaluate your own priorities. What would you tell a patient if they were experiencing stress from work-life imbalance? What dimension of your wheel of life have you been neglecting? Even if your priority is to advance your career, another aspect of your life, such as your physical or mental health, might be throwing the rest of your life out of balance.

What’s So Important About Balancing Work and Leisure?

When not at work, nurses try to squeeze as much out of their free time as possible, including spending time with their family, furthering their education, and finding time for a little rest and relaxation. No one wants to choose between work and personal commitments like these. However, nurses who are unable to improve work-life balance risk falling short in both their personal and professional lives.

Work-life imbalance can also result in burnout, a state of physical and mental exhaustion that causes nurses to feel disconnected from work and home. Nurses experiencing burnout are more likely to make mistakes, which can be costly and dangerous in the medical field. nurses with poor life-balance put their own health at risk as a result of chronic stress, which can cause anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, and heart disease.

NURSING MADE EASY