Self Care for the Caregiver

Okay, we are going to talk about self care for the caregiver. Did you know that there is close to 49 million people who are functioning as informal caregivers? These individuals, these 49 million plus people are offering assistance to all sorts of adults in the United States and they aren't trained to offer care and they are doing the very best that they can. But there's over 49 million individuals who are caregivers. And this is according to the national alliance for Caregiving. And today we're going to talk about you guys, you amazing caregivers, you advocates, and how to support you and take care of you. I want to start today by telling you about a particular caregiver that came into my office several years ago. And she came in and she had. Her number one goal was to help with depression. She was very depressed. And her second concern was that she was trying to achieve an optimal body weight. And so we're talking and we're doing her initial intake and as we're talking, she started to explain how she's the mother of a disabled son and who, despite being in a wheelchair and unable to walk, was pursuing the Paralympic Games. And so her life was centered around taking care of her son and also helping him pursue his goals and dreams. And so she was very proud of this. Her entire life was dedicated to this. And she spent a lot of emotional energy and bandwidth to take care of her son and then to also support him in doing amazing things in this world. And so as we're getting into her case, as we're talking about her symptoms, we she keeps coming back to talking about her son. Sometimes she's talking about the next event that he's going to be in, or other times she'll talk about what he's struggling with, or she'll talk about a medical visit that he had. And I keep redirecting her back to talking about her concerns and her needs and her health and she just automatically bops back to talking about him. And as I'm listening to her, as I'm talking with her, I notice that that with this beautiful soul is that her attention and her focus is not on herself. Her attention and her focus is solely on her son. And she's amazing in that she's coming in to get support. But even in that visit, it's difficult for her to express her needs because her mind and her body and her spirit is so focused on taking care of another person. And the effects of caregiving can expand from our emotional well being to our physical well being. We See that it can call it sleep deprivation. It can cause us to not pay attention to eating nutritious food. And so we can see that the diet is either we're not eating enough food or the caregiver may be eating quick food to get them results so that they can go back and do more caregiving. We see that caregivers often don't spend time exercising, or they may not stay in bed if they're sick, and that they often push through their own symptoms order to take care of their loved one. And they also may postpone or not even make medical appointments for themselves. And so Joanna, the mom who I was working with, was she was taking one of those initial steps. She knew that she needed support. She was really struggling. The depression was overwhelming. She wasn't able to meet her weight loss goals. So she made the appointment to come in. But once she was there, she wasn't able to focus on herself. And so in terms of caregiver, we want to think about what is an obstacle to caregiver getting support. And we want to help prevent caregiver burnout. And so in order to prevent caregiver burnout is we have to make sure that you, as a caregiver, love that you're taking care of yourself. And there's a couple of ways to do that. And I'm going to share those with you today. And I'm also going to give you a resource at the end for a free guide where you can get community, you can get support, and I'll make sure to share that in the show notes. So antidotes to caregiver burnout. Number one is identifying your boundaries or your personal limits to time spent caring for another person, to finances caring for another person and other resources to caring for another person is instead of it being just this unlimited well, that just keeps going and going, is identifying your own personal limits to how much that you can give is really important so that you don't end up giving so much of yourself that you become ill and can't take care of the person that you love. And so we want to make sure that we prevent you from not being able to do what is so important to you to do. And so we want to also make sure that fundamentally we're looking at your beliefs of yourself as a caregiver. So sometimes our personal beliefs can stand in the way of us caring for ourselves. And maybe that's a lifelong pattern. And it's not just isolated to being a caregiver in the moment. And some of those misconceptions or those beliefs could be that maybe the caregiver feels selfish for putting their needs first, or it feels scary or frightening to think about their own needs. And so asking yourself those questions like what do I feel about myself when I put my needs first? Or if I prioritize my needs, if I feel anxious about it, what am I anxious about? What does that mean? And asking yourself what those fears are? Or is the an obstacle, just simply asking for what you need? Maybe the person that you love and that you're caring for requires round the clock, full time care. And so you stepping away and taking care of yourself could be deleterious for the person that you love. And so are you able to ask for help? Do you have the resources? And do you feel inadequate if you ask for help? Do you feel like people are going to judge you if you ask for help? What are your thoughts around asking for help? What is your relationship with asking other people for help? Or do you feel like other people aren't equipped like you are to help? And if that's the case, what are solutions that we can create so that