What Does it Look Like When You’re Ignoring Your Stress Levels?

Lots of caregivers believe that ignoring stress encourages that stress to simply disappear. But that’s not what happens at all. If you’re ignoring your stress, it’s only going to continue to grow. That’s not what you want.

You Insist Big Stress Is Just Being a Caregiver

Stress is a part of life, that’s true. It’s also part of the whole caregiving thing. But big stress that just keeps getting bigger is not part of being a caregiver. You need to be managing your stress levels appropriately, especially when they start to get bigger and uglier. If you don’t have a plan to do that, you’re setting yourself up for bigger problems down the line.

You See Other People as Being at Fault

Lots of scenarios can be the cause of your stress, but if you’re laying the blame for your stress at the feet of those scenarios or at the feet of other people in your life, you’re misleading yourself. Blaming anyone for stress isn’t going to work. It’s all yours to manage and if you’re doing so in the right ways without shifting blame, you’re going to get a lot farther in your goal to decrease your stress.

You Keep Saying Your Stress Is Temporary

When you downplay your stress by calling it temporary or referring to it as something that will pass, especially if you just ignore it, you’re fooling yourself. The stress you’re under as a caregiver isn’t temporary and if you don’t deal with it, you’re going to end up letting it build and build until something gives. Usually what gives is you and that’s something that doesn’t bode well for anyone in your life.

You Need Real Answers

Once you’re past the denial about your stress, you need some real solutions that will actually help you. Acceptance gets you farther than you think, but you also need to get some assistance. Being able to delegate tasks to people you trust can help you to free up your time and your energy so that you can start assessing your own needs more accurately. That’s when you can start making real strides
 

Owning up to what’s going on is going to give you a chance to start figuring out what you need and what will help you the most. You’ll come out of that much stronger as a caregiver and everyone in your caregiving situation needs that for you.

If you or an aging loved-one are considering hiring a Homecare in Livonia, MI, or the surrounding area, please contact the caring staff at CareOne Senior Care today. Call us at (248) 308-2777.