15 Tips for Nurses to Manage Stress and Avoid Burnout

Practical Tips to Improve Resilience and Build Healthier Habits

Nursing is one of the most rewarding careers on Earth for people who love helping others. At the same time, it’s also a profession with plenty of challenging moments.

Nurses routinely witness miraculous recoveries and heart-warming reunions. They’re also exposed to people in the midst of loss, grief, and intense physical or emotional pain. Combine the emotional rollercoaster of nursing with a high-stakes environment where any mistake can have life-altering consequences, and you have a recipe for stressed-out nurses.

Fortunately, resilience and stress management are skills that can be developed, just like how nurses learn over time to calmly take action when an emergency arises. In this article, we’ll review some useful nursing tips providers can use to manage stress, stay in good health, and maintain their passion for healing patients.

Looking for more details on how to start your nursing career—or the opportunities that come with it? Check out our in-depth guide on how to become a registered nurse, or our article outlining the 16 highest-paying nursing jobs.

Understanding Stress and Burnout in Nursing

Stress is the body’s mental and physical response to a perceived threat, and it’s pretty useful at times to keep us safe. It’s what causes us to grip the handrail a little tighter at the edge of a tall building, to hold a child’s hand before they can run out into traffic, or to keep our distance from dangerous wild animals.

Over time, however, chronic, unmanaged stress can have negative consequences, including mental health issues, insomnia, and even heart disease or diabetes. And unfortunately, nurses are regularly exposed to stress at work. It’s a job that entails frequent emotional demands, long hours, heavy workloads, and occasional conflict with difficult patients, families, or even colleagues.

When repeated stress continues long-term with little hope of improvement, it can lead to burnout, which has unfortunately become somewhat of an epidemic among nurses. A 2023 study from the CDC showed that nearly 20% of nurses reported feeling burned out very often, up from just 11.6% in 2018.

Burned-out nurses may feel constantly exhausted, detached, or cynical about their jobs, which can ultimately affect the quality of care patients receive. It seems to affect new nurses in particular, with another study showing 69% of nurses under 25 had experienced symptoms of burnout.

Because nurses are regularly exposed to stressful situations at work, finding healthy ways to manage their emotions is vital for a long and healthy career. Combined with supportive management and a strong social network, nurses can build the stress-management skills they need to thrive inside and outside the clinic.

15 Tips for Managing Stress and Avoiding Burnout

1. Prioritize Self-Care

Nurses spend so much time thinking about other people’s needs that they can forget to take care of themselves. And while treating yourself once in a while is a good thing, self-care means more than bath bombs or your favorite coffee shop order—it also includes everyday habits like diet, exercise, hydration, and getting enough sleep.

Giving your body the time and fuel it needs to wind down from a stressful shift is important on a day-to-day basis, but even more important as the effects of your lifestyle choices add up over time.

2. Develop Healthy Coping Mechanisms

Some stress-management methods are healthier than others. Though an occasional scrolling session, TV-and-pizza binge, or fun night out with friends is totally fine, certain habits can also cross the line into unsustainable or unhealthy when relied upon too frequently as an emotional release valve.

While everyone has a different idea of what helps them relax, make sure you add some mindfulness-based habits into the mix. Things like journaling, meditation, yoga, tai chi, and even just taking a walk while your mind wanders can be amazingly effective in managing stress and regulating your emotions.

3. Set Realistic Goals

Goal-setting is another useful tip that can help nurses manage stress and remain calm in challenging situations. Setting small, incremental goals throughout your shift keeps you focused on accomplishing the next task, and helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed. When you have clear goals to accomplish, there is always a clear path forward.

As you check off achievable micro-goals, you also naturally give yourself positive reinforcement and healthy self-talk—with each success, you deepen your internal belief that you’ve got this. Setting goals is so effective in stressful situations that military special forces units like Navy SEALs teach it to their most elite trainees.

4. Time Management

How nurses manage their time during a shift can be a major factor in their stress levels at work. By identifying their most critical tasks and making a plan for the shift ahead, nurses can ease the mental strain of constantly re-prioritizing on the fly.

Whenever possible, focus on completing one thing at a time rather than multitasking, which research shows actually does more harm than good. Trying to perform two (or more) tasks at once divides your attention, leading to difficulty retaining information and worse performance in each task.

Delegation is another essential time-management tactic that doesn’t always come naturally to nurses. When appropriate, according to state laws, passing off certain tasks to support staff can free you up to take on more urgent patient-care tasks.

5. Build a Support Network

A strong sense of community—both inside and outside of work—is a basic psychological need, and one that burned-out nurses are often lacking. Feeling understood and supported by the people in your daily life helps you get through a hectic shift in the clinic, and make a full recovery afterward.

Whether your outside work community is made up of friends, family, or both, try to surround yourself with supportive people who bring out the best in you. Pay attention to how you feel before and after you’re around people, and make sure that you’re spending most of your time and energy on relationships that leave you fulfilled rather than drained.

6. Seek Professional Help When Needed

Even the most resilient nurses can become overwhelmed by the demands of their work and personal lives. When you’re dealing with mental health challenges, well-meaning friends will usually offer advice as best they can. But you wouldn’t ask them to perform a blood transfusion without training—so why would you take a similar approach to your mental health care?

Sometimes, talking to a professional is the best way to manage negative thoughts or feelings, and to create a plan for improving your mental and emotional health. As a starting point, look into employee assistance programs available through your workplace, or counseling services offered by your health insurance provider.

