Stress Free Nurses

Recognising Stress.

 

As nurses, we can sometimes be so busy with our jobs, ensuring that we're giving the correct care to our patients, ensuring paperwork is filled out etc. that we often do not recognise the signs of our own stress until it really begins to affect us. Recognising the signs and symptoms of our own stress is important so that we can take measures to prevent burnout. These are some of the symptoms of stress. Check how many of these apply to you when you're stressed in order to recognise them in future:

 

• Tiredness

• Restlessness

• Sleeping problems

• Inability to concentrate

• Headaches

• Nausea

• Loss of appetite

• Feeling dizzy

• Hypertension

• Constipation/Diarrhoea

• Irritablility

• Aggression

• Depression

• Feelings of despair

• Loss of interest in others, life or self

• Loss of perspective or self-esteem

• Anxiety

• Hyper-alert

• Panic

• Mood swings

 

 

These are just some of the symptoms but in reality we can experience many more. Everyone reacts to stress in different ways so it is important that we can recognise our own symptoms of stress and accept when we are feeling stressed and may need help.

 

The sub-pages under this "Recognising Stress" page include tools to help recognise your levels of stress and how likely you may become ill due to your stress. After recognising your own stress symptoms, check out the tools to calculate your own stress levels before looking at ways of managing or preventing stress.