HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

We have not been on air­planes for the past year, but this is an in­struc­tion we usu­al­ly hear from flight at­ten­dants: “Put your oxy­gen mask on first,” be­fore your part­ner next to you, even if it is your child.

Why is this an im­por­tant rule for en­sur­ing sur­vival? It is sim­ple, if you run out of oxy­gen your­self, you can­not help any­one else with their oxy­gen mask. If you die, you can­not help any­one else.

Are you ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any of these symp­toms?

This is an im­por­tant metaphor for those who spend a great deal of their time tak­ing care of oth­ers (moth­ers, fa­thers, care­givers, doc­tors, nurs­es, teach­ers). Tak­ing care of oth­ers can eas­i­ly de­plete the care­giv­er. If you do not take care of your­self, you can ex­pe­ri­ence burnout, stress, fa­tigue, re­duced men­tal ef­fec­tive­ness, health prob­lems, anx­i­ety, frus­tra­tion, in­abil­i­ty to sleep (and even death).

Care­givers of­ten ig­nore their own health

Watch­ing a par­ent age or see­ing some­one change dras­ti­cal­ly due to ill­ness can be dev­as­tat­ing. Har­vard Health re­ports, “Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 per­cent of care­givers in­di­cat­ed they don’t see their doc­tor reg­u­lar­ly be­cause of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.” Main­tain­ing your own well­be­ing is cru­cial, but of­ten dif­fi­cult. If you are not sleep­ing well, ex­er­cis­ing, or feel your­self be­com­ing reclu­sive, speak to a health care pro­fes­sion­al about de­pres­sion. It can hit any­one, at any time.

What is Care­giv­er Stress Syn­drome?

Care­giv­er stress syn­drome is a con­di­tion char­ac­terised by phys­i­cal, men­tal and emo­tion­al ex­haus­tion. It typ­i­cal­ly re­sults from a per­son ne­glect­ing his/her own phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al health be­cause he/she is fo­cused on car­ing for an ill, in­jured or dis­abled loved one. Care­giv­ing may in­volve meet­ing com­plex de­mands with­out any train­ing or help.

The mag­ni­tude of the prob­lem

Care­giv­er stress syn­drome is strong­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with neg­a­tive health out­comes. Be­tween 40 to 70% of care­givers suf­fer from de­pres­sion, while many care­givers al­so have anx­i­ety be­cause of the stress as­so­ci­at­ed with pro­vid­ing care. Anger and ir­ri­tabil­i­ty are al­so com­mon symp­toms of care­giv­er stress syn­drome. The chron­ic stress may al­so lead to high blood pres­sure, di­a­betes and a com­pro­mised im­mune sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to stud­ies by Har­vard Health:

Women who spend nine or more hours a week car­ing for a spouse in­creased their risk of heart dis­ease by 100%;

72% of care­givers re­port that they had not gone to the doc­tor as of­ten as they should have;

Care­givers have a 23% high­er lev­el of stress hor­mones and 15% low­er lev­el of an­ti­body re­spons­es than non-care­givers,

58% of care­givers state that their eat­ing habits are worse than be­fore they as­sumed this role

Let Go of Your Guilt and Put your Oxy­gen Mask on First

Tak­ing steps to pre­vent or re­lieve care­giv­er stress WILL help pre­vent health prob­lems.

It will al­so be eas­i­er to fo­cus on the re­wards of care­giv­ing. It is time to let go of the guilt and pri­ori­tise care of your­self:

Tak­ing care of your own health. Try to find time to be phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive, at least 30 min­utes a day for five days in the week, choose healthy foods and get enough sleep. Make sure that you keep up with your med­ical care such as reg­u­lar check­ups and screen­ings. In­cor­po­rate re­ju­ve­nat­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in your Self care plan:

- Sit­ting qui­et­ly for at least 10 min­utes

- Med­i­tat­ing

- Watch­ing hum­ming­birds or but­ter­flies flut­ter about

- Lis­ten­ing to up­lift­ing mu­sic

- Read­ing an in­spir­ing book

- Writ­ing in your jour­nal

- Cre­at­ing grat­i­tude list

- Walk­ing on the beach

- En­gag­ing in a hob­by

Stay­ing in touch with fam­i­ly and friends. It’s im­por­tant for you to have emo­tion­al sup­port.

Ask­ing for and ac­cept­ing help. Make a list of ways oth­ers can help you. Let helpers choose what they would like to do. For in­stance, some­one might sit with the per­son you care for while you do an er­rand. Some­one else might pick up gro­ceries for you.

Learn­ing bet­ter ways to help your loved one. For ex­am­ple, hos­pi­tals of­fer class­es that can teach you how to care for some­one with an in­jury or ill­ness.

Find­ing care­giv­ing re­sources in your com­mu­ni­ty to help you. Many com­mu­ni­ties have adult day­care ser­vices or respite ser­vices. Us­ing one of these can give you a break from your care­giv­ing du­ties.

Con­sid­er­ing tak­ing a break from your job, if you al­so work and are feel­ing over­whelmed. Check with your hu­man re­sources of­fice about your op­tions.

En­gag­ing tech­nol­o­gy. There are apps to as­sist in man­ag­ing the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals needs of your loved ones and en­sure med­ica­tions are de­liv­ered in a time­ly man­ner.

Care­giv­er stress syn­drome does not have to be your re­al­i­ty. While it can have a neg­a­tive im­pact on your life and well-be­ing, there are ways to re­cov­er, and to be a hap­pi­er, health­i­er care­giv­er for your loved one. By tak­ing time for your­self and fo­cus­ing on your own needs, you can avoid the per­ils of care­giv­er stress syn­drome.

Prac­tice self-com­pas­sion

Make no mis­take, car­ing for oth­ers is a pos­i­tive trait. Fo­cus­ing on your loved ones and of­fer­ing emo­tion­al sup­port when they strug­gle shows your com­pas­sion and strength­ens your re­la­tion­ships. Proso­cial be­hav­iour, like prac­tic­ing kind­ness to­ward oth­ers, can even help im­prove well-be­ing by boost­ing feel­ings of hap­pi­ness. Just don’t for­get to treat your­self with the same kind­ness and com­pas­sion you of­fer oth­ers.

To­geth­er, we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic and that is any­thing but or­di­nary. So, we should not ex­pect our­selves to act like all is nor­mal while we ad­just to the “New Nor­mal”. Let’s give our­selves time to ad­just to this “New Re­al­i­ty” in our lives and al­low our­selves grace.

Re­mem­ber that if you feel bet­ter, you can take bet­ter care of your loved one.

It isn’t self­ish to take care of your­self, it’s your oxy­gen!