It’s becoming quite common for adults to be taking care of their senior parents. More than 65 million adults in the U.S. are caretakers for senior parents or disabled loved ones. And there’s a growing percentage of caregivers who are also taking care of their kids as well as their senior loved ones. That increases the risk that adult caregivers will become burned out. Caregiver burnout can cause insomnia, stress, weight gain or loss, and a variety of physical and mental health problems. It can be very physically and emotionally demanding to care for your elderly parents. If you’re a caregiver please use these tips to help take care of yourself as well as everyone else:
Get Some Help
No one can handle the responsibilities of work, family, and caregiving by themselves around the clock. It’s just too much. It’s too much for anyone to handle without breaking down. You are not weak or failing if you get some help. You’re smart to get the help you need to keep doing what you do. Getting help could mean hiring an elderly care provider to take care of your parents one or two days a week. It could mean hiring a housecleaner for your home or sending your laundry out to a laundry service. Or it could mean getting groceries delivered for you and your senior parents. There are a lot of services out there that you can use to help you get things done. Use them.
Consider Counseling
When people think about self care they usually think about a bubble bath or a manicure. Those things are self care, but so is counseling. And both can help you manage the long term stress of being a parental caregiver. Taking care of senior parents, especially if they are seriously ill, can take a big toll on your emotional health. It can bring up issues from your childhood and make it difficult to cope with other things going on in your life. Counseling gives you a safe space to process your emotions with someone who can help guide you to emotional wellness. Taking an hour a week for a counseling session help you avoid caregiver burnout. If you don’t have an elderly care provider to stay with a parent so you can go to counseling hire one, or make a telemedicine counseling appointment that can be done online.
Go To Bed
Sleep is vitally important for staying healthy but many caregivers never get enough sleep. If you can’t sleep more hours at night try to take naps during the day to give your mind and body a chance to rest and reset. Hire an elderly care provider to stay with your senior parent for a few hours a couple of times each week so you can nap deeply without having to worry about your senior loved one. You also might want to consider paying an elderly care provider to sit with your parent during the night so that you can sleep peacefully and uninterrupted at night.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering Elderly Care in Greensboro, NC please contact the caring staff at Affordable Family Care. Serving Raleigh, Greensboro, and the surrounding areas in North Carolina. Call today 919-676-1070.
Sources:
https://www.caregiveraction.org/resources/caregiver-statistics
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