How To Wind Down After a Hard Day at Your Travel Therapy Job
Everyone has bad days. That’s just part of working for a living. Travel therapists may find that they get more bad days than most because adjusting to a new assignment every few months adds to the stress level. There’s the moving factor. They have to learn to constantly build new relationships with new coworkers, learn new facility policies and discover what works and what doesn’t in a new place. All of these things can be exciting but they can also be quite stressful.
If you had a particularly grueling day at work and you can’t seem to find the equilibrium to de-stress at the end of your shift, you might want to try the following:
Listen to Calming Music
Music, as they say, soothes the savage beast. Nothing could be more true. After a taxing day, turn on your iPod and just lay back. Avoid noisy rock tunes. Find music that you can listen to passively. Light jazz or anything with easy listening melodies ought to do the job quite well. Some travel therapists like to turn on the television or go online as soon as they get home. But television or the Internet is no substitute. Give your body some rest before you subject it to new stimuli.
Watch What You Eat
Many new travel therapists might think that grabbing fast food items on their way home will help them get over the day but unhealthy foods won’t. While it’s great to indulge every once in a while, and travel therapists are certainly advised to do so, just remember that fatty or unhealthy foods can add to your stress as your body will be forced to work harder to digest them. Instead, eat healthy. Have a tasty salad and fruits coupled with water or tea.
Just the very idea of eating healthy can help ease away the day’s issues and make you feel good physiologically.
Exercise
There are so many reasons why exercise is good for your body and mind that there’s really no excuse for not doing it. You can, if you prefer, combine listening to music and exercising. Jog around the neighborhood with your trusty iPod and sweat the stress away. Your exercise regimen doesn’t have to be epic. Thirty minutes of stretching will do wonders for your disposition.
Find Something to Laugh About
They say that laughter is the best medicine. And it is. Laughter promotes positive thoughts and feelings, which in turn help to pull the body from its stressed-out state. Be sure that you get plenty of laughs after your day’s done. After you’re done with your alone-time (listening to soothing music and exercising), read a funny novel or watch some cartoons. Or better yet, reach out to your friends and family over Skype or phone. Seasoned travel therapists will tell you that there’s nothing like talking to loved ones to take away stress.