Helping someone who faces significant limitations with their daily routines can be very rewarding, but it can also pose challenges. It can be frustrating, stressful, and exhausting! When you have a moment for yourself, you may want to focus on "self care."
This page provides a sampling of techniques and exercises that can help you relax, reflect, cope, or enjoy.
Time to Relax: Audio Breathing and Relaxation Exercises
Visual Expression: Using Art to Understand Your Emotions
Time to Relax
If you only have a few minutes, take some time to relax right now. Click on the play button below for either a breathing exercise or a guided imagery relaxation exercise.
Breathing Exercise
Relaxation Exercise
These modules were created by Carol Dregenberg, RN, MA, LCPC, who works as the Staff Support Counselor at Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter located in Glenview, IL.
Writing Exercises
Types of Writing
Many caregivers feel that writing helps them to focus and gain clarity as they deal with the loss and stress related to caregiving. It is not necessary to write every day, but you may wish to establish an on-going writing program to help you with new caregiving challenges, as well as with difficult situations that arise or old memories that persist. Below you will find information that may help you identify a style of writing that helps you:
Journaling
Empowering Caregivers Journal Exercises
http://www.care-givers.com/pages/journalindex.html
“Strange but True: Improve your health through journaling”
http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/health/journal.html
Appreciative Writing
Appreciation, compassion, caring, and joy are powerful emotions that can positively affect our health. In her book Journal to the Self, author Kathleen Adams describes the writing technique called Captured Moments. A Captured Moment is a very specific event or experience, as you remember it.
Much like a camera shutter captures a split second of infinity on film, so does a Captured Moment preserve an instant of feeling and sensation. Much like snapshots in a photo album, Captured Moments can be used to preserve a precious memory for the future. When writing about Captured Moments you focus on the senses, using sights, sounds, textures, smells, and feelings to creatively and vividly capture a special time.
Below is a brief guide for how to get started:
- Begin by closing your eyes and slowly breathing in and out, allowing yourself to relax.
- Invite an image from a wonderful time to come into your mind—perhaps a wedding, reuniting with an old friend, holding a newborn baby.
- Bring yourself into that scene—letting yourself see, smell, hear, feel, and touch all that is in that memory. Fully immerse yourself in that experience, and relive it.
Then, open your eyes, and begin to write, letting the words flow, bringing the experience to life on your paper.
Writing about Difficult Experiences
It is common for us to experience difficult events in our lives. Caring for a loved one, loss of health, living with a physical disability, loss of a dream - such as traveling in retirement or living independently, and the death of loved ones or even our pets are all difficult events with which we must cope.
In one of Dr. James Pennebaker of the Univeristy of Texas-Austin's research studies, college students were instructed to write about a traumatic event selected experiences as far back as age three. All experienced positive effects from their writing activity, with an average 25% increase in immune function and a 50% reduction in visits to the student health center, compared with students who wrote about a non-traumatic event. Some positive benefits of writing will appear almost immediately after completing the writing process, while others may take up to four months to become apparent.
The key elements of the Pennebaker Method of writing to heal are outlined below:
- Select any event – recent or in the past. You may choose to write about the most difficult experience of your life, but it may be more helpful to write about the issues that are of concern to you right now. Is there something that you are spending a lot of time thinking about? Writing can help you resolve that issue. Is there something that you can’t tell others because you are ashamed or embarrassed about it? Then write about that. It is most important to take action – to begin to write about something.
- Write whenever you want to, about whatever you wish.
- However, do not use writing as a substitute for actions which you should take, such as apologizing to someone you have wronged.
- Once you have selected a topic, just begin to write. If you find it difficult to begin, just write “I am finding it very difficult to write about this experience,” and keep writing whatever comes into your mind. The important thing is to just start writing!
- Tell the story of your experience, with plenty of details. Don’t make it a “newspaper account” with “just the facts.”
- Be sure to include your feelings about the event. Write what you feel and explore why you feel that way. Linking your feelings with the troubling event will help provide you the health benefits of writing.
- If you run out of things to say, just repeat what you have already written.
To gain the most benefit from the Pennebaker Methods, you should write continuously for fifteen to twenty minutes, or longer. Write about the same topic for four sessions – on four consecutive days or within a week or so.
The Appreciative Writing and Writing about Difficult Experiences exercises were adapted by Carol Dregenberg, RN, MA, LCPC, who works as the Staff Support Counselor at Midwest Palliative & Hospice CareCenter located in Glenview, IL.
Examples of Writings by Caregivers
Writing about Difficult Experiences
Poetry
The poems below were written by a Chicago writer who in recent years has begun to explore the difficulties of aging, as well as the frustration and loss related to caring for his wife who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Mills has generously shared these poems with us and asked that we share them with you.
Folie à Deux*
Robert Mills, Copyright 2004
How maladroit this malady.
Symbiosis of patient and caregiver
hating and loving one another conjointly.
Malevolent disease
cozy and generative
simultaneously uniting as it destroys.
Love and hate alternate
from source to object.
Painstaking negotiation
measured only by the sign of a prayer.
* Folie à Deux refers to the “presence of same or
similar delusional ideas in two persons closely associated with
each other”
-Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition.
Morphology of a Disease: The Alzheimer’s Patient
Robert Mills, Copyright 2006
The child that lives within
reemerges, reborn—
so little passion left in the heart,
all is in consciousness
struggling to find itself a place
where it can live.
A heart fed on fantasies
hardens in a rogue body
timidly redeems its past
—too happy in its happiness—
languishes,
dreamwalks
through the willow trees and dawn flowers
as soft winds and sunlight linger
into winter winds grown brutal.
