If you Google “What special days are in October?” you get a list of everything from National Dessert Day to National Fine Art Appreciation Day. What also comes up? October is National Emotional Wellness Month.

Celebrated since 2004, emotional wellness is the ability to successfully handle life’s stresses and difficult times. How you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities and be present in your relationships. Springpoint at Home recognizes the importance of emotional wellness for our clients, our Certified Home Health Aides (CHHAs), and our Aging Life Care Advisor™/Care Manager team.

Unfortunately, caregiving is defined by healthcare systems, insurance companies, and other organizations in the eldercare space as a series of tasks. Specifically, Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs). You can read more about ADLs and IADLs in this article: What to Expect When You Hire a Home Care Agency. A focus on tasks does not consider the importance of the overall mental health of the elder, family, or professional caregiver.

Which is why Springpoint at Home believes these key strategies help build resilience and are the cornerstone for emotional wellness.

1. Reduce Stress

Caregiving is a stressful experience. Adding professional support to your elder’s care team reduces the stress and worry that is a constant for family caregivers. Our CHHAs help with daily activities, freeing family caregivers to spend time with their loved one and not be consumed with menial tasks like bathing, shopping, or household chores. Our Aging Life Care Advisor™/Care Manager professionals also help reduce stress for the caregiver by organizing and facilitating banking, shopping, and transportation.  Our Master Level Social Workers assist with crisis planning and serve as the elder advocate on professional visits. They provide resources for aging-in-place in addition to many other services.

2. Strengthen Social Connections

If you are not mindful, caregiving can take over your life. At a very pivotal time when you need social connections the most, you can find your world getting smaller and smaller. It is important for the mental health of caregivers to keep up social connections and look for new ones. Get out to meet friends, travel, or pick up a loved activity again (like joining a choral group) – these are all ways to strengthen social connections. If you find it difficult to get out, the pandemic opened a new world of online classes, hobby groups, and worship services you can participate in. Our Certified Home Health Aides are there to care for your elder while you head out the door or find a comfy chair for an online event.

3. Cope with Loss

Grief runs through caregiving like a river. It is a part of this life, long before we say goodbye to a loved one. To cope with loss, it is important to take care of yourself with exercise, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, and reaching out to your social connections (either in person or online). Our Aging Life Care Advisor™/Care Manager professionals understand how any sort of loss (ambiguous and anticipatory) can affect your daily life, and they can help you find the resources to cope with them.

Resilience is important to your caregiving journey and with the help of Springpoint at Home and our dedicated staff, it is an achievable goal. To learn more about Springpoint at Home and the benefit of our services, please call 844-724-1777 or visit https://springpointathome.org/ for more information.