Nurses work tirelessly, but even the most dedicated caregiver needs to recharge. Here’s why self-care is essential. Lots of work is being done to address the issues in nursing and healthcare. Still, I’m worried for nurses.

You see, if we woke up tomorrow and all of the issues in healthcare were fixed, many of us would still be tired.

Consider this:

Suppose I had a garden in my yard. I don’t have a garden because the only things I can grow well are children and weeds. I have two amazing children and a yard that my HOA can confirm will not win any awards. But, let’s pretend for a minute that I DID have a garden.

One day, I go out to water my plants. I grab my watering can, fill it up, and proceed to the garden. One by one, I pour water from my watering can onto my plants, giving them what they need. Over time, my watering can will become empty. If I don’t take time to refill it, eventually it will lose its ability to give my plants what they need. It has not lost its capacity, but it will lose its ability.

Now consider that instead of a watering can, I drag a hose out to the garden. With that hose, I have a virtually endless supply of water. I can stand out there as long as I want, pouring water on my plants, and never worry about running out. 

As nurses, we tend to treat ourselves as if we are hoses that never need to be refilled. Like a watering can, we have great capacity for caring for others, but it is not endless.

Understand what drains your energy

As nurses, we have a great capacity to care for others. That capacity, however, is not endless. You see, as we care for others, we pour from ourselves into them. Here are some examples of the sorts of things that drain our can.

• Caring for patients. I LOVE caring for patients. Still, the reality is that it is draining. It takes energy to care for them. With each patient encounter, our watering can becomes a little emptier. I’m not blaming patients. It’s just the reality of it. Our patients need our care, and that’s a drain on us.
• Caring for family. The many things that we do for our family are a drain on us. Yes, we do them willingly and even enjoy doing many of them, but they are still a drain.
• Leading others: If you are a nurse, you are a leader at some level. This can be a simple as delegating to your tech, or a complex as the CNO working to keep the hospital running smoothly.
• Daily commute. Ok, maybe this one is just me. I’ve been spoiled for most of my career with a commute of 30 minutes or less. I now spend two to two and a half hours commuting every single day. Some days, that hour and 15 to hour and 30 minute drive home just leaves me drained with little energy to do anything when I get home.
• Relational struggles. Strong, healthy relationships can actually work to fill our cans. My wife and I have friends that we love to spend time with. Often it’s just us sitting on the porch with some meat on the grill, hanging out and talking. These nights fill my can. Likewise, my wife is really good at filling my can. Still, there are days when caring for her drains my can a bit. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s part of being her husband, but is a fact that we need to acknowledge.
• Financial stressors. If you’ve never had to worry about how to pay your light bill or where grocery money is going to come from, then you may not understand this one. If, however, you are like most of us and have experienced some financial struggles in your life, then you know how draining that can be.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but I think it serves to give you the idea of the sorts of things that empty your watering can. 

How to refill your energy

When I talk about refilling the watering can, you likely know exactly what I mean. However, when I talk about refilling your inner can, it might not be so clear. So, what does it mean to refill your can?

Thinking about the watering can, the act of filling it is simply a matter of putting back into it what it needs to be able to pour into others. Refilling our can is the same thing, except that what we need is not water, although that’s important. 

The things I listed above, and many that I didn’t list, don’t drain water from us. Instead, they drain energy. Pouring out of ourselves and into the people around us uses energy. Dealing with the stressors in work and life uses energy. So, refilling you can means replacing that energy that has been depleted. 

How do we refill?

When we have a patient who is bleeding, we understand that the first thing we need to do is stop the bleeding. It’s pointless to give them more blood if they are just going to keep bleeding it out. So, the first step toward filling you can will be to stop the bleeding. I’m not saying that we stop caring for our patients or families. Still, there are likely things in our lives that are draining us that we can stop doing.

This may be a hot take, but it is not your responsibility to fix everyone’s problems. Because of the type of person that becomes a nurse, we are often the ones that everyone goes to to fix all their problems, not just their medical ones. This can be a good thing, as most of us love helping others. However, it can get to the point where people dump things on us that they should be handling themselves. I’ll say it again, it’s not your responsibility to fix everyone’s problems.

