How Can You Avoid Being Overwhelmed as a New Family Caregiver?

Being overwhelmed may seem as if it’s unavoidable, especially if you’re a new family caregiver, but that doesn’t have to be the case. These ideas can help you to get rid of feeling overwhelmed before it drags you down.

Caregiver Kannapolis NC – How Can You Avoid Being Overwhelmed as a New Family Caregiver?

Take a Deep Breath

Being overwhelmed usually happens because you’re worrying about tackling everything at once. That’s not realistic for even the most organized caregiver, so take a deep breath and allow yourself to relax for a minute. Once you’re feeling calmer, it’s easier to tackle one thing at a time.

Learn What You Can about Your Senior’s Health

Educating yourself about your aging family member’s health can do a lot to help keep you from feeling overwhelmed. As you understand more about her health and the treatments that can help her, you are less likely to feel lost during doctor’s appointments. Before you know it, you’ll be an expert.

Ask Your Loved One What She Wants

While you have some specific expectations from your caregiving experience, your elderly family member does, too. Be sure to sit down with her and talk about what she wants and what she expects from you as a caregiver. This helps you to determine where your own limits are. It’s possible that you’ll be a temporary caregiver for your senior, especially if your own life precludes you meeting all your elderly family member’s needs.

Set up a Support System for Yourself

You absolutely have to have a support system for yourself as your senior’s caregiver. That support system could consist of home care providers, other family members, and even friends and neighbors. While some of the people who make up your support system will be able to provide practical, hands-on help for you, others may be your emotional support network.

Find Resources that Can Help

Check with agencies and resources in your area that help the elderly and their caregivers. Each agency may offer bits and pieces that together can make up a strong supplementary backup system for you. Even if you don’t need what a particular agency offers now, you might down the road so it helps to know what’s available out there. Don’t forget that support groups are a powerful resource in their own right.

Whenever you do find that you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a step back and ask yourself what you need. Meeting your own needs as a caregiver can help you to get back into the right frame of mind to be helpful to your senior, too.

If you or an aging loved one are considering Caregiver Services in Kannapolis NC, please contact the caring staff at TenderHearted Home Care today. (704) 612-4132.