Need a Fast Way to Deal with Stress?

By Kevin Edwards | February 17, 2020 |

Stress is part of life for everyone, but especially if you’re a caregiver. If you have a few ways to defuse stress quickly, that can help you to get through to the next good thing you have coming your way.

Slow Everything Down

Caregiver Leawood KS - Need a Fast Way to Deal with Stress? — Caregiver Leawood KS – Need a Fast Way to Deal with Stress?

Everything feels faster when you’re stressed. Life is coming at you faster. People expect answers faster. Your breathing and your thoughts are also faster. Do what you can to slow things down. You can’t make other people more patient or slow them down, but you can slow yourself down. Pay attention to your breathing and consciously make each breath a little slower and a little deeper than the one before it. That can help your brain to slow down a little, too.

Assess Your Thoughts

Stress can cause you to have some thoughts that aren’t helpful, especially in the heat of the moment. You may not be able to replace those thoughts right out of the gate, but what you can do is to notice them. If those thoughts aren’t helpful ones, dismiss them. For example, you might have some angst about scheduling appointments for your senior and one of the thoughts you might have could involve your own schedule and making sure your schedule never conflicts with whatever might come up for your senior. That’s something you can’t predict and it’s not a helpful thought. Dismissing it allows you to deal with reality.

Try to Laugh

Laughter helps in most situations, especially when you’re dealing with stress. As a caregiver you might feel as if you don’t have a lot to laugh about, but there are plenty of situations that are humorous. The key is to find humor in situations without doing it in a hurtful way. You might want to consider signing up for joke-a-day newsletters or make sure that you keep favorite episodes of funny shows queued up and ready to go.

Routines Can Make Life Easier

Routines can feel stifling, but as a caregiver they give you structure that you can lean on, especially in times of stress. Take a look at your current routines and see if there are things you can adjust or tweak that make those routines work better for you. That alone can help you to relieve some stress.

You can’t manage all of your stress with fast methods. But you can get yourself to a point where you know you have a plan or you know there’s something else you can put in place as a solution.

If you or an aging loved-one are considering Caregiver Services in the Leawood KS area, please contact the caring staff at Elder Care of Kansas City, today. Proudly serving Jackson, Clay, Platte and Cass Counties in Missouri as well as Johnson and Wyandotte Counties in Kansas for over 30 years. Call us at 816-333-3322.

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Kevin Edwards

Owner at Elder Care of Kansas City

Kevin’s life and the lives of his immediate family have been impacted by caregivers – either as a patient or a caregiver - for as long as he can remember.He watched his mother take care of his grandmother until her death at the age of 97.Five years later, his father passed from a neurological disorder that was subsequently confirmed as Lewy Body Dementia.In 2007, his wife, Lori, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.The symptoms of Lori’s disease required Kevin to hire a caregiver during the periods of her relapses.

Prior to purchasing Elder Care, Kevin spent over 20 years in the health insurance industry.In his most recent position, he was in a financial operations role with Humana where he worked with doctors, nurses and other health professionals developing programs to keep Humana members healthy.Their focus on primary care and medication adherence improved the lives of thousands of seniors in Kansas City and the surrounding area.

Kevin and his wife, Lori, have three children.Kevin has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Missouri.