Another way to stop the bleeding would be to remove some of the stressors in your life. For financial stressors, this can be budgeting, eliminating debt, and beginning to build some savings. It’s remarkable the difference this can make in your life. Trust me, I’ve been on a journey to do these very things.

Whether it’s financial stressors or the feeling that we need to be there for everyone, take some time to examine your life and see what stressors can be removed or minimized.

Now that we’ve stopped the bleeding, or at least slowed it down, let’s start refilling. This will look a little different for each of us, but the bottom line is doing things that GIVE you energy, instead of TAKING it away. Below is a list of some such things.

Practical Self-Care Tips for Nurses

Here are some examples of ways to refill. Like I said above, it’s really about doing things that give YOU energy. So, take some inspiration from this list, but do what works for you.

• Exercise
• Walking
• Reading
• Journaling
• Talking with friends or family
• DAYS OFF
• Travel
• Proper nutrition and hydration
• Playing video games (yes, it’s ok for adults to do this)
• Spiritual habits
• Rest: not just sleep, but intentionally taking time to do nothing
• Play: whatever that looks like for you
• Make something: For me, this can be anything from building a bench or table, to props for the local community theater, to a painting. For you, it might include these things plus baking or cooking, or more.
• Go outside: Simply spending time outside, in the sun, can be so energizing.

So, what do you do to refill?

Need more ideas? Click HERE to get a free list of 100 free or cheap self-care ideas.

The post Nurses aren’t Hose(s). Why Self-Care is Crucial for Nurse Well-Being appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Nothing changed on January 1st. You didn’t magically become a different person at the stroke of midnight. You don’t have a fairy godmother and you’re not Cinderella. So, your life was exactly the same when you woke up on January 1st, as it was at 11:59 the night before. Sadly, no prince charming coming to see if the shoe you lost that night fits your foot, so he can carry you off into a life you’ve been dreaming about.

There is good news

While it’s true that your life didn’t change at midnight, the good news is that it can. You CAN be a different person with a different life on January 1, 2026, but it will require work. 

At some point in your life, you set a goal to become a nurse. The fact that you are a nurse today proves that you are willing to face difficult things, put in the work, and overcome them. So, how do we turn the person and life we had at the start of this year into the version we want for 2026?

Mindset

Mindset is a bit of a buzzword these days, but there really is something to it. I would define mindset as the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world around us that either propel us toward our goals or prevent us from reaching them. Here are some mindset examples that might be holding you back:

1. I’ve always been overweight, I probably always will be.
2. My parents weren’t good with money, so I’ll always struggle financially.
3. Living paycheck to paycheck is just normal.
4. Nobody can get ahead in this economy.
5. I’m too old to start something new.
6. I’m just not very good at relationships.

When you read them written out like this, it’s easy to see how these can hold you back. Unfortunately, many of us have these sorts of thoughts running around in our heads and we don’t even know it. Start with recognizing any negative mindsets you may have. Then turn them into positives. Let’s do that with the six examples from above.

1. Losing weight is hard, but I’m not afraid of hard things and I know I can do this.
2. My parents weren’t good with money, but I can learn and build financial freedom.
3. Living paycheck to paycheck is normal, but it doesn’t mean I have to live that way.
4. Even in a challenging economy, with hard work and a plan, I can get ahead.
5. I’m NEVER too old to start something new.
6. My past relationship struggles don’t define me.

In my recently released Companion Workbook to my book, The Restored Nurse, I have an entirely new chapter on mindset, as well as some exercises that will help you build the sort of mindset that will help you build a life you love.

Vision

Merriam-Webster defines vision as “the act or power of imagination”. While we often think of imagination as what our children use when designing new games, or works of art the truth is that it’s just the ability to create a picture in your mind of something that does not yet exist. That’s vision. 

For the sake of this article, vision is you looking ahead to a future life you want to live and imagining what it would look like. Have you lost weight, found a partner, paid off debts, increased savings, moved to a new area, or bought a home? What does the vision of the future life you want to build look like? 

We have to acknowledge that we may not be able to move from where you were on January 1st to the life you want to build in 2025. If you have large sums of debt to pay off, it may take more than this year. If you have a lot of weight to lose, you can get an amazing start, but you may need more than a year. 

