Family caregivers – our nation’s largest volunteer long-term care army of 63 million – juggle a lot of balls but the one that often gets dropped is the one that says “Me Time.” I call these health heroes Gen C: Generation Caregiver who spend their caregiving journey balancing caring for themselves while caring for an older loved one, a spouse, a special needs child, a sibling, a friend – and that balancing act is not easy. And, if you are one the of 24 million Sandwich Generation Caregivers caring for two generations – younger kids and older family members – there are just not enough hours in the day.
In August we highlight National Wellness Month and in September we celebrate National Self-Care Month and National Healthy Aging Month. To age healthfully we have to adopt self-care solutions. Even if your schedule is overloaded as a busy caregiver, the research in my book, Me Time Monday, shows that just 7 minutes a week (to start) and 7 minutes a day (as an ongoing habit) is enough to release your four Happiness Hormones and boost your health both physically and mentally as well as socially.
For more than 20 years I have been writing about caregiver wellness and how to find the secrets to self-care in a crazy, chaotic caregiving journey. Emma Heming Willis, wife of actor Bruce Willis who has frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and is also raising two young duaghters, wrote a book about the importance of caregiver self-care and talked about how many dementia caregivers become more sick or die before the person they are caring for. Dementia caregivers like Emma will be in their role on average twice as long as other caregivers – 9 years – and their health risks are higher: 25% more stress, %15 less antibodies to boost immunity and 2-3 times depression levels.
That is why I decided to take the themes of tips from my Me Time Monday book and turn them into 7-minute videos on each wellness hack I had researched. It is an easy way to digest the science and secrets of self-care and learn how to apply them to your life. Not all hacks work for everyone, but I assure you everyone will find at least a few hacks that make sense. The trick is to build-up to adopting wellness hacks in the seven elements I write about in the book: PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL, SOCIAL, INTELLECTUAL, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL and SPIRITUAL. Only when we achieve this optimal balance in life can we feel relaxed, relieved, refreshed, re-energized.
Self-Care in 7 Minutes Videos
We have a different video for every week in the year and release new wellness hacks on Mondays. Start with the building blocks of these three videos all about caregiving self-care needs and how Me Time Monday works.
(click on image to play video):
And then dive into all the videos – cross-train across the 7 wellness elements of Me Time Monday:
References
Vitaliano, P. P., Zhang, J., & Scanlan, J. M. (2003). Is caregiving hazardous to one’s physical health? A meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 129(6), 946.
©2025 Sherri Snelling
0 Comments