Well-Being and Goals Part 1

To kick off the New Year, we wanted to share some insights we have gained about being well and being a family caregiver. For this episode, we will focus our attention on well-being. Our next episode will focus more on goal setting. We recognize that when a caregiver is balancing work, family, social relationships, and family caregiving, their well-being, goals, and needs can often come last. There are consequences to putting ourselves last.  We share some statistics from both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Alliance for Caregiving. While we can see the consequences of family caregiving in ourselves, data can help us understand that we are not alone with these challenges. It can also spur us to action when we realize that putting ourselves last matters and can impact our health for the rest of our lives. https://www.cdc.gov/aging/caregiving/caregiver-brief.html https://www.caregiving.org/research/caregiving-in-the-us/caregiving-in-the-us-2020/ Megan mentioned a study that identified increased risk of mortality for family caregivers. It can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3674731/ The main finding is that caregivers with high caregiver strain had higher mortality rates than those with lower caregiver strain.  We also discussed valuing care work more in our country. AARP has a great report about the economic value of family caregiving: https://www.aarp.org/ppi/info-2015/valuing-the-invaluable-2015-update.html When we say your work matters as a family caregiver, we mean it. Back to well-being :). Well-being is multi-dimensional and can be defined in many different ways. If you Google well-being, many definitions, resources, and opinions come up. We really like the resources found at the Greater Good Science Center, because they are holistic and scientifically-vetted. Here is a link to explore: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/key We recognize the difficulty of trying to be well. It is work, and it is hard when there are so many other demands. But, we each matter! Not because of what we do for others, but because we have intrinsic value.  As part of the New Year, we will be sharing some caregiver news at the beginning of each episode. Some really cool news is this product: http://paidleave.ai/ This was developed by Moms First, an organization led by Reshma Saujani. It is a resource to help individuals navigate paid family leave in New York State. There is information about whether paid family leave is provided in other states and the goal is to expand the platform to states beyond New York.  Finally, we wanted to leave you with our quote of the day: “Wellness is the complete integration of body, mind, and spirit – the realization that everything we do, think, feel, and believe has an effect on our state of well-being.” – Greg Anderson