Health and wellbeing

As an unpaid carer, it often feels hard to find time to give yourself a rest from all of your responsibilities. Sometimes you might even feel guilty, and as though you are letting your cared-for person down.

It’s important that you still try to set time aside to take care of yourself though, even if it’s only a little bit now and then.

Taking breaks will help preserve your energy and feel better. Remember, you will not be able to take care of your loved ones if you are too worn out and exhausted.

Caring can feel isolating and overwhelming. Talking to and spending time with friends, family and loved ones can help you to feel less alone and take your mind off the stresses of your caring responsibilities. They may even be able to help you out with some of the things you are struggling with.

If you don’t have friends/family nearby, try spending time with them over the internet or talking over the phone.

If you feel up for it, take a look at our young adult carers peer support groups – we run sessions to bring young adult carers together and build relationships to provide support and companionship.

If you are stressed out and struggling, the very worst thing you can do is to bottle it up and internalise how you feel.

Reaching out for help can be scary, but it can make a huge difference. Professional services will be able to listen to you and offer you the help you need. If you feel unsure, try talking about it with someone you feel comfortable opening up to – perhaps a family member or a loved one first.

Support for young adult carers

When you are busy and tired it can be easy to ignore your own physical health. But doing this can be dangerous and harmful and can impact your ability to look after your cared-for person. Make sure that you are making time to attend medical appointments and that you are consistently taking any medication you may need. If you are worried about a potential health related issue, don’t wait for it to get worse before seeking medical attention.

Stay Active

Exercise is a great way of getting out of the house, lifting your mood and feeling better about yourself. Staying healthy will also help you to look after your cared-for more effectively.

Eat well

Make sure you are getting the nutrition you need. Poor diet is linked to a range of physical and mental health issues, and at the very least will leave you feeling exhausted and unable to manage your responsibilities. Ensuring that you are eating a healthy and sufficient diet is one of the most important things you can do to look after yourself.

Make sure you are sleeping enough

Getting good quality sleep is vital for your physical and mental wellbeing. It will ensure that you have the energy and focus you need to effectively handle your responsibilities and look after your cared-for. Getting to sleep can be difficult when you are stressed out. See our section on improving your sleep below for some top tips to help you get the rest you need.

Further information

There are lots of websites that offer useful ideas and information for carers:

• NHS Choices has a section on fitness, tutorials and workouts you can do at home.  There are simple exercises for older people and people with reduced mobility; yoga, dance, walking and much more.
• Healthy eating on NHS Choices.
• Coping with tiredness and fatigue on NHS Choices.

For unpaid carers who cannot get to the gym, there is an excellent set of inclusive activity and well-being videos from Carers UK.

Featuring real carers with professional instructors, they have been specially designed for all abilities and for those who would prefer to be active at home.

Visit the entire playlist

Carers Active Hub

If you want to get more active, it’s worth a visit to Carers UK’s Carers Active Hub. The Hub has lots of resources and support for carers to become more active, including: 

• Physical activity and well-being videos – short video workouts and bitesize exercises
• Health information – key recommendations and how to get started
• Activity ideas – inspiration and resources to help carers find something they enjoy
• Carers’ stories – carers share their experiences of getting active while caring
• Expert advice – insight from health and social care professionals

Carers Active Hub

If you feel like you don’t have time to fit in all the things you want or need to do, you might find it helpful to make a deliberate effort to organise your time.

This can be as detailed as you want it to be—you could plan out the days of the week in advance to see when you might have some free time to yourself, or make schedules for each day. This can help you to plan better and may help you discover free time you didn’t realise you had.

How stress affects us and the need to look after our mental health is becoming more widely recognised. 

It’s not easy to cope with anxiety, low mood and feeling overwhelmed but there are some steps you can take to reduce stress and help you feel more in control. Here are some things that might help:

Information about feelings and symptoms that can affect your mental health like stress, anxiety and depression on NHS Choices.

Blog – How to manage low mood as a carer
 
Blog – Depression and anxiety in carers

Counselling

Talking about how you feel could help you manage any difficult feelings and sharing problems can lighten the load.

The local NHS Well-being service offers free courses, groups and one-to-one support to people experiencing stress, low mood and anxiety:

NHS Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire Talking Therapies

Our counselling service for carers

Practice relaxation and mindfulness techniques

Some people find that deliberate activities such as mindfulness and meditation help them to unwind and relax. Sometimes just being still and quiet can help people feel better.

Meditation and mindfulness are becoming more popular and relaxing therapies like massage can be a good way to take some time out. These kinds of things can be expensive, but you can use your Carers Emergency Card to get discounts from local therapists.

Some local colleges also offer reduced-cost therapies:

• Bristol College of Massage and Bodywork offers reduced-cost treatments with a student
• Hair, beauty therapy or massage at local colleges in their student salons at reduced rates:
  • Envy Hair and Beauty Salons at South Gloucestershire and Stroud college
  • Academy Salons at City of Bristol College

You could try a meditation or mindfulness course or class. There are various options locally:

• The Wellbeing College In Bristol For courses around well-being including mindfulness.
• Wellspring Healthy Living Centre offers low-cost health fitness and well-being classes in Bristol.
• The Mindful Life helps Carers cope with stress and difficult emotions using mindfulness-based approaches, running taster sessions, introductory mindfulness programmes and ongoing weekly meditations. Free to participants.
• You may be able to get some funding through a Carers Assessment to pay for a therapeutic or health-related activity.

Because you spend so much time looking after other people and doing things you need to do, it is very easy to forget to make space and time for yourself.

Part of looking after yourself is recognising your own limits and giving yourself the rest you need. Sometimes this means deliberately prioritising yourself.

Telling the person you care for how you are feeling can help them to better understand how caring impacts you. You might be able to come up with new ways of approaching your caring role that will help you to manage stress better. Even if nothing changes, just being able to talk to someone about it can help.