How To Thrive When Caregiver Anxiety Rules The Day: Support For Dementia Caregivers
Feeling overwhelmed by caregiver anxiety?
In this episode, we explore strategies to reduce stress and find peace while caring for a loved one with dementia. Drawing inspiration from Psalm 127, we are reminded that God offers us rest and strength to face each day, even when anxiety feels all-consuming.
Understanding Caregiver Anxiety
Caregiver anxiety often stems from worry about the future, self-doubt, and the feeling of not having the right skills to care for your loved one.
Many caregivers are haunted by thoughts like, “I’m not doing enough,” “I can’t handle this,” or “I don’t have the support I need.” These thoughts create a cycle of fear and stress that can feel impossible to escape.
However, this episode provides practical ways to combat anxiety by reframing your perspective and finding strength through faith.
Three Practical Tips to Manage Caregiver Anxiety
1) Develop a Comprehensive Care Plan
Many believe that dementia caregiving is unpredictable, but with planning, you can anticipate challenges and feel more prepared.
Creating a detailed caregiving plan helps reduce anxiety by addressing potential issues like finances, medical care, and daily routines. This proactive approach allows you to care for your loved one with confidence, knowing you have a roadmap to guide you.
2) Learn Practical Caregiving Skills
Anxiety often arises from feeling unprepared to handle the day-to-day challenges of dementia caregiving. Developing both the physical and communication skills needed for caregiving can greatly reduce stress.
Start with foundational communication techniques—learning to “speak dementia” helps you connect with your loved one and manage challenging behaviors.
Additionally, seeking resources like physical or occupational therapy can help you gain hands-on skills to manage daily tasks more effectively.
3) Think God’s Thoughts After Him
Refocusing your thoughts on God’s wisdom can bring peace. Psalm 127 reminds us not to eat the “bread of anxious toil,” as God offers His beloved rest.
When anxiety sets in, practice replacing negative thoughts with questions like, “What went well today?” or “How is God using this experience for my growth?” By aligning your mindset with God’s teachings, you’ll find a new perspective that transforms anxiety into peace.
Building a Foundation of Faith and Support
A balanced caregiving journey involves nurturing your relationship with God, yourself, and your loved one. Spend a few minutes each day in prayer or reflection, grounding yourself in faith.
Remember that you’re not alone; support is available, and God will honor your efforts and provide strength for each step.
Caregiver anxiety doesn’t have to rule your day. Are you ready to create a plan, build your skills, and find peace through faith?
By putting these steps into action, you can transform your caregiving experience and reduce anxiety, trusting that God walks with you every step of the way.
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Transcript
[0:02] Hey, Christian caregiver, welcome back to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians how to make dementia care
Introduction to Caregiver Anxiety
[0:13] easier today while also helping you focus on a brighter tomorrow. Today’s episode, we are going to talk about how to thrive when caregiver anxiety rules the day, not anxiety in the person that we are caring for, but our own anxiety. And so I thought it would be a good idea to start out this episode by reading a part of Psalm 127.
[0:42] Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives his beloved sleep. And these particular verses are something that I reflect on frequently in my life, because if we are honest with one another, most of us, most humans on this earth at some point or another have experienced anxiety. And it can be for a variety of different reasons.
[1:24] So many, many, many years ago, about 31 years ago, my husband and I immigrated to the United States. And the company that brought me and him over from South Africa was an interesting company because the owner of that company, and I won’t mention the name of the company, it’s been decades ago, actually was exploiting the people that she was bringing over from South Africa. And the first year that we were living here, I was a traveling occupational therapist and we moved from place to place, apartment to apartment, and we saw a huge part of the country. But the problem was that this particular owner of this particular company, she wasn’t meeting her obligations. Part of the agreement was that she was supposed to pay for our rent and they were supposed to pay the utilities and all of these different types of things. She didn’t always pay us on time.
[2:22] We got home to eviction notices on the apartments. We were barely here in the United States and still learning how to figure things out and put things together. And I can remember feeling so much anxiety and so much fear because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. We really needed to get out of that specific situation. And so my husband and I had made a decision. I had a two-year contract, but there was a short window of opportunity for me to leave after my first year, which was absolutely required. And so I had taken some steps and started getting a visa from another company and had all of these pieces in place. But the night before we actually left this particular company, I remember feeling so anxious. I could not sleep that night. I was so afraid of the future because I knew that in essence, we were going to breach a contract. And I am a woman of my word, or I try to be a woman of my word. And the entire situation was just so stressful and so anxiety provoking. But it was taken with a lot of good thought and consideration and really having looked at the whole big picture. But at that moment in time, all that I felt was anxiety. I was afraid of the future.
