My time in nursing school, as I worked on my Associate’s degree. Each new semester brought on additional stress, and each new stress also included a new symptom, from being unable to eat, overeating, and not sleeping. It wasn’t until my last semester when began to find some balance.
Others in my cohort also felt the crunch between lectures, exams, clinical, paperwork, and labs. More than one student had a panic attack that led to a short hospital stay or passing out during clinical.
Do you have a student life balance?
Are you constantly exhausted?
Are you eating? Are you eating healthy?
Nursing school is challenging, the material itself isn’t complex, but the amount of material and the turnaround time between initial exposure and regurgitation or proper application on each exam is concise, depending on the program, one or two weeks. Your physical and mental health becomes something left on the back burner.
When your physical and mental health are placed to the side, several issues occur. Not taking the time for yourself causes mental health problems. You are not able to sleep or eat leaves your physical body to become exhausted and aching. Your mental alert and awareness lessen. Chronic stress will cause a fluctuation within your hormones, which causes an increase in weight, acne, and hair loss. Your body wears out as your concentration and ability to specific information decreases, which will only add more stress to an already stressful situation.
How to find balance? Everyone is different, and everyone has a different definition of what balance means. I have found that routine during nursing school was my friend. Routine for work, school, study, and my own time allowed me to be as well-rounded as possible. Now keep in mind my main priority was always school. So for me, balance inst a 50/50 division. Balance means that studying was a priority, but I make sure to take time for meals, sleep, walks, and time with friends once a week to every other weak. Once I took care of myself, the only stress was that right before an exam or between an exam and grade release.
Let me state this once again there is a fine line between no balance and balance. The lack of balance can flip flop on either side. No self-care and all work on one side, the other side lacks study and all fun and games.
But how do you find balance within your work as either student or nurse and home life?