Plan

Now that we’ve created a mindset that can help us, rather than hold us back, and we have a vision for where we are going, we need a plan. Dave Ramsey says that goals without a plan are wishes. Whatever the life you will love looks like for you, you have to have a plan that helps you get there from here.

Think of it like a road trip. With a road trip, you start with a destination in mind, that’s the vision. From there you make a plan. When will you leave? What route will you take? Will you stop overnight or drive straight though? If so, where? Will you visit any places along the way? What snacks will you pack? You get the idea. Building a life you love is a journey and, just like this road trip, you need a plan.

Action

Even with all the above items in place, if you don’t take action, nothing will change. You will wake up on January 1st, 2026 only to realize that your life is the same as it was on January 1st of this year. 

This does not mean that you have to make drastic changes to your life right away. I think that sort of action is the reason so many people give up on their resolutions before the month of January has even passed. Instead, consider what small changes you can make that move you toward the vision you built above.

If you’re unsure where to start when it comes to changing your mindset, building a vision or plan, or taking action, my book, The Restored Nurse, and the Companion Workbook are great tools to help you get started.

The post New Year, Same Old You appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Then I got up at 4:30 for work…

As I prepared for work and then drove the 45-55 minute commute I couldn’t help but think of how much I didn’t love my life. Reflecting on what was going on that evening just a day or two before, I thought about what I was feeling. As I did, it occurred to me that what I was actually feeling was love for my family, not my life.

I love my family

I love my family more than I could possibly explain on this page. I have not been a perfect father, but I must have done a few things right because our son still wants to come over and still enjoys spending time with his dad. My son is 23 years old and still calls me daddy, even in public. I must have done something right.

But, it’s not just him. As parents, we hope and pray for our children to find good spouses. Our son certainly did. His wife has felt like part of the family since the day they started dating. She was able to handle us from the beginning and, if I’m honest, we are a lot to handle. Together, they have brought us our first grandchild. If you have grandchildren, you know what I’m feeling. If you don’t, just trust me, it’s pretty cool.

Our daughter is pretty amazing. Like so many girls, she is daddy’s girl. Even as a teenager, she’s still sweet. She may be fulfilling the contract that she signed for me when she was like 8 or 10 years old, but whatever the reason is, I’ll take it. 

No discussion of my family would be complete without talking about my wonderful wife. I like to tell people that we are basically a Disney movie. We met as teenagers and are living happily ever after. She was my high school sweetheart. I was 15 and she was 14 when we started dating. I really do feel like something out of a Disney movie, or a Hallmark Christmas special. Our relationship is not perfect and hasn’t always been easy, but it is really pretty awesome.

My life… not so much

I don’t hate my life, by any means. But, if I’m honest, there are a few things in my life that I don’t like. 

As I thought about this during my 45-50 minute commute, I realized that much of where my life was today was not by design. I had allowed most of my life to just kinda happen to me. 

Sure, there were parts of my life that were designed. After all, you don’t collect college degrees like Ash Ketchum catching Pokemon, by accident. Yet things like my physical health, finances, and even, for a large part, my relationships were pretty much on autopilot. The results have been kinda messy.

BUT THERE’S GOOD NEWS

The great thing is that my life ain’t over and, so long as I’m breathing I have an opportunity to change. In the 6 Pillars of Life, you and I can make a difference, no matter how far we’ve gone from where we want to be. If you’re not familiar with the 6 Pillars, check out this blog post, or go deeper with my book, The Restored Nurse, available on Amazon.

It really isn’t too late to get started building a life you’ll love and I’d love to help.

The post I Love My Family. My Life… no so much. appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

I can still remember standing in the woods near the church we were attending at the time. As tears streamed down my face, I looked to the sky and yelled these exact words, “I just want to love being a nurse again.”

I had been a nurse for 19 years and had always loved it. But, I didn’t anymore.

It wasn’t nursing I hated

Looking back, I can see that I still loved nursing, but what I didn’t love was the place I worked or the way I was treated there. Still, I was ready to leave nursing completely. If I had any idea of how to support my family in similar way to how I was able to as a nurse, I probably would have left nursing.

Now that a few years have passed, I’m glad I didn’t leave.