[3:51] All I thought about the entire time was what was going on, what was going to happen next. I had a whole lot of negative self-talk, this doom and gloom, and we’re going to end up sleeping under a bridge and all of these types of narratives that I was telling myself.
[4:08] And I was extremely worried because we were living on one income at that time. And I was extremely worried that we weren’t going to have enough money to pay our bills. So all of these things were going on in my head, and I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. But our entire lives, when we look back on a situation, sometimes we can see what the lesson was that we were needing to learn at that time. And now when I look back at that specific situation.
[4:40] And because I know what has happened, I know it’s my history, right? It is easier for me in that particular situation as I reflect back on my life to see God’s providence in my life.
Understanding Caregiver Anxiety
[4:54] And now in hindsight, I know the why I had to experience the what I experienced. So now let’s talk about this in relation to caregiver anxiety, right? What does caregiver anxiety tend to look like? Frequently when caregivers are anxious. They are worried about the future. They are ruminating in their thoughts over and over and over again. Things like, this is so hard, or I don’t know what to do, or I’m so stressed and overwhelmed, I’m going to burn out. Or we have as a caregiver, all of this negative self-talk related to, I’m not doing good enough. I’m not taking care of them well enough. I am struggling to just keep my head above water. I can’t do this. There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this for the long haul, this negative self-talk, or sometimes not actually having the skills to actually provide the care, not knowing how to communicate with the person, how to take them to the bathroom, how to get them to get their dentures out of their mouth, how to get them to go to sleep at night.
[6:08] The how-tos, right? All of the things, how to get them to get in the car and go to the doctor. Not having the skills to actually provide the care that we need to provide can create in us a sense of anxiety.
[6:25] And then very frequently, for many people, there’s this nagging thought of the financial concerns, the worry. Are we going to have enough money? Are we going to be able to provide the care that we need? How are we going to afford to do this? And so when we are a caregiver, oftentimes the anxiety that we have, the anxiety that we carry is frequently because of some of these things or a combination of these things. So what can we do? How can we make this practical? What can we apply to our lives today to make this easier for us if you are in
Developing a Caregiving Plan
[7:08] a position where anxiety is ruling your day as a caregiver. So the first thing I want you to consider if you are in this specific spot in your life is that you need to really sit with this for a minute.
[7:25] Is look at developing a comprehensive of dementia caregiving plan because so many people tell us, and if you listen carefully out in the world, what the world’s narrative is related to dementia and dementia caregiving is, there’s nothing you can do. It’s going to be so hard. If you’ve seen one person living with dementia, you’ve seen one person living with dementia, and therefore you cannot plan ahead. But the reality of the matter is dementia does.
[7:58] There are ways to look at dementia and dementia caregiving that has a predictable path. And so when we develop a comprehensive plan for our dementia caregiving journey, you can plan ahead. You will decrease your fear of the future because you can anticipate what’s coming next.
[8:18] By planning ahead, you can take care of some of the financial concerns, specifically if you are at the beginning of your dementia caregiving journey. The quicker we put a plan together, the quicker you look at what your options are, the quicker you do either Medicaid planning or getting your assets in a trust or some of these financial pieces by actually planning ahead can make a significant difference in your life. And to help in the specific part of taking care of some of the financial concerns, you can go back and listen to episode 177, where we talk about how to best use long-term care insurance in dementia caregiving, as well as episode 186, where we look at how to best manage finances in dementia care as resources for you as a dementia caregiver. So the first practical tip for you today is to develop a comprehensive dementia caregiving plan. And if you’re struggling to know even where to start, this is where I can help you. You can hop on my calendar, you can go to the website, hop on my calendar.
[9:36] Set up a strategy call, because one of the things that I do help family caregivers with is actually planning out a comprehensive dementia caregiving journey for you.
[9:49] Customized for you, not for someone else, specifically for you.
Learning Practical Caregiving Skills
[9:54] So that is one way we can connect. The second practical tip that you can take away from today is you can, as a caregiver, and this will significantly decrease your own anxiety.
