As the caregiver, you already know how a loved one’s serious illness can cause intense and prolonged psychological stress. The signs of stress are well known: worry, anxiety, sadness and other negative emotions begin to color each day. You may have trouble with sleep, and during the day you may be tired, find it hard to concentrate, especially on tasks that seem irrelevant.  Because of the effects of stress on the immune system, you may also experience more physical problems, including colds, flu, and other upper respiratory illnesses.  

Surprisingly, even when things are going badly and stress is intense, people do have moments when they experience positive emotions such as joy, happiness, love, and compassion.  And, in fact, except when the situation is truly dire, these upbeat moments occur surprisingly often over the course of a day or week.

Specific coping strategies can provide respite, renew purpose, and restore psychological resources that are often depleted by the stress of caregiving. These coping strategies do not require extensive training.  You simply need to think about them to make them happen. 

Please explore these five proven strategies to help you maintain well-being in the midst of stress:

• Focus on what matters
• Realign your personal goals according to what matters to you
• Benefit finding and benefit reminding
• Infuse ordinary events with meaning
• Allow yourself to laugh

Bottom line:  Positive moments and positive emotions are a part of the experience of stress.  Take advantage of these moments. They can help keep you focused on what matters, and sustain you when things are especially difficult.  Know what creates positive moments for you, and use some of the strategies described above or others that work for you so that you can make the most of these often fleeting, but very important, moments. 

1) Focus on what matters.   Focusing on what matters can strengthen your sense of purpose and meaning in your life.  It can help direct the choices you make and can help sustain you when the going gets tough.  

The most important thing is to be aware of what matters to you.  Remind yourself of it, especially when things are going badly. 

Some people find it helpful to create a “mattering” list.  What would be on your list?  Why do these things matter to you?  What are the deeply held beliefs and values, the deeply held fundamental truths, that guide you and that underlie your list? 

2) Realign your personal goals according to what matters to you.  One of the reasons a diagnosis of a serious illness is often a shattering experience is that it means that the big life goals we had previously held no longer fit our changed reality.

The awareness that life goals need to be changed can create intense stress. Putting important goals on hold, or even having to give them up, involves loss.  It is not unusual for caregivers to feel sadness, anger and resentment about this loss.

But as a caregiver, you need to identify new goals in order to address the demands of your loved one’s illness.  Identifying realistic goals that matter now, in relation to your changed reality, can renew your sense of purpose, creating a heightened sense of energy that can motivate and direct you.  It can help you marshal your resources to do what needs to be done. 

Here are three steps that can help with “resetting” goals:

• Think about the goals you had before your loved one became ill. Let go of goals that no longer matter or that are no longer realistic. This will reduce frustration, anger, and anxiety.
• Identify new goals that matter and that are realistic. Many of these will be related directly or indirectly to your role as a caregiver.
• Think about why these new goals matter. Which of your underlying values do they represent? Knowing why they matter will reinforce your sense of purpose and your awareness of meaning in your life.

3) Benefit finding and benefit reminding.  Research on coping with stress shows that many people discover that they have benefited from their stressful experiences. 

Take time to reflect about ways in which you’ve grown, the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired, deepened spirituality or understandings of the world and your place in it, changes in relationships with your loved one, family members and friends, or other benefits that have come from your caregiving experience.  Then remind yourself about these benefits when you are feeling down. 

4) Infuse ordinary events with meaning. In a sense, this strategy is something like the old adages, “take time to smell the roses” or “don’t just do something, sit there.”  Positive moments occur throughout the day.  They can be something as ordinary as not getting stuck in traffic, having a salesperson greet you in a friendly manner, or seeing a beautiful sunset.  When such a moment occurs, take advantage of it.  Dwell on it, reflect on why it makes you feel good.  If you have the opportunity, tell someone about it.  These moments give you an emotional time-out from anxiety and worry.  They can help reduce your stress and restore you.   

You might want to reflect on a day’s positive moments just before you go to sleep.  This can help quiet distress and create an upbeat mood that can help you fall asleep.

5) Allow yourself to laugh. “Humor is one of the healthiest and most powerful methods to help provide perspective on life’s difficult experiences, and it is frequently shared during periods of crisis”. To help find humor during a stressful time, think about what typically can make you laugh and bring it into your day. Don’t feel guilty about your laughter- enjoy the moments of levity and know that they will help restore your energy and perspective.

There is a body of research showing that humor and laughter can be very therapeutic and assist in the psychological recovery from crisis. Laughter and humor have been shown to provide relief and even facilitate survival. It may at first feel like a challenge to find humor during a hard time, but take comfort in knowing that if you can not laugh today, you may be able to tomorrow.