I determined that I would build a life I loved

From this moment, under the trees, I began a journey to build a life I loved.

This started with getting out of the terrible job I was in and finding something that better suited me. Taking time to look back on my career I realized that I had always been teaching. This was true not only in my job but also in many of the things I did outside of work. Not only had I always been teaching, but looking back, I realized that I loved doing it and that I was really good at it.

This started a journey that took me to complete my BSN, and then go on to get my MSN-Ed and spend the years since then working as a nurse educator in hospitals and universities.

It’s not just about work

This story starts with me wanting to leave nursing. I know that many nurses have felt the same way. I found that changing my specialty and where I worked was enough to reignite the passion for nursing that I thought was gone forever.

If you’re considering leaving nursing, I’d encourage you to consider changing where you work, the specialty you work in, or some other change before you leave completely. It may be time to leave, but a change of scenery could change everything for you.

In a recent Podcast episode, I discuss this very topic:

​Is it Time for You to Leave Nursing?​

If you need someone to talk to, my inbox is always open and I promise, I will not try to sell you anything.

Matt Norman

P.S. The Companion Workbook for my book, The Restored Nurse, is now available on Amazon.

The post I just want to love being a nurse again appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Driving a wagon on a road with deep ruts means picking a rut and driving in it. Once in such a rut, you are pretty much stuck. You’re going where that rut goes. Sure, if you need to take a turn that the ruts don’t take, you can, but this change in direction will take effort as your horse works to put the weight of the wagon and all its contents and passengers up out of the rut.

Traveling through the ruts is easy. Changing direction to go to a place the ruts are going, takes work.

Ruts in Our Brain

The pathways in our brains are like roads that our thoughts travel along. For things that we think about often, our brain creates ruts, neuropathways, to get us to those thoughts more quickly. This is why something that you had never heard of as a nursing student becomes something you can bring up without even thinking about it later in your career. This is why going over ACLS algorithms repeatedly, or working through scenarios and mock codes helps us not have to think about what to do next when the time comes.

Ruts can be good

When our son was about 18 months old, he and I went to have lunch with his mother. She was breaking up pieces of a hamburger for him to eat. Things were going great, till they weren’t.

MY SON WAS CHOKING!!

My wife screamed my name, picked up our son, and handed him to me. Without even thinking, I flipped him over and did the sort of back blows they teach in life-saving classes. I had never done this on a child before, but I had practiced it so many times that my brain had created ruts that quickly took me to what I needed to do. After a few blows our son coughed up the meat. We quickly asked for our check and left. Lunch was over, but our son was ok. He now has a wife and a son of his own.

In another instance, we were having Christmas dinner at my in-laws’ house when my mother-in-law started choking. Again my wife screamed my name. I jumped up and, again, did what I had been trained to do. After a couple of abdominal thrusts, she coughed up the food she was choking on. I had never done this either, but the ruts that my training had built in my brain took me to the place I needed to go to save my mother-in-law’s life… not sure if that was a good or bad thing. (Totally kidding, my mother-in-law is great and I’m very glad that she’s still here.)

Ruts can be bad

In the above instances, the ruts in my brain were good. However, that is not always the case.

Some years ago I experienced what I was convinced at the time was a nervous breakdown. I talk about this in the Mental Health chapter of my book, The Restored Nurse. Or you can read it HERE. Through that experience, my brain developed some new ruts. When I woke up the next morning, I was afraid of things that I had never been afraid of before. I was afraid to fly. No biggy, lots of people are. But, I had flown on multiple occasions before this and loved it. I was afraid to ride in elevators. Again, this is something that lots of people are afraid of, but I had never been. I was afraid to start IVs. I had been a nurse for close to 15 years and had started hundreds of IVs. Not only had I started hundreds, I was good at it, but the things I had experienced that night made me afraid to do something that had become so familiar to me.

This experience created ruts in my brain that ran straight from flying, elevators, and IVs to FEAR! I mean I couldn’t even take the elevator down one level that next morning, even though I had ridden on that same elevator hundreds of times before this. Unlike the life-saving ruts I spoke of above, these ruts definitely were not helping me or anyone else.

