Self-care for the at Home Caregiver
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Self-care for the at Home Caregiver
To be able to care for the people you love, you must first take care of yourself. It’s like the advice we’re given on airplanes: put on your own oxygen mask before trying to help someone else with theirs. Taking care of yourself is a valid goal on its own, and it helps you support the people you love.
Caregivers who pay attention to their own physical and emotional health are better able to handle the challenges of supporting someone with mental illness. They adapt to changes, build strong relationships and recover from setbacks. The ups and downs in your family member’s illness can have a huge impact on you. Improving your relationship with yourself by maintaining your physical and mental health makes you more resilient, helping you weather hard times and enjoy good ones. Here are some suggestions for personalizing your self-care strategy.
Understand How Stress Affects You
Stress affects your entire body, physically as well as mentally. Some common physical signs of stress include:
Headaches
Low energy
Upset stomach, including diarrhea, constipation and nausea
Aches, pains, and tense muscles
Insomnia
Begin by identifying how stress feels to you. Then identify what events or situations cause you to feel that way. You may feel stressed by grocery shopping with your spouse when they’re symptomatic, or going to school events with other parents who don’t know your child’s medical history. Once you know which situations cause you stress, you’ll be prepared to avoid it and to cope with it when it happens.
Protect Your Physical Health
Improving your physical wellbeing is one of the most comprehensive ways you can support your mental health. You’ll have an easier time maintaining good mental habits when your body is a strong, resilient foundation.
Exercise daily. Exercise can take many forms, such as taking the stairs whenever possible, walking up escalators, and running and biking rather than driving. Joining a class may help you commit to a schedule, if that works best for you. Daily exercise naturally produces stress-relieving hormones in your body and improves your overall health.
Eat well. Eating mainly unprocessed foods like whole grains, vegetables and fresh fruit is key to a healthy body. Eating this way can help lower your risk for chronic diseases, and help stabilize your energy levels and mood.
Get enough sleep. Adults generally need between seven and nine hours of sleep. A brief nap—up to 30 minutes—can help you feel alert again during the day. Even 15 minutes of daytime sleep is helpful. To make your nighttime sleep count more, practice good “sleep hygiene,” like avoiding using computers, TV and smartphones before bed.
Avoid alcohol and drugs. They don’t actually reduce stress and often worsen it.
Practice relaxation exercises. Deep breathing, meditation and progressive muscle relaxation are easy, quick ways to reduce stress. When conflicts come up between you and your family member, these tools can help you feel less controlled by turbulent feelings and give you the space you need to think clearly about what to do next.
Recharge Yourself
When you’re a caregiver, it can be incredibly hard to find time for yourself, and even when you do, you may feel distracted by thinking about what you “should” be doing instead. But learning to make time for yourself without feeling you’re neglecting others—the person with the illness as well as the rest of your family—is critical.
Any amount of time you take for yourself is important. Being out of “caregiver mode” for as little as five minutes in the middle of a day packed with obligations can be a meaningful reminder of who you are in a larger sense. It can help keep you from becoming consumed by your responsibilities. Start small: think about activities you enjoyed before becoming a caregiver and try to work them back into your life. If you used to enjoy days out with friends, try to schedule a standing monthly lunch with them. It becomes part of your routine and no one has to work extra to make it happen each month.
The point is not what you do or how often you do it, but that you take the time to care for yourself. It’s impossible to take good care of anyone else if you’re not taking care of yourself first.
Avoid Guilt
Try not to feel bad about experiencing negative emotions. You may resent having to remind your spouse to take his medication, then feel guilty. It’s natural to think things like “a better person wouldn’t be annoyed with their spouse,” but that kind of guilt is both untrue and unproductive. When you allow yourself to notice your feelings without judging them as good or bad, you dial down the stress and feel more in control. When you feel less stressed, you’re better able to thoughtfully choose how to act.
Notice The Positive
When you take the time to notice positive moments in your day, your experience of that day becomes better. Try writing down one thing each day or week that was good. Even if the positive thing is tiny (“It was a sunny day”), it’s real, it counts and it can start to change your experience of life.
Connect With Others
Spending time with positive, loving people you care about and trust can ease stress, help your mood and improve the way you feel overall. There may be family members, close friends or members of a support group that can be an outlet and listen to your emotions. Sometimes when you are a caregiver just talking about your emotions or even talking to someone in general can be a stress reliever.
Our Family Clinic in Hulett provides continuing and comprehensive health care for individuals and families. Family Medicine, or Primary Care providers serve all people of all ages. If you or a loved one is struggling with mental health, please reach out to the Hulett Clinic at (307) 688-2235. When you need to see a specialist, we can help you quickly coordinate a referral within Campbell County Medical Group’s system of clinics.
Sources:
Taking Care of Yourself | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness. (2020). Nami.org. https://www.nami.org/Your-Journey/Family-Members-and-Caregivers/Taking-Care-of-Yourself
Taking Good Care of Yourself. (n.d.). Mental Health America. https://www.mhanational.org/taking-good-care-yourself
