How you manage the stress in your life can play a big part in your overall health.

No one can avoid stress completely–living is stressful! But as we grow older, stressful changes may hit harder and more often. For example, the death of a close friend or family member can change our life overnight. Taking care of an ill relative or problems with our own health are sources of stress that also become more common as we grow older.

However, it is possible both to reduce stress and to do a better job of living with the stress we can’t avoid.

Reducing Stress   

Start with an honest self-evaluation, perhaps with the help of a friend, mental health professional, or counselor. Take a step back and look objectively at your life. This should be a positive undertaking, not a time to feel guilty! The purpose of this review is simple–to decide what is really important, and what is not so important.

If you are feeling stressed, it's time to shift some priorities–move some things around on the "to do" list, and maybe eliminate some things altogether.

This process of giving up some of the unnecessary causes of stress and shifting some things around will give you a sense of greater control over your life and increased well-being.

For example, take a look at these aspects of your life and see what impacts they are having:

• routine "book work" that a professional, friend or family member could help with–checkbook, bills, income tax return, Medicare forms, insurance claims, doctor bills.
• family obligations–can you substitute a telephone call for a gift, or a note for a big celebration dinner?
• caregiving–are you neglecting yourself and spending too much time caring for others?

Tips For Coping With Stress

Help in managing stress can include individual or group counseling, medication, or taking classes to improve our skills for coping. Seeking support from others who are dealing with the same types of issues can be a big help.
 

Source: Informed Eldercare Decisions in association with IlluminAge, copyright 2012, IlluminAge.

Family conversations about aging and eldercare concerns are important. For a family with older loved ones – grandparents, or event great grandparents, these days – their wellbeing and support needs are worthy of loving, thoughtful discussion. Aging issues are a family matter—an important, appropriate part of the family's agenda. So, conversations about these aging issues should be honest, open, and productive.

Assessing Your Family Strengths and Weaknesses

When your spouse, parents, or grandparents need help, and other family members consult about it, unresolved family issues may get in the way of effective helping. Revisiting and reopening long-standing family issues of sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, and other family problems during the last months or years of a parent's life is an easy trap to fall into.

The best way to minimize these problems is to be aware of their possibility and avoid them consciously. Work with involved family members to focus attention on the older person's needs and best interests, not other family business. If necessary, have a friend or professional counselor meet and talk with you to move the discussion along.

Family Communication Skills

When it comes to family communication, it's never too late to improve. Even families with long histories of not communicating very well—or at all—can learn to share their views and ideas for meeting the eldercare needs of parents, grandparents, or other older relatives. If your family is "communication-challenged," try these simple tips:

• Think of family communication as an opportunity for personal and family growth.
• Put your issues and concerns out on the table for discussion. Do others see the situation the way you do? Be open to give and take, but try to move in the direction of a consensus about what the eldercare needs and opportunities really are.
• Be inclusive. Draw out what each family member is thinking and feeling, including the older person you are trying to support and care for.
• Stick with it. Reaching consensus usually takes some work. Be willing to give it the time and effort it requires.
• Be open to both asking for and accepting help. The whole idea is to not "go it alone."
• Share the load. Make sure there is basic fairness going on in terms of the financial, time, and emotional costs of the family's overall eldercare efforts.
• Know when to say "no." If the "fairness" message is not getting through, or if you are simply stretched beyond your capacity, it may be a time to decline some tasks amd speak with another family member about sharing them.

For More Information...

The Family Caregiver Alliance offers resources and decision-making information about elder care, including the fact sheets "Helping Families Make Everyday Care Choices" and "Holding a Family Meeting."

Source: Informed Eldercare Decisions in association with IlluminAge, copyright 2012, IlluminAge.

For more than 20 years, Informed Eldercare Decisions has provided services to family caregivers who have sought our assistance while they were faced with difficult decisions concerning an aging family member. Due to the pressures of work, geographic distance, or other demands, it’s not always possible for concerned family members to manage the many tasks involved in care giving.

Those not well acquainted with the fragmented service delivery system, often find it confusing and difficult to negotiate.  It can be especially difficult when a family member has suffered a serious stroke, has a complex diagnosis such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s or other dementia, or is being treated for a prolonged mental illness that may be further complicated by difficult to manage behavioral issues.
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