Healthiness Is In Your Hands

This is Peter Rosenberger. This is your Caregiver Minute. The neediness of an infirmed loved one frequently obscures a caregiver's fatigue, stress, and dangerous health patterns. Moreover, even if noticing the caregiver's exhaustion and strain, the warning signs can often go unheated. Usually armed only with love and a sense of responsibility, caregivers recklessly deplete themselves physically and emotionally while caring for a vulnerable loved one.

Passion and commitment are admirable, but how long can the patient feel better at the caregiver's expense? When faced with chronic impairments, love and responsibility accomplish much more when directed to the caregiver's well-being first. However, many caregivers postpone healthy physical and emotional and even sound financial decisions for themselves while in the throes of caregiving. Since no one else, particularly a sick or medicated individual, can lead the efforts towards one's own healthiness, the responsibility of a healthy lifestyle remains solely in the caregiver's hands. Addressing the caregiver's needs, not wants but needs, isn't selfish. Quite the opposite, it helps ensure that the impaired loved one's care is in the hands of a healthier caregiver. And Dr. Oz once said, take responsibility for being the healthiest person you can be. No one else is going to do it for you. This has been your caregiver minute with Peter Rosenberger, brought to you by Standing with Hope, a ministry for the wounded and those who care for them. There's more information at standingwithhope.com.