If you are looking after an aging parent, partner, friend or patient, you are probably in need of care options and tools for helping them. Mindfulness is a valuable tool to incorporate into a care regime.
Caregiving can also be exhausting and stressful. It is important that you take impeccable care of yourself as well as the person you are caring for. Mindfulness will help you deal with many of the stressors that occur when taking care of others. It will become an essential self-care tool that you will use every day.
Start with yourself, not with the person you are caring for
Take one practice and do it for yourself every day before you try to teach anyone else. Become adept at mindfulness. The Doorway Pause works well because a caregiver walks through a many doorways in a day. One breath, standing still, before you go into their room.
Introducing mindfulness to your parent, loved one, friend, or patient
The way you present mindfulness matters a great deal.
Do not present it as something to fix them. An older person who is already losing independence hears “you should try this” as one more thing they are failing at. It may be refused..
Present it as something you are doing yourself. “I have been doing this and I find it helps me sleep. Let’s do it together.” is an invitation between equals. It asks for their company rather than offering them advice.
Sit and do it together. Five minutes of your undivided attention is often more valuable than receiving advice. Many of the people I have worked with were not short on advice. They were short of someone sitting down with them without looking at the clock.
Start with something very small. Beginning Mindfulness takes thirty seconds. Nobody refuses thirty seconds, and nobody feels they have failed at it.
Let it be their choice. If they are not interested, let it go for a few days. But you should continue the mindfulness practices yourself. Set an example. Allow them to see you practicing mindfulness, how simple it is and how it helps you. Then, it is likely, they will ask you about it.
When memory is failing
If the person you care for has dementia, written mindfulness practices may be difficult for them to follow, and asking them to remember instructions can be distressing. It will probably be better to offer oral guidance for the mindfulness exercise and do it with them. Or play a mindfulness audio aloud and do it together.
What also often works are sensory practices, requiring no memory at all. Sit together with the individual and listen to sounds. Hold a warm cup and notice its warmth. Look out a window at something moving and notice it in detail. Breathe slowly together — people frequently match another person’s breathing without being asked, and a slower breath may settle whoever you are breathing with.
Do not test them afterward and do not ask whether they remember doing the mindfulness exercise. The value was in the practice itself, not in remembering it. Focus on the experience of mindfulness in the present moment.
What to expect
Some people notice a small sense of peace on the first day. Most notice a more relaxed feeling, clarity and small improvements in cognition after two or three weeks of daily practice, and it usually shows up as — sleeping a little bit better, or getting less rattled by something that used to set them off, having fewer mishaps, improved cognitive skills.
It also tends to improve the quality of the hours you spend together, which is worth a great deal.
If you are close to your limit
If you are not sleeping, if you have stopped seeing people, or if you find yourself dreading the sound of their voice, that is not a sign of weakness and it is not solved by breathing exercises. It is a sign that you are carrying more than one person can carry.
Talk to someone. Your doctor, a caregiver support group, or a therapist. Write to me if you would like support — I answer every message myself, and this is a situation I have worked with many clients on.
Where to go next
For yourself, the short everyday exercises fit within a busy day. The written meditations take five minutes or less. To do something together, the videos can be watched side by side, and the guided recordings ask nothing of either of you but active listening.