Tips for Achieving a Work-life Balance as a Travel Nurse

As a travel nurse, it is crucial to find the right work-life balance, because putting others needs before yours can cause internal conflicts that lead to stress. Travel nursing allows nurses to explore new cities, gain experience in new care settings and hospitals, and typically pays more than staff nursing jobs. When tied to feelings of achievement and satisfaction, it proves to be a very rewarding career. Taking the time to recognize when you need to recharge is key to a proper work-life balance.

There are a handful of small changes you can implement to gradually help improve your work-life balance as a travel nurse. This will benefit yourself, your family, and your patients. By not taking the time to identify this necessity, you can risk negative long-term effects on relationships, work performance and both your physical and mental health.

Making time to rest and recharge prior to a full day at work is as important as turning up to your shift. Healthy daily habits can make all the difference.

Tips for Improving Work-Life Balance for Traveling Jobs

Establish a Daily Morning Routine

The life of a travel nurse is filled with much uncertainty. With assignment and schedule changes - stability takes on a different meaning. There are many mental wellness benefits from establishing a morning routine. Which is why establishing a simple daily morning routine that you can implement from anywhere will give you a sense of control. This can be anything from slowly drinking a glass of water when you wake up to 10 minutes of meditation. These short moments with yourself will help you take on the day.

Practice Time Management

It can be hard to make your personal needs a priority when being in a field where you are supposed to put everyone before you. Start by setting priorities for the day, find out the most urgent and important tasks and tackle those first. Listen, be organized, ask for help if needed and if possible - don’t skip your breaks. Breaks are crucial to take the time to collect your thoughts, drink water, process feelings, etc. Time management is essential for achieving a healthy work-life balance.‍

Self Care for Mental Health

Self care can take on many forms. It could be as simple as getting enough sleep and as elaborate as an entire spa day. If self-care is something you would like to improve on, we encourage you to start simple. This could be setting boundaries at work, journaling, yoga, walks, etc. Anything that makes you feel good within will improve your mental wellness.

Go on a Social Media Cleanse

Taking social media breaks is healthy for travel nurses, especially during a pandemic.

Nurses are flipping through patient care tasks and have to manage chaotic situations on the daily - the last thing they need is to absorb negative content via social media. A social media cleanse can inspire more personal social engagement, increase productivity in the moments you have to yourself (lunch break included), and improves sleep because this means less blue light intake from your phone/laptop.

Advantis Medical cares about the mental health and wellness of our travelers in our travel nursing agency. We work alongside travel nurses on a daily basis, many of which transition to new assignments in hopes to achieve a better balance between work and home. Improving work-life balance as a travel nurse takes time and self-determination. Everyone’s situation is different, but we are confident that by implementing some or all of these tips - you can achieve a healthy balance between life and work.