I’m three years into nursing and work on a tele/cardio step-down unit. If I’m being completely honest, what I’m finding increasingly exhausting is the behavioural component of some of my patients and the constant mental/emotional energy it takes to manage them. I always have some degree of pre-shift anxiety because I never know what I’m going to walk into. The shifts I dread are the ones where I have long-term behavioural patients or patients with advanced dementia. I don’t mean the pleasantly confused or mildly difficult patients. I’m talking about patients who are extremely verbally abusive, non-compliant in management terms, a simple task takes 20 minutes or multiple hours of negotiating type of ordeal. Then you can have another patient with very advanced dementia who is constantly calling out, kicking, biting, scratching, etc. Having a combination of those patients while also caring for other patients who are medically more acute or have a lot going on that particular day is just exhausting. I find the constant behavioural management incredibly draining. You’re constantly being yelled at, negotiating, redirecting, anticipating behaviours, trying to keep everyone safe, and still trying to get everything else done. I’m also dealing with some stressful things in my personal life right now. I don’t feel like it’s affecting my performance at work or my ability to be present with my patients, but I think the combination of everything is a lot. By the time I get home from work, I have no energy left for anything else. I just want to hangout in bed. On my days off, I feel like one day is spent recovering from work, then I finally start feeling recharged…and suddenly I’m mentally bracing myself to go back for my next string of shifts. I’m starting to dread work again. How do you deal with this kind of mental/emotional exhaustion? Does it get easier as you become more experienced, or is this something you’ve just learned to manage? Have you found anything that actually helps you recover between shifts?! TLDR: what’s your long term coping strategy?!   submitted by   /u/coyavenue [link]   [comments]