Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Finding Your Own Coping Mechanism for Caregiver Anxiety


Caregiving can be frightening. You're face to face with your own mentality and aging, while watching someone you care for struggle.

By Ryan Rivera

Ryan Rivera
Anxiety has numerous causes.

From genetics to life events to upbringing, there's a reason that tens of millions of Americans suffer from some form of anxiety regularly – it's easy for something in your life to trigger anxiety, and once it does it can be difficult to cope.

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Of all of the causes of anxiety I've seen in the past, one of the most common – and often most stressful – is caregiver anxiety. Caregiver anxiety is unique, in that there are multiple issues creating anxiety all at once:
  • Fear – Caregiving can be frightening. You're face to face with your own mentality and aging, while watching someone you care for struggle in pain.
  • Doubt – Caregiving for Alzheimer's is a demanding job that many people feel they are not capable of doing.
  • Frustration – It can be difficult to care for Alzheimer's patients, no matter how much experience you may have.
  • Self-Loathing – When you struggle to care for an Alzheimer's patient, it's not uncommon to find fault in yourself, even if your struggles are natural.
  • Selflessness – Living for your own happiness is an important part of coping. But when you're a caregiver, you are, in many ways, living for someone else.
It's for these reasons and more that those caregiving often suffer from significant anxiety in a short amount of time, even without previous anxiety symptoms. Caregiving is a cauldron of different emotions, and when mixed they have a tendency to explode, causing a level of stress that few people are prepared to experience.

Coping With This Level of Anxiety

Caregiver anxiety is unique in that you cannot simply remove the situation from your life nor can you pop a pill and expect it to go away.

Most caregivers need to find a coping strategy that works for them, based on what they find to be relaxing. However, there are several qualities that most strategies have in common. These include:
  • Accepting Personal Care
You want to give everything to the person living with Alzheimer's. The problem is that this isn't possible if you don't also care about your own mental health. Accepting that you deserve happiness is an important part of coping. It's not selfish to want to be happy yourself. In fact, the happier, calmer, and more relaxed you are, the better a caregiver you'll be. If there is something that helps you cope with anxiety that temporarily take away from your activities as a caregiver, it may still be worth considering, because your better relaxation and mood will be reflected in your ability to care for the individual.
  • Active
Your personal life, and the coping mechanisms you choose should also be more active. You should be engaging in activities that don't involve sitting at your home and watching TV, no matter how calming that may be. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is allowing your caregiving activities to drain you and prevent you from other activities. No matter how tired you may be, staying active is an important part of coping, so you can't let yourself fall into the trap of succumbing to your exhaustion.
  • Social
Finally, caregiving often takes you away from those you care about. But social activities are, by their very nature, coping strategies. So you need to integrate people in your life. Having friends over that understand your situation to help keep you company is a start. Support groups are also a great choice, as are sports where you can combine social activities with exercise. Being social provides you with a level of unspoken support that you may not get as a caregiver.

These are the three qualities that should be a part of how you decide to cope with your caregiver anxiety.

Traditional anxiety reduction strategies like therapy are still effective, but as a caregiver you need to also be willing to find methods of obtaining happiness and relaxation on your own.

Accept that your mental health and your contentment are both very important, stay active, and surround yourself when people you care about and you'll find a greater level of relief from your stress and anxiety.
Ryan Rivera is an author and speaker about issues relating to anxiety symptoms and treatments. He writes about anxiety at www.calmclinic.com.


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