Family Caregivers at Risk For Stress Related Illnesses

The Top Ten Free Things You Can Do To Prevent This Stress from Affecting Your Health

More than 50 million people, provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year.

Most family members readily jump in to help a loved one and will put their own lives on hold. Only 46 per cent expect to be caregivers longer than two years. In fact the average length of time spent on caregiving is about eight years, with approximately one third of respondents providing care for 10 years or more. Source: MetLife Juggling Act Study, Balancing Caregiving with Work and the Costs of Caregiving, Met Life Mature Market Institute, November 1999.

“When my husband asked if his father could stay with us, I assumed it would be temporary … nor did I realize both men assumed that since I’m retired and home, that I would be his primary caregiver. This is not how I envisioned my second marriage to be and certainly not how I planned my retirement years…” Janet W. of Tampa Florida shared with us when she phoned to find a local service in her area that would provide some respite care.

68 per cent of the calls received at Senior Approved Services originate from the adult daughter (or daughter-in-law) between the ages of 48 and 58. Most are employed, full or part-time. Many are frightened of the responsibility of caring for a loved one and rightly so. The lack of training available for the family caregiver to provide adequate care, not knowing what services might be available, not knowing what kinds of questions they ought to ask of potential service providers…the full gambit of the ‘unknown’ adds to this stress. Couple this with the guilt that often arises when this family member must bring ‘strangers’ in to the care plan, realizing the task is too overwhelming only further exasperates the stress.

Stress cannot necessarily be eliminated, let’s face it, providing care for an older adult or someone chronically ill or with a disability is stressful. You can learn, however, to prevent the negative effects of stress from harming your physical body and emotional state of mind.

If you watch TV, you’re sure to see a magic pill out there that promises to fix it all for you. What if you could manipulate your physical and mental well being without the expense and without the chemical side effects of the magic pill?

1. Breathe from your belly (not the top part of your lungs) This better oxygenates your blood, increasing circulation and removes harmful toxins from your blood stream.
2. Drink water. This hydrates your cells, improves the elasticity of muscles and tissues and removes harmful toxins from your organs.
3. Wear and surround yourself with calming colors. Light blue, aqua and green are associated with health, healing, tranquility, understanding, and softness.
4. Listen to music that makes you feel good. Music that has 50-60 beats per minute is known to induce calmness and healing in the body.
5. Find aromas that when you sniff makes you remember good joyful moments in your life.
6. Experiment with the lighting in the space you spend the most time in. Try rose colored light bulbs, try increasing the watts, try full spectrum lighting.
7. Your diet should consist of 80% alkaline, 20% acid producing foods. A high acid diet causes anxiety and aggression.
8. Learn to hug and accept hugs. This simple act of human kindness lowers blood pressure, lowers output of cortisol (a stress hormone.) When cortisol lowers, there is a surge of serotonin and dopamine (feel good chemicals) Add pets and or plants to your living space. The same chemical reaction occurs with petting a pet and caring for plants as well.
9. Reach out for help – recognize you can’t do it all, every day, all day, for an undetermined amount of time.
10. My favorite – Laugh it all away!

It may seem strange at first, manipulating yourself to force a good belly laugh. We normally expect to have an outside impetus to ‘make us laugh’, but if you wait for something ‘funny’ to occur during the day, you may be waiting a long time.

Don’t confuse laughter with humor. Humor is very subjective. Humor can also be used as a shield by many people and by some, can come in the form of a sword as sarcasm. Therapeutic laughter, on the other hand, is deliberate and provides the body with an enormous amount of healthy chemicals and hormones that literally ‘de-stress’ the body and the mind.

To make the most use of this all natural, free stress releaser that will enhance your immune system, lower blood pressure, oxygenate your blood, improve circulation, relieve pain, and literally, make you ‘feel good’, all you need to do is laugh from your belly.

Envision that you are Santa Claus with a belly full of Jell-O. Take a deep breath, smile and using the muscles in your lower abdominal area (below your belly button) start off by breathing out making the sound, HA HA HA. On the in breath, make the sound, HO HO HO. Keep doing this until you are ‘laughing’ intensely enough to make your body shake or vibrate.

Do this for fifteen minutes in the morning and you will feel relaxed, energized, focused and calm. Do this for fifteen minutes before going to bed and you will feel relaxed, calm and will sleep more soundly.

Barbara Mascio, author and facilitator of the workshop ‘Caregivers Guide to Cracking UP!, challenges participants to try manipulated laughter exercises every day for three weeks to prove to yourself this indeed has value.

People attending this workshop are always amazed at how well they feel after a good belly laugh. Those that take our three-week challenge have responded by writing letters such as ….

‘Okay, I laughed every day, twice a day for three weeks Barb. My life is still the same hectic nutty daily grind, but I notice less anger and I haven’t had a headache in weeks. I don’t get it, but you’re right, it works!’ Stephanie L. from Pittsburgh PA.

‘I had to do this in the shower, too embarrassed in front of my mother, but I did it every day for the past three weeks. My mother noticed something different; she said I seemed more settled. I decided to share with her my belly exercise and now we do it together. Guess what. She’s much easier to care for, even she feels better…” Beverly T. from Strongsville OH.

• 45% of those providing care for three or more years report a stress-related illness such as hypertension, depression, frequent colds and flu, back injuries, body pain, headaches, insomnia, recent weight loss or gain, fybromyalgia and chronic fatigue.
• 83% report that the responsibility of caring for a loved one has negatively impacted their work history, putting their jobs at risk.
• 73% report that caring for a parent has put an enormous stress on their marriage.

The stress of family caregiving for person's with dementia has been shown to impact a person's immune system for up to three years after their caregiving ends thus increasing their chances of developing a chronic illness themselves. Source: Drs.Janice-Kiecolt Glaser and Ronald Glaser 'Chronic stress and age-related increases in the proinflammatory cytokine IL-6', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 30, 2003.

Family caregivers who provide care 36 or more hours weekly are more likely than non-caregivers to experience symptoms of depression or anxiety. For spouses the rate is six times higher; for those caring for a parent the rate is twice as high. Source: Cannuscio, CC, C Jones, I Kawachi, GA Colditz, L Berkman and E Rimm, Reverberation of family illness: A longitudinal assessment of informal caregiver and mental health status in the nurses' health study. American Journal of Public Health 2002; 92:305-1311.

Family caregivers providing high levels of care have a 51% incidence of sleeplessness and a 41% incidence of back pain. Source: National Family Caregivers Association, Caregiving Across the Life Cycle, 1998

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