you can feel confident when you step away and do the self care that you need, Whether it's eating a meal, taking a shower, going to a doctor's appointment, hanging out with a friend, watching a movie, whatever that is. How can we make sure that we have things in place for you so that you know that your loved one is getting the best care they need while you are away? The other thing that we want to make sure to help is to remain socially connected. A lot of caregivers become really isolated. They're very focused on their loved one and they don't have the bandwidth or the time to step away and to connect with other people. And that could be exacerbated if there's something infectious or if your loved one can't be exposed to outside illnesses or germs, if they're immunocompromised, or if they're suffering with cancer, or if they're receiving radiation or chemotherapeutic treatments. And so then we have to think of creative solutions for that. Whether it's to connect over facetime or to get in online chat rooms with people who understand and who can support you. What is it that you can do to remain socially connected? And the world of Internet, there are so many different options. What feels good and safe for you? If you can get out and do something in person, even a social distance walk at the park or a social distance tea date, make sure that you're making time for that and I would encourage you to do that at least once a week to get out and to leave the house, to leave the facility and to spend time with other human beings. The other is we want to work on creating your own force field strategies. All the amazing tools that you use to take care of your loved one, we want to make sure that you're employing for yourself. And force field strategies are strategies that protect us. A force field is something that's around us, it's like a protective bubble. And force field strategies relates to what am I eating, how am I moving my body, how much sleep am I getting, am I seeing a doctor, am I taking my medications, am I taking my supplements, am I having human connection? What is it that nurtures you, what is it that fills your cup so that you can pour from your cup into your loved ones cups? And so I'm going to get you some resources on how to work out building your own force field strategies so that you can have those things in place, so that you can use preventative measures to protect yourself and then also help bring yourself back into a state where you're better able to serve. And then the other thing with For Sale strategies is knowing about your stoplight. The stoplight, I break it down into three colors, just like a regular stop sign or stop light. And that is red, orange and green. Red is, we can't go any further. We're in a crisis ourselves, we need to stop, we can't move forward. We have to do something urgently, immediately, now to take care of ourselves. And in this state, I talk about using the tips to techniques. And so I'll make sure that you have some information on that. We have a ton of resources and infographics and things in the Free Anxiety Freedom Challenge warriors group. And so if any of this is sounding interesting to you, definitely check it out. It's free. There's no pressure. It's just a bunch of support just to help you make sure that you have what you need so that you can keep showing up in the way that you want to for your loved ones. And so that's red. And then yellow is the slow down mode. Slow, slow down mode means I'm pushing myself, I need to dial it back. I need to make sure that I'm doing more of my force field strategies to give myself support. So knowing what that looks like, what is it like for me when I'm feeling more activated, more stressed, more depleted, less able to show up the way I want to? And then green is all good. Proceed as you can. It's all about feeling like your best, most efficient, able to contribute self. And we want to make sure that we recognize our signs early. So if we're in green and we're moving into yellow, we want to capture that really early. Does that mean that you feel more irritable or do you feel more forgetful, like you're forgetting things you're not remembering, you're misplacing things, or does your sleep start to go? What are signs that you need to level up and ramp up the self care and then start to identify your sources of stress? What kinds of things push me into the yellow or push me into the red. And then if you can start to limit your exposure to those stress factors, that would be helpful for you being able to be able to show up for your loved one. So is that family discord or feelings of inadequacy or feeling unsupported or not having the financial resources that you need to do what you need to do? And then the other piece is to, as a caregiver is to identify what you cannot change and to identify what you can. And remember, we can only change ourselves, we can't change another person. And when we try to change things over which we have no control, it only creates more frustration, more stress. And so ask yourself, the question is, what can I control? What can I change? Where can I have a sense of empowerment and contribution, even if it's a small change, something where you can make a difference and have a win and have a victory, and then pay attention to what you can't change, what's out of your power, what's out of your control. There's a prayer that is called the serenity prayer, which is God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And that's the serenity prayer. And I think it's a really good reminder on noticing what I do have control over, what I do have empowerment over as opposed to what I do not. And so focusing on where you can make a difference is going to help you be able to make a bigger difference. And then there are self care strategies. And so we've talked about stepping away, knowing your personal limits, taking a break. And so I'm going to give you a couple of