Mental fitness: Six F-words nurses should be talking about

By Betty Franklin, nurse educator and former ONA member.

Frustration, fatigue and fear have become familiar experiences for many nurses. Across Ontario and beyond, nurses are carrying extraordinary workloads. Chronic staffing shortages, rising patient acuity, moral distress and increasing workplace pressures have pushed many to the edge of exhaustion.  

The result is a growing mental health crisis, increased sick leave, nurses leaving the profession and increased health-care costs. Nurses are speaking out and advocating for safer staffing levels, better working conditions and a health-care system that protects both patients and the professionals who care for them. 

These conversations are essential. 

But alongside the urgent calls for system change, another conversation deserves attention — one that rarely appears in policy discussions or staffing reports. Nurses can’t sustain compassionate care if their own foundations of well-being are weak. 

This is the conversation about how nurses sustain their own mental fitness while doing one of the most demanding jobs in society. 

Any nurse working a busy hospital shift knows the feeling. Call bells are ringing, a patient needs pain control, another family is asking for an update and the documentation continues to grow. Nurses move quickly from one room to the next, doing their best to meet every need. By the end of the shift, they may feel both proud of the care they provided and completely drained by the demands of the day. 

Moments like these are now common across the profession in all sectors. While individual strategies can’t replace the systemic changes nurses are advocating for, strengthening the foundations of nurses’ mental fitness can help sustain both the individual nurse and the profession while those larger changes are pursued. 

For years, I’ve worked with nurses and nursing students exploring the concept of mental fitness — the ability to stay grounded, think clearly and maintain emotional balance under pressure. Like physical fitness, mental fitness requires attention and care. 

As a seasoned RN with experience across front-line care, education and independent practice, I’ve worked with nurses, students and other health-care professionals to better understand what sustains well-being in demanding environments. Through this work, I developed a holistic framework focused on six foundational areas of life: family, fitness, friends, finance, fun and faith.

These six areas represent essential dimensions of a balanced and well-lived life. When they’re strong, nurses are better able to manage stress, maintain compassion and sustain their energy in a demanding profession. When they weaken, psychological strengths such as hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism can also decline. 

Mental fitness is not built during a crisis; it’s built in the foundations of everyday life. 

FAMILY provides a sense of belonging and emotional grounding, helping nurses recover after difficult shifts.  

FITNESS supports the physical stamina required for demanding work and protects the body that carries the nurse through each day.  

FRIENDS offer connection, understanding and a safe space to process the emotional realities of caregiving.  

FINANCIAL stability reduces stress and allows nurses to focus more fully on their professional responsibilities.  

FUN restores energy and brings moments of joy that are essential for emotional renewal.  

FAITH, whether spiritual or rooted in personal values, provides a sense of purpose and meaning that sustains nurses through challenging times. 

The mental health crisis among nurses affects more than individual well-being. It impacts patient care, workforce stability and the sustainability of the health-care system itself. Research consistently shows that when nurses struggle, patient outcomes decline and system pressures increase. 

Supporting the mental fitness of nurses therefore benefits not only the caregivers themselves, but also the patients they serve and the system in which they work. 

Strengthening these six foundations will not solve every systemic challenge facing health care. However, it can help nurses maintain the inner strength needed to continue advocating for safe care, compassionate practice and a sustainable future for the profession. 

Nursing has never been an easy profession, and the pressures facing nurses today are real and urgent. While nurses continue advocating for the system changes their profession and patients need, there’s also a responsibility to protect the foundations that sustain them as human beings. 

The conversation about F-words in nursing doesn’t need to stop with frustration or fatigue. Perhaps it’s time to include six more: family, fitness, friends, finance, fun and faith. 

Not as slogans, but as foundations — the foundations that support nurses’ mental fitness, sustain their compassion and enable them to continue doing the work that matters most. 

Because in nursing today, the most important F-Word may not be frustration. 

It may be foundation.