When you take care of sick loved ones, sometimes you forget how to maintain your health and take care of yourself. You may even tend to put your personal and physical needs aside to tend to your loved ones' needs. But what you're doing can also affect you negatively.
Along the way, you may feel tired, burnout, and even feel depressed, sick, and catch a disease. That's why you need to know how to maintain your health while also caring for sick loved ones.
Here are five ways to help you.
1. Take care of your emotional and social needs
One way of knowing how to maintain your health is taking some time off for yourself, especially if you have been taking care of sick loved ones for a while now. You need to find a time and a way to relax, breathe, and assess your emotional, physical, and mental needs. Hang out with your friends! Remember that you cannot take care of other people if you cannot take care of yourself.
2. Set limits
The only person to know how much time and attention you can give in caring for sick loved ones is yourself. Meaning, it is essential that you understand this and set a limit for yourself. If you're done setting limits with yourself, you need to share this with doctors, nurses, caregivers, and family, so they will be aware of when you will and when you will not be there.
3. Get help
You need to remember that although you think you can handle taking care of sick loved ones all by yourself, the truth is, you can't, and this is not how to maintain your health. You need to ask people for help, and most of the time, they are also willing to help in any way they can. But still, you need to speak and talk with them about the things they need to know in taking care of sick loved ones so they won't get lost and they can give their best help. You can also seek professional help and aid if your loved ones are too sick and have severe long-term illnesses.
4. You need to eat and sleep
While you are busy taking care of sick loved ones, you tend to skip meals, or you may help yourself with junk foods. You may also have a hard time sleeping because of your worries, or your duties and tasks are keeping you from sleeping. These are not how to maintain your health properly. These will only put a strain on your health, and you may also get sick. You need to be in your best and healthiest self to take care of your loved ones, or you'll be the one that will need some taking care of later on.
5. Focusing your energy on important tasks
You don't need to do everything alone and on your own. Think about the things that can be done by other people than you, like ordering food or hiring a cleaning service. You can ask someone to do this for you, and these things do not need people coming in, and in this way, you can relieve some pressure off of your shoulders.
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