The ruts in your brain

In addition to the ruts I’ve mentioned already, many of us have ruts in our brains that steer our lives in directions we don’t want to go. Perhaps you have a rut that leads you to overeat when you’re stressed, sad, or even happy. Maybe you have a rut that leads you to spend money you don’t have or at least money that you shouldn’t be spending. I don’t care what the internet says, “shopping therapy” can be a really bad thing.

These ruts in my fantasy novels, steer the wagons where the ruts want to go, with no care for where the wagon or its driver want to go. Sometimes the ruts in our brains are the same way. The good news for the characters in my books is that they are not stuck in the ruts. They can pull out of them and go in a direction other than where the ruts are going. We can do the same thing. We don’t have to be slaves to the ruts in our brains. But, just like in the books I read, getting out of these ruts requires two things: intentionality and work.

Where are the ruts in your brain taking you that you don’t to go?

You can join the conversation on my TikTok or leave a comment below. If you’d prefer to keep your ruts private, shoot me an email. I’d love to talk about it.

The post Trapped by the Ruts: How Brain Pathways Shape Our Lives—and How to Redirect Them appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Nursing is a mess right now. Maybe messier than it’s ever been. At the same time, the issues we see are getting more attention than they ever have.

So, this raises the question, is it time for you to leave nursing?

In this episode, I address the question of whether or not it’s time for you to leave nursing as well as give you some things to think about that might help you love nursing again.

Resources from this episode:

• My NEW coaching program
• My Healthy, Happy Life Assessment

The post Is it Time for You to Leave Nursing? appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Recently my office was moved from a hallway to a patient unit. Like across the hall from my office now, are patient rooms. Last week I was sitting in my office, doing my thing, when I heard a physician walk by and call out, “Who has room 19?”

I kinda chuckled.

What I wanted to do in that moment was to do what I had done a few times with physicians in the ED. I wanted to walk him over to the whiteboard where the assignments are listed, and “introduce” him to it. In this case, I didn’t really know this physician and didn’t think it would go over very well, but still it was funny.

As I thought about it a little longer, I was struck by how similar the things we face in nursing are, regardless of where we are. You see the ED where I would “introduce” physicians to the whiteboard was in a different hospital, more than an hour from my current hospital. Oh, and more than a decade has passed since I last worked in that ED.

This is important for us to understand because it reminds us that we are not alone. The difficulties that we face are being faced by many other nurses around the country and the world. This doesn’t make the problems go away, but sometimes it helps to know that we are not the only one’s struggling through the same sort of stuff.

The post “Who As Room 19?” appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

At least it WAS life when I was in high school. Marching band gave me the motivation and drive I needed to graduate after a pitifully undisciplined start to high school.

Marching band was everything to me. It was the most important thing I had going on. That is until I met the girl who would become my wife, but she was in the marching band too, so win-win.

They were never there

To this day I can close my eyes and see the stands of the football stadium at my high school.

I can see the image of me looking side to side as I stand in attention waiting to start our show, or having just finished it and basking in the applause.

I can also remember that empty feeling when I discovered that my parents weren’t there… again.

I can’t honestly say that my parents ever saw me march. It was the most important thing in my life and they were never there.

They had to work

I get it. We didn’t have much money and they had bills to pay. So, they had to work.

Still, you’d think they could have been there occasionally. You’d think that I’d have some memories of them being there, but I don’t.

Many of the nurses I’ve worked with are in the same boat. They are trading the opportunity to be with the people who love them for a job that never will.

I don’t say this to make anyone feel guilty but rather to make us all think.

It’s hard, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s possible to have an amazing life and career, while still being there for your family.

Our son was in the marching band in high school, the same marching band my wife and I met in. Our daughter is currently in that same marching band.

We are there for everything. For the past 7 years or so, the band’s trailer has seen almost no miles that didn’t happen attached to my pickup truck.

This is possible when you start building balance in your life.

If you’re ready to start building this kind of balance in your own life, comment BALANCE to be added to the waiting list for my upcoming workshop, Building a Balanced Life.

The post The Stands Were Empty appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

As a child, my parents worked very hard. Unfortunately, this meant they missed many events that were very important to me. I’m not mad at them, but the reality is that it affected me. Early in my career, I swore that I’d never be like that.

