Managing Emotions at Work: 5 Tips for Your Nursing Team

Whether it’s having to deliver bad news to a family member or guiding patients through some of the greatest challenges of their lives, nursing professionals face a range of emotionally draining scenarios on the job. In order to deliver quality and person-centered care, nurses must become highly adept at managing emotions at work.

While this is a skill that takes time and experience to build, facility leaders should provide adequate resources that help nurses stay grounded in difficult situations. In this article, we’ll provide five tips for helping your nursing team learn how to manage emotions at work and build resilience in their roles.

How Do Emotions Impact Employees’ Job Performance?

Emotions can have a strong influence on job performance, regardless of the setting and industry. Studies have shown that negative emotions like anger, sadness, and anxiety can reduce employee productivity. Conversely, positive emotions like happiness and hope can increase motivation and engagement.

While it’s normal for people to experience a range of emotions, managing them in the workplace is important for maintaining professionalism. Without addressing negative emotions in a productive manner, staying on task can be much more difficult. This can ultimately affect both individuals and teams, even leading to more serious mental health problems down the line.

Why Is It Important for Nurses to Manage Their Emotions?

Healthcare is an especially high stakes industry. For nurses, managing emotions at work is necessary not just for staying on task, but also for ensuring that patients aren’t affected by negative or unprofessional behavior. Nurses require mental clarity in order to do what needs to be done and put their patients first, especially when tending to medical emergencies.

It’s also important to recognize that dealing with stress, sadness, or shock on a regular basis can lead to burnout and compassion fatigue, which are already prevalent issues among healthcare workers. Nurses must learn how to regulate their emotions in a healthy manner to ensure that they’re not worn out by them over time.

5 Tips for Helping Your Nurses Manage Their Emotions

Managing emotions at work can be difficult in high-pressure environments — especially for new nurses. Facility leaders play an important role by providing resources that help equip nurses to handle difficult situations. Here are five tips for helping your nursing teams manage their emotions in healthy and effective ways.

1. Promote Open Communication and Peer Support

Nursing professionals often turn to their leaders and peers to decompress after a difficult patient case, so it’s important for them to feel comfortable sharing their experiences without fear of judgment. This helps them release their emotions through healthy dialogue with people who can relate to their challenges. As a leader, it’s important to foster open communication and encourage peer-to-peer support on your teams by:

• Creating peer mentorship programs.
• Holding routine debrief sessions after difficult patient cases.
• Instituting an open-door policy so staff can easily talk to leaders.

2. Make Mental Health Services Accessible

Some nurses may need more individualized help working through their emotions if they’ve endured a particularly difficult patient case or they’re going through personal events. While nurses are often taught to compartmentalize negative emotions, keeping them bottled up can lead to emotional exhaustion over time.

As a facility leader, providing comprehensive mental health resources ensures that your nurses have access to professional help if they need it. Here are examples of resources that can help your nursing professionals to process their emotions constructively outside of work:

• Employee assistance programs
• Nursing peer support groups
• One-on-one counseling services

3. Encourage the Use of Mindfulness Techniques

At the individual level, research has shown that mindfulness techniques can help improve emotional regulation in healthcare workers. Mindfulness is a practice that involves staying present and fully aware of what you’re doing without self-judgment, which can help decrease feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression.

As a leader, you can offer workshops and training to help nursing professionals develop the ability to remain present in difficult situations. To start, consider implementing stress first aid at your facility, which is a framework specifically designed to teach healthcare workers how to manage negative emotions at work and reduce stress.

4. Provide Emotional Intelligence (EI) Training Resources

Studies have shown that nurses who receive emotional intelligence (EI) training are better at managing emotions at work. EI training can range in topics, from teaching nurses about setting boundaries, to reframing techniques that combat compassion fatigue. There are many online resources available for you to pass along to your nurses or integrate into regular staff training. Here are a few resources that you can start with:

• Canadian Home Care Association’s online EI courses
• Business Training Works’ online, instructor-led EI course
• Depaul University’s EI training manual

5. Uphold a Culture of Safety and Security

Nurses are more likely to experience emotional exhaustion when they feel unsafe in their work environments. This can encompass many things, such as poor teamwork, unsupportive management, or exposure to violence and environmental hazards. As a facility leader, building a culture of safety can give your nurses more ease of mind so that they can stay grounded in emergency situations.

For example, having a rapid response security team on your floor can help de-escalate situations in which nurses are dealing with aggressive or violent patients. If there’s a clear process for requesting backup or assistance, your nurses will be less likely to become overwhelmed in these moments.

Discover More Ways to Support and Empower Your Nurses

Managing emotions at work enables both leaders and staff to stay on task and deliver the best care possible. Need help reducing your own stress while running a facility? Get expert-written healthcare management tips and insights delivered straight to your inbox.