Caregivers deserve some time for self-caring. Dr. Shawn Weiss joins Suzanne to talk about some ways to help care partners from becoming overtaxed and burning out.
Dr. Weiss says, "Emotional wellness affects every single foundational principle. It's very similar to the coaching I do with the pillars of health and emotional, mental health. It's at the top because... attitude is huge. You're not going to accomplish things or, or have a growth mindset, if you're stuck in a negativity pattern, or depression and sadness... If you're a family caregiver or care partner, that can cloud everything.
"If you think about what's happened since COVID, we just saw a tremendous increase in the amount of caregiver burnout, and you see the that term quite a bit. But if you're a care partner, what I see is you're exhausted, you don't even take time for yourself. You're burning the candle at both ends, maybe you're still working, and then you're coming back to take care of a spouse or a mom or a dad, or traveling to their house to give them care and help them with A, B, or C, and you just are spent.
"And when that happens, not only is it affecting your mental state, it's affecting you physically. You become more prone to illness, you become more prone to develop disease. You get weak, you're not exercising, you tend to not eat well. When you're emotionally burnt out, it's critical to start with that self care concept to get your emotional health back on check. And that's when I talk about making sure that you start with finding time for yourself every day... You can't take care of anybody else very well if you don't take care of yourself, because then what happens, you start getting angry, you start getting frustrated, you start getting short tempered, and that's not serving yourself or the person that you're helping at all.
"If you know somebody who's in that situation, take the time to try to pull them away. Honestly, it could be coffee, it could be a book club, it could be uh a spa day, get your nails done. It does not matter. You need to take time for yourself."
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