Top tips for carers
Are you caring for someone with an immunodeficiency and feeling drained and tired? Then this page gives you some top tips for looking after yourself.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself. Everyone has bad days.
- If possible, get out of the house for a while. Go on an outing.
- Speak to people who make you feel positive.
- Make a list of the things you’re grateful for.
- Take one thing at a time and just breathe.
- Get enough sleep at night. Sleep deprivation is a well-known cause of depression, and being tired does nothing for your mood.
- A pamper session in the bath can help: bubbles, oils, music, a good book.
- Sing along loudly to a CD in the car.
- Remember that you are not only a carer; there is more to you than that.
- Don’t forget to keep busy. It tends to be harder to fight the urges to cope in negative ways when you are alone.
- Rather than fighting and trying to make it a good day, it helps to write it off as a bad day and look to tomorrow to have a better day.
- Organise your problems; if it’s tomorrow’s problem, then worry about it then.
- Some say a change is as good as a break. Bringing some flowers into the house or even wearing a nice jumper or something bright can put us in a different mindset.
- Compile a ‘happy box’. Treat yourself with a collection of items that you love and put them all in a box. When you feel the need, open the box and take something or everything out.
- If possible, take some form of exercise to help lift your mood. Walking, swimming, yoga or gardening, whatever works for you.
- Certain foods (e.g. chocolate and curry) have ingredients in them that can help with low moods.
- If your list of ‘to-do’s’ is overwhelming, get a timer and give yourself a set time in which to do whatever you like. 15 minutes to read or 30 minutes to do nothing. Make it your time.
- Take time to be creative. Get the paints out, write a story or poem, play an instrument or do something else that takes your mind off things.
- Try to have a rough plan – not more than you can handle, but enough to give you a basic routine to the day.
- Remember, you are not alone.
We are grateful to Carers UK for this information.
Posted May 2015