Don’t Let Caregiving Take 10 Years Off your Life

By Fairport Wealth

Caring for Caregivers

Stress is unavoidable and affects everyone. But it hits family caregivers especially hard. Whether you are managing elders, family members with disabilities, addictions or mental illness, caregivers have been shown to age prematurely. This tremendous level of stress can take as much as 10 years off a family caregiver’s life.1

Kristi Horner, Founder and Executive Director of Courage to Caregivers, helps caregivers manage their stress by focusing on the 7 C’s (as adapted from the 3 C’s for addiction recovery).

“I didn’t cause it.
I can’t cure it.
I can’t control it.
I can’t change it.
Yet, I can have courage and compassion and I can cope.”

Stress can be manageable. If you can understand stress and how you react to it, you will be better able to cope with it in more healthy ways. If you can learn to notice your body’s response to stress, identify your stressors (the external and internal things that cause your stress), and develop ways to relax during a stressful moment, you can give yourselves the chance to regroup, review your options, and make confident decisions.

And because coping and relaxation skills are so important to helping us manage our response to stress, breathing meditation is paramount. Courage to Caregivers offers weekly breathing meditations on YouTube. HealthyPlace.com is a useful resource for healthy ways to cope with stress such as positive self-talk, relaxation, meditation, exercise, balanced lifestyle, dealing with anger and making changes in your life. DailyCaring.com also shares some helpful stress-management strategies.

By understanding what causes stress, how you experience it and how you can best respond to it, you can become an expert at stress management in your own life. If we don’t cope and manage our stress effectively, it can lead to burnout and hopelessness. If you’re concerned about yourself, or someone else, reach out for help. Turn to a professional for support or call 911 if it’s an emergency.

Watch the Caregiving for Caregivers replay here.

¹ *Prof. Elissa S. Epel, vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco

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