5 Ways to Leave Work at Work

Recently I saw a post on Facebook saying that nursing was 24 hours, but that this did not mean we had to bring it home with us.  This is so true. Yet it’s not always easy. The difficulty of this was echoed by someone during a recent TikTok live session of mine. She asked, “How do you leave it at work, after all the stuff you’ve seen.”

It can be really hard to leave work at work, especially with the weight of the work we do as nurses. So, here are 10 tips for leaving work at work.

1 – Debrief

I spent most of my career working in the ER, almost 20 years worth. As you can imagine over that many years I have seen, done, and experienced things that would make just about anybody crazy. There were so many shifts that I most definitely needed to leave behind. For many of those years, I would hang out after the shift talking with the charge nurse who quickly became a friend and mentor to me.

Those post-shift conversations were huge in allowing me to leave work at work. It allowed me to unload anything that was bothering me. It allowed me to clarify anything I didn’t understand. I can’t even begin to fully explain how much these helped.

You may not need to debrief after every shift, but find a coworker and make a deal that you will be debriefing partners. Agree that if either one of you needs to debrief, then you are there for it. Then, when those shifts come that you do need to debrief from, DO IT! I don’t care how tired you are or how bad you just want to go home, do your debrief. This doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but this time can truly allow you to leave work at work.

2 – Don’t go home

Ok, I’m not telling you not to go home. One of the big reasons for leaving work at work is so that you can be fully, truly present with your family with you get home. So, yeah, you will have to go home at some point. But, some days you might need to put that off a little bit.

For most of my nursing career, I lived less than 10 miles from work. This meant a fairly short drive home. After some shifts that drive home simply wasn’t long enough for me to fully release from the day. On these days, it was not unusual for me to just sit in the car for a bit. It might only be 5-15 minutes, but it allowed that separation between work and home that I needed.

For me, I usually spent this time listening to music. That’s just what helped me to reset. However, this could be spent sitting in silence as well.

3 – Enjoy silence

My habit for most of my adult life has been to listen to music while I drive. Now I’m much more likely to listen to podcasts. In fact, if I’m in the car by myself, I can almost guarantee that I will be listening to a podcast. Neither of these is necessarily a bad thing.

However, there is great power in silence. For me, it can be so cleansing to turn the radio off, roll the windows down, and just ride. The sound and feel of the wind blowing through the car just seem to wash away my anxiety, anger, stress, and so much more.

4 – TURN THE MUSIC UP!

The other side of silence is LOUD. Depending on my mood silence might be the answer. At other times I just need to crank up the music, put the windows down and find a back road to get lost on while I drive home. If silence isn’t your thing, try this. Or, if the shift just calls more for loud music than silence, roll with it.

5 – Journal

I can hear some of you right now, “Journaling isn’t really my thing.” Ok, I get it. Journaling is a great tool. There is something powerful that happens when you take the time to write down your thoughts. It’s almost like the emotions connected to those thoughts kinda leave your head and land on the paper.

I’ve journaled off and on for most of my life. I love an old-fashioned composition notebook for this. However, the exact tool is not important. As powerful as pen and paper can be, there are a lot of great electronic tools these days. I use an app called DayEntry. It allows for quick entry of my thoughts, even on the go. If typing your thoughts is not your style this app also allows you to do audio recordings. It then allows you to back those entries up in a variety of ways.

Now I hear some of you saying that you don’t have time for this, especially after a long shift. Here’s the deal. This can be done in as little as 5 minutes. To help, I’ve created this 5 Minute Debrief. It asks 3 simple statements:

• Things I did well today. Keep it brief, but take a moment to brag on yourself. Even after the most difficult shift, there will be SOMETHING you did well. Give yourself credit.
• Things I could have done better today. These are the sort of things that we bring home with us. Take a moment to write it down, then let it go.
• Things I need to look up before my next shift. This is another one of those things that we can bring home with us. It can keep us from sleeping. I can say that I’ve spent hours staring at the ceiling because of something I wasn’t sure about and needed to look up. You are not writing this down so that you can look it up now, or even when you get home. No! Write it down, then let it go. You do need to circle back and look this up but do that later. Right now you need to disconnect from work and go home.

You can download this free journal page HERE. Print it out, put it in a binder and keep it with you. Or, you can buy a notebook or journal and just write these three statements on the page as you journal.

Get a hug

Ok, this one’s a bonus. There is something so powerful about a hug. That connection with another human being has the power to break down any barriers we have put up to protect ourselves. You see, in order to even get that close to someone, you have to take those shields down. Who to hug is up to you. This could be a coworker, a friend, or your spouse.

This would be the one time when I would say it’s ok to carry a little bit of it home. You don’t have to tell your spouse about your day. Just tell them that you need a hug and let that hug break up the stress of the day and banish it.