Sleep Patterns Essay

Submitted By jpeno
Words: 1057
Pages: 5

Adequate Sleep Needed for Nursing No one likes mean, impatient, or crabby nurses. Patients do not trust nurses who are not nice or show no interest in helping them get better. Nurses are hero’s in patients’ lives. A nurse is responsible for patients’ lives every day and need a healthy life for themselves. There are many ways to have a healthy life but it starts with getting enough sleep every night.
Sleep is needed to have a good Nutritional-Metabolic health pattern. Nurses need to have a healthy pattern of food and fluid consumption every day. Food gives people energy and helps the organs function regularly. Nurses are at risk for not fulfilling their job to the fullest potential when they do not eat food and drink fluids. Patients look up to Nurses for inspiration, hope, and to be healthy. Adequate consumption of Nutritional-Metabolic health pattern comes from getting enough sleep every night.
During the winter season in the Midwest of United States, everyone is trying to fight off infections. Nurses are regular people that patients sometimes forget. Nurses are trying to fight off the same infections such as a cold, flu, and other viruses going around. In the journal Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter (2009), “Research by Sheldon Cohen, PhD theorized that sleep disturbance may influence the regulation of pro-inflammatory factors such as histamines that are released in response to infection”. The hospital is the place where everyone sick goes. It is filled with bacteria particles floating in the air to particles being on the furniture. Nurses come into contact with sick patients every day. They are trying to help patients get well so they can get discharged to go back home. Nurses have to have enough vitamins, minerals, and fluids to help fight off the bacteria that they are exposed to every day.
Nurses need to have a clear, healthy mind to work with. They may need to make a quick critical thinking decision to save someone’s life. The brain needs to have enough oxygen and fluid balance. The brain will be preoccupied with helping organs to function correctly if they are not getting enough vitamins and minerals. When the brain is preoccupied, decisions become cloudy and not thought out thoroughly. Nurses also go into autopilot where they just go through the motions instead of taking care of each unique patient. Nurses have a bigger impact on patients’ lives than they think.
Adequate sleep is also needed for a healthy role-relationship pattern. Nurses have a huge roll in taking care of patients. Nurses need to have good therapeutic communication skills, critical thinking skills, and basic mathematical skills. Patients rely on Nurses to give them the correct medications and make the correct quick decisions when needed. Doctors also rely on Nurses to use their critical thinking in making decisions while they are not there. The nurse needs to also have good relationship with other coworker to get the daily goals met every day. People do not want to work with crabby people or people who almost accidently kill them.
Stress is increased when a nurse does not get adequate sleep. Being a nurse can be stressful when he or she has to take care of eight patients at one time. Each patient is unique with his or her own needs and wants. A nurse can have a busy shift and not get any charting done during his or her shift. This will lead to the nurse having to stay later to chart what he or she did for their shift. Some nurses work twelve-hour shifts. Doing care for twelve-hours equals a lot of charting that will need to be done even though technically the shift is over. K. Josefesson PHD, RNT (2012) stated, “Thirty-seven per cent of the RNs had episodes of fatigue/unhappiness/sadness because their work and found difficulties overcoming these feelings”. Stress can cause unhappiness, sadness, or fatigue. Every job will have stress. A nurse with too much stress can have a patient not want or trust their nurse. A nurse’s