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Long Islander Shares Self-Care Tips With Fellow Nurses in New Book

self-care tips
Courtesy @healthy.scrubs on Instagram

For all the care that nurses give their patients, they often forget to take care of themselves. That’s why Xiomely Famighetti, an ICU nurse at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, wrote the book Self-Care for Nurses: 100+ Ways to Rest, Reset, and Feel Your Best, which was released by Simon & Schuster’s Adams Media imprint on April 19.

The Amityville resident and Molloy College nursing grad founded the Instagram page Healthy Scrubs (@healthy.scrubs) in 2019. She shares lighthearted content related to nursing and self-care such as wellness tips, healthy recipes, and inspirational quotes to thousands of followers. After the pandemic hit, publishers reached out to her asking if she had ideas for a book geared toward nurses and nursing students – and Famighetti knew exactly what she’d write.

“I think what drove me the most is seeing the lack of self-care,” she says. “I constantly hear, ‘I didn’t take a break’ or ‘I didn’t eat dinner.’ It sometimes comes down to the basics of making sure you hydrate, take a break, have a snack … We often forget to take care of ourselves and we end up getting stressed at work and burnt out, and it leads to a lot of  problems with family and patients.”

Self-Care for Nurses offers more than 100 ways to “rest, reset, and feel your best” because, as Famighetti puts it, “When you’re your best self, you can give your best to your patients.”

The book is a quick read, with one self-care idea per page. It is divided into six sections: emotional self-care, mental self-care, physical self-care, professional self-care, social self-care, and practical self-care.

“I wanted to write a book that was accessible and easy to pick up,” Famighetti says. “It’s for all types of nurses – it’s written for moms, for people who don’t have that much time. You can easily read two pages and put it down.”

Famighetti wrote the book before giving birth to her first child in 2021. She says she finds now, as a mother, that rereading the book’s advice resonates with her even more.

“I feel like it’s so applicable to me. I was in a very different mindset [when I wrote it], and it goes to show my goal was achieved,” she says. “I hope people get the most out of it and get to lead a healthier lifestyle.”

Self-Care for Nurses is available at your local independent bookstore, Target, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

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