Spending Time Away from the Floor

Hey, everyone.. I mean, if anyone is reading this.. haha. It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I would share a couple of things that I've noticed since I've been back from my trip to North Carolina.

What I mainly want to talk about is that with the trip I took in the beginning of June, a vacation I took with my family to Florida a few weeks ago, and spending some time out of town for Independence Day, I learned that it is so important to take a break from everything going on in our crazy lives, especially if you work on a floor and take nursing courses. Every time I came back to my floor after being out of town for even just a few days, I felt refreshed. I would even say I felt like a new person when I would take care of my patients again. I can also tell that I am a lot less tense throughout the shift and think a lot clearer after having that time of relaxation to get back to 'chill Kyle.'

We get so caught up in all the call lights, patient codes, family visits, phone calls, charting and so on that it becomes a routine: 12-hour shift, go home, eat, sleep, wake up, do it again. Then on our days off it's recovering from that shift and having to take care of everything else going on in our personal lives. Routines are nice because you begin to feel like you can keep up, but it eventually pulls the energy out of you and you begin to feel like you're losing excitement in life. Of course, everything we do in those 12-hour shifts is incredibly rewarding and exciting no matter how exhausted we are at the end, but as healthcare workers, we have to acknowledge when it's time to take a break and reward ourselves.

If you are starting to feel wore out, or even worse - beginning to resent going to work, schedule a few days off in a row and do something you love that will get you away from it all. You will thank yourself for it.