Yet somehow, it happened.

It was a slow fade.

Looking back, there was never a moment when I chose to prioritize my work over my family, it just kinda happened. Little by little, my priorities drifted from my family to my work.

For me, I recognized this slow fade and corrected it while my kids were still at home. This meant that I got to be at all my kids’ stuff while they were in middle school and high school and still very present for my son as he had gotten married and will be welcoming his first child, and my first grandchild, in a couple of months.

You’ve got to be intentional.

I hear you. Some of you work the way you do because you have no choice. Your life requires that you work as much and when you do. In the short term, I would encourage you to be intentional about the time you have to spend with your children, spouse, or partner.

In the long term, I would encourage you to start building a life that allows you to focus more on family and less on work.

Your work should fit your life and not the other way around.

I know that this may mean making some difficult choices. I drive a 13-year-old Chevy Silverado that is paid for. Sure, I’d love to have something newer, but I’m not willing to give up the time with our teenage daughter or with my wife in order to drive something newer.

So, are you working too much?

I can’t answer that question other, but here are some questions that might help you in answering that questions:

1. Does your work cause you to regularly miss family events?
2. Have you built a life that requires you to work more than you want to?
3. Do you have a specific goal for the money you make from working extra?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave a comment, or shoot me an email at matt@restoringnurses.com and tell me, Are you working too much?

The post Are You Working Too Much? appeared first on Restoring Nurses.

Most of us are willing to admit that if we don’t do better at caring for ourselves it will, at some point, affect how we care for everyone else. And, yet we don’t do it.

Some time ago on TikTok, I asked nurses what their biggest barriers were to self-care. You can watch that video and read the responses HERE. While there was a wide range of answers, there were some common themes.

So, here are the top 10 reasons nurses don’t do self-care along with some quotes from the comments. Some of these are truly heartbreaking.

1 – Guilt

• “Being time poor and mom guilt”
• “Fear of letting others down”
• “Guilt for spending more time away from my family.”
• “Guilt. Being told I was selfish for doing anything I enjoy for me.”
• “Guilt. Away from family so much already, I feel bad wanting more time away.”

2 – Time

• “Definitely not enough time. Work is mind-consuming even after I leave.”
• “Don’t have time. Work 12 hours for 7 days straight, then having to be mommy and wife, soon exhausted.”
• “Not enough time in the day and just plain exhausted when I do have free time.”

3 – Exhaustion

• “By the time I have a day off, my brain and body don’t work.”
• “Exhausted with people. Want to isolate when I can.”
• “Exhaustion sneaks up on me. Taking care of everyone else.”
• “I am so tired and exhausted from dealing with my job. I get home and can barely eat, shower, and fall in the bed.”

4 – Depression

• “Depression. It took me a while to make peace with the idea, but I finally got help.”
• “Depression. I have my first therapy appointment on Wednesday.”
• “Depression!”

5 – Money

• “Money, hands down. I have money going to just live.”
• “Time, money, family, juggle.”
• “Fatigue, depression, and money.”

6 – Knowledge

• “Not knowing where to start.”
• “For so long I thought sleeping in on my days off, lying in bed all day was self-care.”
• “I don’t think I know what it even means.”

7 – Prioritization

• “I prioritize myself last, dead last”
• “Everyone else takes priority.”
• “Forgetting that I DESERVE to take time for me”
• “I have been programmed, probably by myself, to put others first.”

8 – Motivation

• “Lack of motivation, probably from a combination of depression and exhaustion”
• “Lack of motivation.”
• “Time, money, motivation”

9 – Laziness

• “Laziness”
• “Laziness” (yes, more than one person gave this exact same answer)

10 – Distractions

• “TikTok, LOL”
• “Carrying things on my mind that I wish I would have charted or said differently.”
• “I think the biggest barrier is the constant feeling that I should be doing something productive.”

Do you identify with any of these quotes? I certainly do.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to address each of these items in upcoming blog posts.

In the meantime, if you are ready to take the first step towards taking back control of your life, including taking better care of YOU, my book The Restored Nurse, is a great place to start.

The post 10 Top Reasons Nurses Don’t Do Self-Care appeared first on Restoring Nurses.