Reminiscing moments
—life’s kiss renewed
as its sweetness is betrayed.
The Enemy Within
Robert Mills, Copyright 2006
Weedy tangles in the brain
mysterious, microscopic conspirators
twist, twirl, somersault capriciously.
Now a rogue mind inhabits a sound body
Impaled on a thorny thicket.
Distortions swamp the brain.
Jungle weeds entangle an alienated body.
In the Doctor’s Office
Robert Mills, Copyright 2006
I am more than the warts and wrinkles
I have become, and surely more
than disease your chart implies.
My life
familiar to me as history
exceeds symptoms and medicines.
I’m more than what you diagnose
also what I was, strong face and mind,
wisdom without warts enlivening the world,
linkage from past to future.
As I grow in time
you should update my record;
reveal the elder in the aged.
Appreciation and Laughter
We have the power to change our attitudes, thinking, and perceptions. Positive thinking does not mean that we cover up other difficult emotions but that we acknowledge them and choose to put our attention elsewhere.
Negative feelings can have negative consequences. For example, when we experience the "dread" of anticipating pain, the part of the brain that deals with pain becomes active even before the pain is experienced. Interrupting the experience of "dread" through laughter or pleasure can help distract us and decrease its negative effects.
Laughter itself can stimulate our body to release endorphins and dopamine. These natural substances support feelings of pleasure and wellness, and they can also help relieve pain. However, laughter is "healing" only when it includes others and is not meant to cause harm-in other words, when it comes from positive feelings.
Research demonstrates that acting "as if" you are happy can have significant effects on our physiology. Smiling, even when we do not feel happy, can help move us in a more positive emotional direction. Living "as if" we are happy, joyous, and appreciative increases the likelihood that we will experience those feelings. This does not mean that we have to put on an act for others. It allows us "try on" more positive facial expressions or participate in conversations and activities consistent with a more positive attitude.
Making Appreciation and Laughter Part of Your Daily Life
- Enjoy jokes and humorous cartoons-share jokes with others.
- Watch silly movies or comedy shows on television.
- Read uplifting or humorous books, positive essays, religious texts, or inspiring quotes-reflect and come up with new ideas for positive approaches to living.
- Spend time with funny or upbeat people- laughter is usually contagious.
- Think about a stressful situation, but find something good or comical about it.
- Make a list of things in your life to appreciate-or even keep a "gratitude journal." Change your daily routine in some way-look for something new and pause to appreciate it.
Appreciation and Laughter Exercises
Make Faces
- Stand or sit in front of a mirror and make as many funny faces as you can.
- Be creative and don't let your inhibitions get in your way!
- One way to start with is the "Lion Pose" from the practice of yoga. Simply open your mouth wide and stick your tongue out!
- Practice by yourself or invite someone to join in the fun.
Practice Laughing
- Begin by taking a few slow, deep breaths to relax yourself-we tend to breathe shallowly when we are stressed.
- As you breathe out, make a HA-HA-HA sound, or use HE or HO, if that is the sound of your natural laugh.
- Keep repeating until your diaphragm muscles are contracting rhythmically and your automatic laugh response kicks in.
- Try to build up to doing laughing for twenty minutes.
- Have someone laugh with you-it is more fun and effective if you do it with.
Act "as if" You are Happy (Practice along with someone trying the exercise)
- Hold a pen or pencil between your teeth as demonstrated in
the first picture-notice how you look and what you are feeling.
- Now hold the pencil or pen between your lips, as in the second
picture-notice how you look and what you are feeling.
- View the pictures to see what happens to the person in the
picture.
- Have someone else do this exercise with you-have someone act silly or tell you jokes as you do the exercise.
Exercises adapted from Happiness: How to Find It and Keep It, by Joan Duncan Oliver.
Visual Expression: Using Art to Understand Your Emotions
You do not have to have any artistic talent to create pictures that represent your emotions. Just focus on the process of creating the image and paying attention to how you are feeling. You can work in any media that you feel comfortable with and create images of any kind-drawings, paintings or collages.
As you create the image, think about your pain experience and let an image begin to develop in your mind. If you are drawing or painting, start with a simple mark on the paper and move from there. Let yourself work freely, without criticism. Continue until the image "says it is finished."
Tips as You Prepare to Create
- Collect your supplies-use whatever you have at hand-pens or pencils, paper, crayons, paints, magazine pictures, etc.
- Give yourself a choice of colors-from black and white to pastels and bright colors.
- Choose materials that fit your state of mind-for instance, if you feel like ripping something, choose colored paper, or magazines.
- Experiment with obtaining and using different materials-decide what allows you to most comfortably express yourself visually.
- Find a spot to work Provide yourself privacy-you may not feel comfortable with letting other people see your work.
- Prepare your work area so you don't have to worry about making a mess or damaging anything-you may want to select a work area where you can leave your project out.
- Make some random marks on the paper with the pen, marker or brush just to get a feel for the materials you have chosen to use-What can you do with them? How do they make you feel?
The material was adapted from Art is a Way of Knowing: A Guide to Self-Knowledge and Spiritual Fulfillment Through Creativity by Pat B. Allen. (Boston: Shambala Publications, 1995)
For More Resources
For information on coping and getting support, you may want to review the Resources section of the CAREgivinghelp site.
New York University’s School of Medicine maintains a Medical Humanities website with a comprehensive list of films, literature, and art that includes works on caregiving experiences of many kinds.
If you have a specific question, you can contact the geriatric care specialist by sending an email to CAREgivinghelp@cje.net or by calling 773.381.6008.