[10:08] Is learn the practical skills that for caregiving. Learn the nuts and bolts, the how to do caregiving. And when you learn those skills, it will make your life significantly easier. There are two distinctly different things that you as a caregiver need to learn. You need to learn the physical act of caregiving, which comes later on in a person’s dementia journey, the first thing you need to do is learn the communication skills to be a caregiver, the emotional skills to take care of the person that you’re taking care of. And so those are very important skills to learn. The reality of the matter is most of us focus on learning the actual skills of caring, how to take somebody to the bathroom, how to get on and off of the bed, the how to get them in the shower, those things are important and absolutely need to occur. But the previous part, the communication skills come first. If you can start to teach yourself earlier on how to communicate well, how to literally speak dementia.
[11:29] You will have come a significant way in decreasing your own anxiety as a caregiver. Now, a very good way to learn how to communicate with a person living with dementia is being in a community of other caregivers who are learning to speak dementia. And so that is where I offer the group coaching. So if you’re.
[11:53] Hop on my calendar and we can have a dialogue to see whether you are appropriate for the community that I am developing and growing to put support around caregivers just like you. If you need some help in learning the physical side of caregiving, one good strategy for you to implement is some skilled therapy, some physical therapy, some occupational therapy, some speech therapy, either home health or outpatient, depending on your person that you are caring for is. If you can do home health, that is the better in specifically related to the skills, the hands-on skills of being a caregiver. So home health is an option and I want you to continue to remember that. If you’re not quite ready for a formalized coaching program, I would strongly encourage you to go to good Facebook groups where you can get some support. And please be very careful which Facebook groups you join, because the reality is that some are just propagating, continuing to bring forth this narrative related to caregiving that is extremely negative and extremely toxic to you and your brain. I do have a free Facebook group. It’s called Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians.
[13:17] So if you’re not a member of that community, hop into that community too. It is free. You can ask me questions there. Obviously, the level of support is a little less, but it is a place for you to get some additional support to learn the physical and cognitive skills and communication skills to take care of the person that
Thinking God’s Thoughts After Him
[13:37] you love and that you are working on ensuring that you do the best care possible. And then the third way that you can change whether or not anxiety, caregiver anxiety, is ruling your day is thinking God’s thoughts after Him, which is why I started with Psalm 127.
[13:58] Where God talks to us in His Word about the fact that it is vain for us that we get up early and go to bed late to rest and eat the bread of anxious toil, for he gives his beloved sleep. And we can decrease our own anxiety by thinking God’s thoughts after him. And so one of the practical ways that you can do this today is pay attention to that negative self-talk in your brain. because obviously, we as humans have about 4,000 thoughts a minute. I don’t even know how they come up with that. But it is vitally important that we think God’s thoughts after him, that we look to God to provide us the resources that we need. And I’m not talking about financial resources, even though that can be a part of it. But the Lord will provide the right people at the right time to help you in this journey.
[15:05] But what he expects of us is that we are active in this. And if you go talk to anybody who is a biblical counselor, one of the biggest things that they tell you when you’re experiencing depression is not to let your thoughts circle down into that negative loop related to whatever it is that you’re thinking about. It’s so hard. I can’t do this. I’m too tired. I’m so overwhelmed. It’s going, you know, dementia is the worst kind of death that you can have. Whatever these negative self-talk thoughts are that we have, we can reframe them. We can stop them in their tracks. We have a lot of power over our own thinking. We just don’t think that we do. Most of us are just going through life on a journey where we are not controlling our thoughts, where we are not working on thinking God’s thoughts after Him. And so when we reframe our experiences, we can think God’s thoughts after Him. We can ask questions, what about this went well? What am I supposed to learn from this? What is God showing me through this particular experience that I just went through. How is this for my sanctification?
[16:26] How is this playing into my sanctification? And how is this particular experiencing for God’s glory? So I invite you today to really think God’s thoughts after him. And remember that dementia and dementia caregiving does not have to be this hard. We can put supports and structures around you. And always remember that one of the fundamentals of dementia and dementia caregiving is relationship. And it’s the three-legged stool of the relationship between you and God, the relationship between you and yourself, and the relationship between you and the person that you’re caring for. All three of these are a part of a three-legged stool that need to be there in order for it to be balanced. If one of these is out of balance.
[17:22] Then the whole stool topples over. So I really strongly recommend that you pray on a daily basis, spend a couple of minutes in the Word every single day, even just thoughts of a quick little prayer when you are struggling.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
[17:38] The Lord sees these things and He will honor them because you are reflecting His glory back to Him. So remember today, if you are struggling with caregiver anxiety, that we have three practical tips for you to take away today. Develop a comprehensive dementia care plan, learn the actual skills that you need in order to be a caregiver, and think God’s thoughts after Him, because this too is for your good and for His glory. And as I end all of my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and I will see you in our next episode.
