What It Means to Be Calm Under Pressure

I. The Myth of Calm

Emergencies bring out the rawest parts of us — fear, urgency, and the desperate hope that someone will take control. In those moments, the way nurses respond can look calm….almost too calm.

But that calm has a purpose.

The desire to help is ingrained in health care professionals. We want to be there for our patients. When you walk through the doors seeking help, you expect the staff to ease your pain, fix your problems, provide answers, and — in some cases — save your life. That’s what we signed up for. That’s what we want to do!

But there are moments during an emergency when that desire isn’t seen. Our calm posture, our quiet movements, even our tone of voice can appear uncaring from the outside.  

When you’re watching a loved one struggle, of course you are upset and afraid.  You look to the medical team to intervene and “fix” the problem. From your perspective, we may look like we are not moving fast enough. But for us, this is a normal sequence of steps in a high-stakes moment.  You, a guest in the medical world, don’t have the context —you just want to know what’s happening and what you can do.

 And the response often looks like silence. 

II. The Language of Presence

It’s not that we are ignoring you or your concerns. It’s not that we aren’t worried about your loved one.

 We’ve simply been trained to stay calm under pressure — because panic helps no one. Our priority in that moment is stabilizing the patient, and that requires clarity, not chaos.

III. The Quiet Power of Observation

I once had a patient go unresponsive right in front of their family member. The team responded immediately — within seconds, the room was full of people working to save the patient. The family member was quickly escorted out of the room and all I could hear was her yelling, “Why aren’t you doing something? Why aren’t you helping?” 

Even after the situation was resolved, I heard her telling someone on the phone that the staff didn’t care. And that stuck with me. It wasn’t until later that I realized how different our view is from the family’s view. What we see — the steps, the algorithms, the interventions — is invisible to everyone else.

Calm looks like indifference from the outside.

But inside, it’s precision. 

IV. The Discipline of Calm

If we panic, how could we help? If we let fear take over, we become ineffective.

Early in my career, long before I became a nurse, a more experienced co-worker pulled me aside during my first week and said something I never forgot: 

“It’s not about you. It’s about the patient who needs you. Your panic is your problem it’s not the patient’s concern. Pull it together.”

Those words became the foundation of how I learned to steady myself in moments of crisis.

V. Calm as a Choice

Calm under pressure isn’t something we’re born with — it’s something we build, moment by moment, shift after shift. It’s a discipline we return to when the world around us begins to speed up.

When everything around us unravels, calm becomes a kind of presence — a signal to patients, families, and teams that someone is still thinking, still leading, still steady. Calm is one of the strongest forms of advocacy we have.

It protects the patient first.

It grounds the room.

It lets us think.

Calm doesn’t erase urgency — it makes urgency survivable. It’s what turns chaos into hope.