Covid-19 has thrust many of us into new or expanding caregiving roles. Medication management, arranging doctors’ appointments virtual and otherwise, making sure a senior is eating more than tea and crackers, and doing our best to ensure our elders feel connected in a world where quarantine and isolation have been the keywords of these last nine months.

Alongside these caregiving responsibilities, we have family and work commitments and, yes, an obligation to keep ourselves healthy. While the initial reports are promising for vaccines, we are still awaiting that GPS to give us clear and consistent direction.  While waiting for those directions to appear, I would like to share five strategies to help you, the caregiver, lessen the stress that accompanies the increased role you may be assuming:

• Accept the feelings that come with this time. Your anxiety doesn’t have to control you when everything around you feels so uncertain. Focus on what you can control: you, your thoughts, your actions. Speak with those friends who offer you reassurance and comfort and let the other incoming calls go to voice mail, especially when those unsolicited advice-givers are on the other end.
• Have an emergency contingency plan. Try to organize what the National Alliance of Caregiving calls a “care squad” or simply a caring support team that can help in the care of a loved one in the event you become ill. Identify trusted people who can provide help such as bringing over groceries, picking up medications, offering technical guidance for virtual doctors’ appointments, and making those all-important outreach calls to a parent.
• Practice self-talk. Remind yourself that you have coped with difficult situations before and think back to how you handled them. Re-discover that strength and confidence. Extend to yourself the empathy that you would impart to a friend in need.
• Stay in the present, ask yourself: “What do I have to deal with right now?” “What can I control right now?” Think about all the times you worried about the future and the outcome was not as dismal as you imagined it would be.
• Stick to a routine. As Gretchen Rubin speaks of in her book The Happiness Project, start your day by making your bed. You may say why do that, I’m just going to unmake it at night? Making your bed sets the tone for the day, it takes little effort and goes a long way in making order out of chaos. Holding on to a routine brings a sense of normalcy during very abnormal times.

Finally, some years ago at a tag sale, I picked up a small 4X4 framed piece of embroidered needlework, never knowing how relevant it would be for these times. It reads: “Long is Not Forever.”  I hope you will hold on to those words as I do.