7. Practice Work-Life Balance

Most nurses are understandably dedicated to their life-saving work, although it’s impossible to be 100% on 100% of the time. Making time to disconnect from the demands of the job is critical for nurses to be at their best when they’re on the clock. Put the same care into planning your “me time” as you do while treating your patients—you can do the most good when your own mental and physical health are in top condition.

On top of practicing healthy hobbies and nurturing meaningful relationships outside of work, remember that you’ve got paid time off for a reason, and you should use it! Planning a trip or a staycation gives you something to look forward to and gives you an opportunity to unwind more than you can during a single day or weekend off.

8. Develop Resilience

Resilience refers to one’s ability to adapt and thrive in trying circumstances. And like most parts of the human body and mind, it can be developed over time. Just like gym training makes it easier to handle the physical demands of lifting and turning patients, building resilience helps nurses resist burnout, compassion fatigue, and some of the other mental challenges of the job.

Highly resilient nurses take a compassionate and mindful approach to work while also accepting there are certain things they cannot control. They never stop caring, but they also learn to “let go” when they know they’ve done their best. Nurses can also practice their resilience through meditation and breath control exercises, which help strengthen the mind and regulate our nervous systems.

9. Focus on Continuing Education

Nurses can find continuing education courses dedicated specifically to stress management techniques and managing the emotional load of nursing. Seeking out these courses when planning future CE credits can equip you with valuable skills you’ll use for the rest of your healthcare career.

Beyond formal stress management training, continual development of all your other nursing skills helps you build confidence and resilience as your career progresses. The more knowledge you gain of different nursing skills and techniques, the better prepared you’ll be for any situation that arises—and the more practice you’ll have to control your emotions in unpredictable circumstances.

10. Foster Positive Workplace Relationships

Your workplace support network is every bit as valuable as the one in your personal life—perhaps even more so for nurses. A strong work community where nurses can learn from (and relate to) one another, combined with supportive management and administration, can make a massive impact on stress levels, overall morale, and burnout risk in any facility.

Though you’ll naturally be closer to some colleagues than others, making connections and finding mentors brings you opportunities to learn new skills and gain new perspectives. While a good venting session is healthy every once in a while, remember to stay professional and solutions-oriented and avoid the temptation to gossip or point fingers.

11. Learn to Say No

Most nurses get into the profession because they’re naturally caring people who love to help others. And while it’s an admirable trait, it can also lead to nurses taking on more than they can handle. It’s healthy to establish boundaries and advocate for yourself, especially when you’re already close to your limit or when dealing with difficult behavior from a patient or family member.

It doesn’t make you a mean or selfish person to say “not this time” to work on your day off or to another nurse who wants to swap shifts. Setting appropriate limits helps you maintain a balanced, healthy lifestyle, which makes you a better nurse over the long term. And if you ever find yourself in a situation where a patient (or colleague) makes an unreasonable or unsafe request, you’ll need to be able to stand up for yourself.

12. Engage in Hobbies and Interests

Although your nursing career is a big part of your identity, your interests and hobbies outside of work are just as necessary to becoming a well-rounded person. Finding hobbies you enjoy can enrich your social life, improve your mental and physical health, and stimulate your creativity. They also give you a much-needed opportunity to think about something other than work!

Whether you’re a homebody or a thrill-seeker, any activity that encourages a flow state or a focus on the present moment can provide benefits beyond the enjoyment of the hobby itself—including better emotional regulation, increased happiness, and more intrinsic motivation.

13. Stay Organized

With so many things happening during your average nursing shift, staying organized can save nurses a lot of time and effort. Make a plan and prioritize your most pressing tasks at the beginning of your shift, and use checklists to make sure nothing falls through the cracks during busy periods.

Do your best to stay up to date on documentation as you treat each patient. If you can’t chart as you go, carry a small notebook with you and take detailed notes so you can catch up at the end of your shift. Even small things like maintaining a tidy workspace or always keeping your pen in the same pocket can add up to significant time and energy savings over the course of a busy shift.

14. Practice Gratitude

Even in the most difficult moments, there’s always something that can be appreciated. Gratitude is a powerful force, and has been shown to have significant effects on our physical health as well as our mental state. Practicing gratitude can help relieve stress and anxiety, improve sleep quality, and even reduce the risk of heart disease.

Writing down things you’re grateful for at the beginning or end of the day is a great way to get started. Redirecting negative thoughts toward gratitude is also a common resilience-building strategy in stressful situations. Gratitude is something that gets easier with practice—and when shared with others, it has the compound effect of making two people happy at once!

15. Stay Informed About Burnout

Nurses who stay informed about burnout and learn to recognize its symptoms will be better prepared to take care of themselves and make changes when necessary. If you start feeling constantly overwhelmed, cynical about your job, or like you can’t ever quite catch up on rest on your days off, it’s time to re-focus on self-care with the tips mentioned above.

Don’t hesitate to speak up to a colleague or supervisor if you start to experience signs of burnout. Whether it’s taking some time off, adjusting your schedule, or connecting you with resources to learn coping skills, there are multiple options to help you manage.

Prepare for nursing success at Provo College.

Nursing school is where you’ll build the foundation for your future in healthcare. The right training program will prepare you for the demands of the profession while equipping you with the skills you need to save lives.

In the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Provo College, you’ll train using advanced simulation labs that help you build your confidence and resilience before moving into real clinical environments. You’ll also learn from experienced instructors who can share valuable stress management skills and perspectives from years of working in patient care.

Ready to enroll in a BSN program and start your career journey? Check out our detailed guide on how to prepare for nursing school.