Caregiving Resources to Help Manage Stress
Our curated list of resources takes into account what family caregivers need to help manage their stress: solutions, support and understanding.
Welcome to the debut issue of Caregiving Resources for Your Library. Each month, we will offer resources you can add to your library’s website which help family caregivers with a specific caregiving challenge.
You are welcome to copy and paste any or all of the content of this newsletter on your library website. Please also feel free to share this newsletter with colleagues and friends who may benefit. (Note: We refer to individuals who care for a family member as family caregivers. We refer to the individual receiving care as caree.)
This month, we focus on offering resources to help with caregiving stress. When you care for a family member, you feel the stress of the responsibilities, the decisions and the strategies.
We ask family caregivers to tell us about their stress by completing a simple stress survey. To date, 1,190 family caregivers rated their stress level on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most stressed. The current stress number is 4.13.
Survey results indicate:
80% of survey respondents rated their stress level as a 4 or 5. Only one survey respondent rated their stress as a 1. Only 27 rated their stress as a 2.
71% of respondents say they miss their lives, which causes their stress.
63% say they don’t sleep well at night.
60% say they haven’t had a break.
54% say they don’t have enough help.
53% say they don’t have enough time.
Our curated list of resources takes into account what family caregivers need to help manage their stress: resources, understanding and support.
Apps
Calm, an app offering “sleep and meditation stories,” delivers personalized recommendations to reduce anxiety and stress as well as improve sleep. Learn more at www.calm.com
Seven-minute work-outs require only about 10 minutes in total and can be done without equipment or leaving the house. This free app gets you started: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/7-minute-workout-fitness-app/id806995720
Books
In Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief, Pauline Boss helps us understand our grief for a family member who hasn’t died but instead is changed by a disease process. (Ms. Boss will release her latest book, Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change, in November 2021.)
In my four-book Take Comfort series, I turn one word into a reflection of the reality of caregiving and then finds hope through that same one word.
Jame Clear gives us insights on how to take back control of our day in Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
Adam Grant helps the givers of the world take care of their generosity so they have more to give to themselves and to others in Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.
We offer additional recommendations in our Caregiving Books spreadsheet.
Events
Free Event to Support Former Family Caregivers
Join us August 6 to receive support and insights to help you recover after your caregiving experience ends. We’ll help you release regrets, receive healing and take a next step forward. Register.
Free Family Emergency Planning Sessions
One of the lessons learned from the pandemic is the importance of planning, especially putting plans in place for the unexpected. We now offer free monthly sessions to help individuals create their family emergency plans on the fourth Friday of every month at 1 p.m. ET (Noon CT, 10 a.m. PT). Denise Brown hosts the event with Certified Caregiving Consultants, professional caregiving coaches who also have a personal caregiving experience. To RSVP to join us, please visit https://careplan.eventbrite.com.
Free Speakers for Your Event
If you’d like to host an event on managing caregiving stress and need a speaker, please reach out to me. I can suggest guest speakers who can share the tools and techniques they use to manage their own caregiving stress.
Strategies
Theresa Wilbanks, a Certified Caregiving Consultant who cared for her father, created a free e-book and a series of videos on managing stress.
Free e-book: https://www.sustainablecaregiving.com/sustainable-caregiving-ebook/
Video series: https://www.sustainablecaregiving.com/video-series/?fbclid=IwAR3uZf9UYibFlUSjhkDF1pipq5oXbeNtk79XfD2EBAErb91TWqoBze83i6Y
Learn more about Theresa in The New Tools for Helping Aging Parents, an article recently published online by The Wall Street Journal.
Support
Our community, Caring Our Way, on Mighty Networks features a section for family caregivers to post questions about their experience and receive answers from Certified Caregiving Consultants (CCCs). The CCCs completed professional training and have personal caregiving experiences which means they understand the stress and the challenges. It’s free to join and to post questions.
CCCs also are available for a free 30-minute consultation and can be hired to become personal consultant for a family or for a family caregiver.
Join Caring Our Way and then click through to the group called “Ask a CCC.”
Share Your Resources
Please feel free to add any additional resources to help manage caregiving stress in our comments section.
If we can help, please reach out to Denise.
Thanks so much for all you to support family caregivers in your community.