tips of things that you can do for self care. If you've been so focused on taking care of somebody else and it's hard to know what to do for yourself, here's Some ideas. One is to practice four count breathing throughout the day. And that's where you inhale for four counts and then you hold for four counts and then you exhale for four counts and then hold for four counts. As you go throughout your day, practice drawing that square with your breath. What we see is that when you do that, it stimulates your vagus nerve to put your heart in a state, state of more relaxation. We call it more heart rate variability. And that will help change the way that your nervous system is responding in the moment to what you're experiencing. So practice that four count breathing. You can do it while driving, you can do it while sitting with your loved one, you can do it while making food, whatever it is that you need to do. You can practice the four count breathing multiple times throughout the day to help change the way your nervous system is functioning in those moments. And then carve out time for a mindfulness practice. Whether that is meditation. There's apps I like to use Metafee, M E T A F I or some people like Headspace. And so find something that you can do five minutes a day that's intentional mindful practice. Maybe it's doing qigong or yoga or Tai chi or just simply stretching or maybe even just going for a walk with your dog. Whatever it is, doing it mindfully. And mindfully is just simply about being in the moment, noticing the body and noticing the breath and noticing the sounds around you like birds chirping or cicadas or leaves blowing or cars driving down the road. Just being in that moment and then allowing the thoughts to slow down, allowing the worries and the things that you need to do in your checklist, allowing that to just be put on the shelf for just a few moments, practicing that every day for at least five minutes. And there's a couple of amazing benefits that we see with that. We see that blood pressure goes down, we see that symptoms of heart racing, heart palpitations, those go down. We see that the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for that fight, flight, freeze that, that starts to shift more into parasympathetic, which is resting, relaxing, chilling out. And we see that people are more sharp, they're more cognitively crisp, they sleep better, and they're able to show up with greater efficiency for the things that they need to do in their day. Taking care of somebody who's suffering is really stress provoking compassion fatigue, like Gwen says in one of our comments, one of our warriors here, she talks about how compassion fatigue can be brutal and taking care of yourself is profoundly important and you're worth it. Love. You are worth doing self care. Identify your personal limits, do the things that you need to do to give yourself a break. And sometimes it's just simply one thing that I can do today and maybe that is just simply I'm going to call the doctor and set up a counseling appointment or I'm going to take my vitamin. Whatever it is. If you can do one thing, that's a huge victory so that you can be there for those that you love. So self care for the caregiver. I'm going to put resources in the tabs and make sure that you check out our one week Anxiety Freedom Challenge. It's sent straight to you, straight to your email. There's videos, so if you want to do things on the go, you can listen to the videos. But you're going to get 14 tips that you can start using right now. When I was talking with Joanna, she was stuck. She wasn't doing anything for herself beyond just showing up. She showed up for her visit, but she wasn't able to focus on herself. When she showed up for the visit, she talked about her son. While her love for her son is absolutely admirable and amazing, if she didn't stop and pay attention to herself, she was at risk of not being able to continue showing up for her son the way that she wanted. When Joanna and I stopped working together several years ago, she was still stuck in that same place and she ended up going and working with a colleague of mine. And that colleague and I have the ability to communicate in case there's any sort of consultation I can offer for Joanna that would be helpful. Unfortunately, Joanna's in the same place and she hasn't changed and she's stuck and she's socially isolated. She's not taking care of herself. She's still incredibly depressed. She hasn't met her goals. That doesn't have to be your story. You can change your trajectory so that you can show up for your loved one with greater efficiency by taking a stand right now and doing one thing. And I would encourage you to join our community and don't be alone. Connect with other people who get it. Connect with other people who are anxiety warriors, who have people that they are taking care of that they want to support and make sure that you take care of yourself. So if you do one thing today, don't be like Joanna. I am here to give this information to you from a place of just wanting you to get that result so that you can get better. We all need to show up for each other and you can do it and it can help and it can make a difference if not for you but for your loved one. So go to the Anxiety Warriors Freedom group, get the one week Freedom Challenge. You can get your life back. You can show up for your loved one with greater efficiency. And so I would encourage you to do do that right now. Go and click on the link, do it right now. Just get in the group. Maybe that's your one thing today. I'm going to be back here every Wednesday and every Friday I'm going to be here showing up for you. So I encourage you show up for yourself, send us a message, let us know how we can best support you and I will see you next time. This has been Dr. Nicole Cain. You can learn more about me by going to www.Dr.nicolecane. com. All right, I'll see you guys.