“Tips for Caregivers, Near and Far”
March 20, 2018
Tip #14 – Have Compassion for Yourself To Maintain Your Health & Wellbeing
On my March 13 internet radio show, I spoke about how compassion by health care providers can have an equally powerful healing effect as medicine and, in some cases, even more powerful effect. The research backs this up and you can hear that discussion here:
Equally important for the health and wellbeing of caregivers is that caregivers have compassion for ourselves. Being a caregiver can be extremely stressful and, in fact, caregivers have been found to have a statistically higher rate of chronic illnesses, severe emotional issues (such as depression and anxiety), and even earlier death. Self-compassion has also been found to build resilience for our health and our emotional well-being. Having such resilience is important for our ability to continue to do our best as a caregiver, as well as in our own lives. In previous Tips, I’ve written about the importance of taking care of our health through exercise, eating right, self-forgiveness, etc. These are all part of self-compassion, but are not the complete picture.
According to the research conducted by Neff and Dahm at the University of Texas, right here in Austin, self-compassion consists of:
- Self-kindness: “Our inner dialogues [about ourselves] are gentle and encouraging rather than harsh and belittling.”
- Common humanity: We know “that everyone fails, makes mistakes, and gets it wrong sometimes” [even us…and that’s OK].
- Mindfulness: We have“mindful awareness of our negative thoughts and emotions so that they are approached with balance and equanimity….[Then] we can recognize that our thoughts and feelings are just that – thoughts and feelings – helping us to drop our unquestioning belief in the storyline of our inadequate, worthless selves.”
To listen to a discussion of topics similar to this one and a variety of interesting guests, tune into my internet radio program, Dr. Mara Karpel & Your Golden Years.
My new book, The Passionate Life: Creating Vitality & Joy at Any Age (with chapters on this topic) will be published in October 2018 by Best Seller Publishing!! Keep your eyes open for more news, as we get closer to that time, right here and HERE.
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Stay tuned for more tips!! Check out all of my blogs, read about my internet consulting service, and check out my internet radio program with expert guests, right here on my website.
