Nursing School Stress

If there is one thing I have learned over my entire nursing school career it is stress. Stress and I have become intimately involved during nursing school. I was never a person who stressed out before in my life. In fact, I was the calm and collected person who found absurdity in other people speaking of “stress.” But here I am.

It was interesting to me the things I found the most stressful about nursing school. A messy house was at the top of my list. Somehow I couldn’t find the time or willpower to study when my house was in shambles. So, my dear husband said he would take on the task of doing the household chores while I was in nursing school. That was stressful. It took me a good month to really “let” my husband do the chores and let him do them the way he chose to do them and not “my” way. What a big difference that really made! Now he’s turning into a neat freak and I’m turning into a slob.

Another thing that I found stressful was working full time in nursing school. So stressful, in fact, I don’t think I can really talk about it without having a mini panic attack.

Finding time to eat right and exercise are definitely great ways to alleviate stress. But how and when do you find time to do them? It’s very easy to stress out about not doing these things than it is to simply try your best. And, when you don’t work out four times a week like you plan to – just let it go.

There are many great tips on how to diminish stress. I’m sure everybody starting nursing school or thinking about going to nursing school has all read different ways to cut back on the amount of stress in their lives. I think the most important thing to learn is what works for you. Find people that you can depend on when the stress gets too much and learn healthy ways of coping with the increasing demands of nursing school.

Remember to take your life day by day. I had to finally just look at my schedule and see what I had to do “right now” rathern than planning for the whole week. That was too much to think about! One of the best pieces of advice that I can give to other students is to just do it! Don’t think about it, because you’ll lose your sanity.

If you can handle the stress and workload of nursing school you will be able to handle anything that comes your way in life.