Let’s reduce anxiety!
I hope by now, your mental breakdowns are only daily instead of q4hrs
Welcome back, champ! You are one week closer to finishing this program, and one week closer to becoming a certified healthcare professional! I bet it wasn’t as bad as you thought – if it was that bad, then come here and let Nurse Duda give you a nice virtual hug.
Better?
Good. Actually, now is the exciting part because this unknown, foreign, scary world of nursing? You’re an actual part of it now. And I get it; the rest of this year may still seem overwhelming, but remind yourself that your only job is to focus on one week, one day, and one lecture at a time. This week is all about stress management and how NOT to let nursing school crush your psyche.
Do I really need all 9,735 books?!
So, OFFICIALLY, of course, yes – absolutely listen to all your professors and abide by the syllabi and buy all the books they require and read every little page they assign and that’s my official, by-the-books advice. And if that works for you, great! You may not need the rest of this.
Now that we got rid of all the stiffs, here’s some *unofficial* insight from a real life, practical student that survived nursing school. And I have to be honest and let you in on a little secret of mine. I bought one nursing book my entire year. Yup. I waited it out and decided what books I really needed before I let myself succumb to information-overload.
This method isn’t going to work for everyone, and that’s why it’s not my advice to you. Everyone’s experience is unique. I just knew what kind of learner I was and I adapted the experience for me. Ideally, you’ll read about how I found my way and use my insight to pave your own nursing school path.
For me personally, too much material just gives me brain freeze. So, I learned to focus on the main points of the material we were learning. In my program, those points came directly from the PowerPoints and notes I took in class.
Sure, there were a few instances where I found myself referencing a book for a paper or project. Stingy Lindsey usually just went to the library or got a PDF version from someone else.
A savvy student who needs to access the online version of books or study materials might ask to borrow someone’s login or throw them some money to share the book. * cough* Nurse Duda does not endorse this idea, but acknowledges that it may work for certain savvy students, okay? Back off!
I watched several people get too wrapped up and overwhelmed by using the book and hyper-focusing on every little detail. The program goes so fast it’s nearly impossible to try and read every word! Don’t let people overwhelm you and feel like you need to buy all those books for every class.
You know yourself better than anyone.
Typically in my situation, the professors brought up the PowerPoints and lectured directly off the slides. The notes I took from the slides became about 90% of the test.
So my advice to you: before class, set a goal to skim through the slides to see what the heck you’re learning in class that day. I know how precious your time is and setting customized, realistic goals for yourself is a lot more practical than trying to tackle the theoretical plans outlined by a syllabus.
Practical tip: whenever you’re taking notes in class and a professor says that something is a “need-to-know,” bold, italicize, underline it, type it up, file it wherever you file will-be-on-the-test information. Make it stand out in your notes so your brain continually recognizes it as something important every time you study. And don’t stress over the “nice to know,” phrases too much because they are most likely just that.
Reduce anxiety by starting everything early!
I was always the person that would put something off because it seemed overwhelming, and I would just figure it when I had time. Then, I realized that to succeed in this program, I was never going to have the perfect amount of time to sit down and master a topic in one setting. Life just isn’t that tidy.
Instead, what I learned to review my notes about 100 times before taking the test, even if they don’t really make sense until the 10th time looking at them.
I learned to just read through them fully, take away whatever makes sense, and skim over the stuff that doesn’t and just try again later. Every pass around I would take away something new or some disease process would finally click. I’d repeat this over and over until everything in my notes finally made sense like a little story.
You’ll quickly learn that nursing is unlike any other degree. The material you are learning this week could potentially show up on your test in 2 weeks, a test in your 3rd semester, or the NCLEX a year from now! Therefore, I had to ditch the mentality that I could just cram for something a night or two before the exam and then forget everything when I hit submit like I did back in undergrad.
Real-world Nursing tidbit: I’ve actually carried this learning technique right into my professional career. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked up different medications or procedures and then proceeded to forget them later that day. But eventually that surgery or lab I looked up for the 12th time finally stuck and is stored in my nursing brain bank forever!
Give your brain the chance to process everything you are learning each week. Start to promise yourself you’re going to touch on your material every day for at least 30 minutes, or an hour, or however much you find necessary for you. The last thing you want to be doing is cramming hours before a test and wish you just had “one more night” to really make sense of everything.
Prevent the anxiety and mental breakdowns now by reviewing whatever you can, as often as you can. Do something today your future self will thank you for!
Go have yourself an awesome, productive week two! Keep the positivity alive and know it’s going to be a great week!