Support Groups for Nursing Assistants

Working as a Nursing Assistant can be very fulfilling. It is a great feeling to know you spent your day helping others. However, with this job comes a great deal of stress and frustration at times. This is due to short staffing so there is too much to get done, issues with other medical staff, and dealing with terminally ill patients or those who have died while in your care. All of this can start to take a toll on a Nursing Assistant, both physically and mentally. As a result, many Nursing Assistants suffer from burnout. They no longer find joy in the profession they were once passionate about.

To help you manage the stress and other factors that your job as a Nursing Assistant brings, support groups are a great way to discuss how you are feeling, both the good and the bad. It is a way to create relationships and receive support from others in the same profession. You will also have the ability to provide support to others in the group.

There are many ways Nursing Assistants set up support groups. It is very easy to put up a flier at work and ask those who are interested to come to a meeting. Make sure your flier addresses the group is only for Nursing Assistants. Many employers will support this effort, and offer you a meeting place. Make sure you discuss your reasons for wanting to establish a support group to administration prior to advertising.

Some groups meet weekly while others meet every other week. You can have established topics for each meeting or just allow members to bring to the table what ever they want. Make sure to set up ground rules for respect as well as prevent the meetings from becoming nothing but complaint sessions. The purpose of the support group is to help you stay positive, not generate the negative.

If your group of co-workers is very small, you might decide to set up a Nursing Assistant support group in your community, inviting Nursing Assistants from all medical facilities to meet together. You can select a central location such as the library. Often Churches will allow groups to gather in their facilities when not in use. You can also choose to rotate the medical facility that will host each meeting.

Online support groups for Nursing Assistants have become very popular. They allow you a level on animosity that face to face meetings do not. Also, your group will consist of people from all over the Nation, not just in your area. This can lead to learning new ways that work well for others that you can apply to your work environment. Online support groups for Nursing Assistants are free to join. They also dont require an effort being put into reminders for meetings, or securing places to meet.

It is important for Nursing Assistants to be aware of the dangers of stress and burnout in their profession. Having a reliable support system in place is a great way to offset the effects of stress and burnout. While our families and friends are often supportive of our career choice, they dont understand the depth of some of the challenging issues that happen for Nursing Assistants in their job.

Having a support group made up of your peers allows you a resource that is walking in the same shoes. If you are hesitant, give a meeting or two a try. You just might find it is exactly what you need to help you keep that level of enthusiasm for your job at its best.

Counseling for Nursing Assistants

The day to day activities of a Nursing Assistant can be rewarding and draining. Most of us only know that they offer assistance with feeding, dressing, and bathing patients. However, they do so much more. They develop ongoing relationships with the patients as they have more one on one time with them than any other medical staff. They also provide comfort to the patient and their family. They do all they can from reading to them, helping them write letters, and holding their hand as they move from life to death.

Experiencing the negative activities that occur in the Nursing Assistant profession can really take a toll on an individual. It is especially hard when someone they have been caring for takes a turn for the work, becomes terminally ill, or dies. They still have to go on with their other patients, but they can be left feeling empty and at a loss.

Many medical facilities are aware of this issue. With being compassionate comes true feelings of friendship and loss. Counseling is a good way to help Nursing Assistants deal with the events that take place in the working environment. This counseling can be conducted through the employer or at the expense of the Nursing Assistant from an outside resource.

Counseling services offered on site to Nursing Assistants is generally offered free of charge, as long as the information being discussed is work related. The employer may have several paid counselors that only provide services to employees. Others use their counselors to provide services to their employees, patients, and the family and friends of patients. You will need to look into how it is set up at your place of employment for specific details.

These counseling sessions can be ongoing or set up only when a Nursing Assistant feels the need to do so. It is important to understand that the information you discuss with the counselor at your worksite will not be shared with your employer. Too often, Nursing Assistants avoid this type of support and help because they are afraid their boss is going to get a transcript of the entire session. All counseling sessions are held in strict confidentiality. They only time anything is reported is if the counselor feels you are in danger of hurting yourself or others.

Since counseling is important in the medical profession, you may be able to encourage administration at your place of employment to set up services for employees. While they may argue that it is costly and not in the budget, be prepared to discuss the benefits to the overall effectiveness of the staff. Employees with good mental health will do a better job. They will also choose to continue employment longer than staff that needs counseling but does not receive it.

If your employer does not offer counseling services, it is important that you look into an outside resource for such services. The Nursing Assistant field can be draining and emotional. A key to staying on top of the game is to take care of yourself. This means both on a physical and emotional level. In reality, you arent going to be effectively caring for patients if you havent been taking care of your own needs.

Counseling services can be expensive, but most health insurance plans cover them. If yours doesnt or you dont have health insurance, check in your area for discount programs and sliding scale fees.

Ways to Better Your Brain, Cognitively and Physiologically

When you start forgetting things, you blame your brain. When you don’t feel so good since you stayed up late and drank till 3am, you won’t be working in the office like a sharp instrument. When you don’t even notice what doesn’t work among the solutions you come up with and argue for during meetings, you have to do something about this. When you can relate to all these, you need to better your brain, both in sharpening your perceptions, in improving how you approach problems, in analyzing information, and in adjusting your health, sleeping, eating, and work out regimen.

Your brain is not only like a muscle. It’s also like a 10 year old. It could have started out curious and as you nourish that curiosity and savor the habit of learning more, of seeing relationships among things, of solving problems, you tend to improve the cognitive aspect of your brain.

Problem solving is a good way to keep your brain sharp. Once you get familiar with how your biases clog and impede your way of seeing things, and get some training on problem solving techniques, not only will your stress level go down, you will start to feel empowered. Most people try to avoid problems, but if you’re curious on how to generate solutions to things and to try them out, then problems become opportunities to make things better. The more empowered and capable you feel about your problem solving skills, the better you feel about yourself, the more you become capable of dealing with stress. Consequently, the more capable your observational and analytic skills become, the healthier your brain gets.

So it’s recommended to start researching on problem solving techniques, and see how the many strategies may apply to your various domestic, academic, and work scenarios.

On the other hand, your brain is like a muscle. It atrophies or welts when you don’t use it. Like a plant, It doesn’t grow well when it doesn’t receive the right nutrients. Like a dog underfed and eating trash, it limps and gets sick easily.

There is also a social and self-affirming positive outlook about trying to better your brain. It involves spending time enjoying the company of your friends and family, when you can be yourself, and just let it all hang. There’s something spiritually relieving about being yourself, and around the people you’re comfortable with, and whose company you enjoy. This kind of rest is good for your brain, too.

Get some sleep, a lot of sleep. The brain works better when your synapses are healthily firing and your subconscious has had time to sort itself out. This means rest physically and mentally. The more time away from a problem you get the more your mind has time to work on it, subconsciously. It’s always better to approach work problems after a long night’s sleep.

Work out, too, on a regular basis. The more your heart gets pumped and often the more blood circulates throughout your body, and to your brain, bringing fresh supplies of oxygen and nutrients to it. Also, working out brings about increased levels of release of endorphins that make you feel good. It’s no wonder some people become addicted to exercise. Your brain will like it, too. These are just some of the ways to better your brain.