What Looking After the Elderly Can Teach Us About Our Self-Care

For many of us, it becomes a natural part of our life cycle; looking after an elderly relative or older parent is one of those big physical, emotional, and psychological challenges in life, but, of course, it provides a number of amazing lessons.

So, in terms of our self-care, what insights can looking after elderly relatives provide? Here are some key lessons we can all learn:  

The Significance of Preventative Health Care  

This is something that we’re all, generally speaking, not too good at. Prevention is far better than cure, particularly in a world where we can avoid and ignore symptoms until it’s too late and have to be dealt with as an emergency. Having a proprioceptive understanding of how we move and what our bodies do is critical when we are looking after people. We need to learn the fine art of identifying symptoms of swallowing difficulties, isolation, and other aspects of physical and mental health that we should actually apply to our own lives as well.  

When we engage in preventative practices, this can make a huge difference in our abilities to look after those we care about but also recognize when we are heading down a slippery slope as well!  

The Importance of Balanced Nutrition  

Nutrition is an incredibly loaded subject these days, and we all have our own opinions of what is and what isn’t good for us. But our bodies need vitamins and minerals, and if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that fruits and vegetables can provide a lot of these. There is also a lot more talk about protein and what it can do for our bodies, particularly in relation to offsetting physical decline.  

The general rule is, if you’re trying to build muscle and strength, it’s one gram of protein per pound of body weight. This might be a lot for an elderly relative to eat, of course, but it’s something that we should bear in mind when it comes to our own physical decline, particularly as we can lose about 5% of our body mass every decade starting from the age of 30!  

The Vitality of Social Connection  

There’s a lot more talk about the importance of being socially connected, particularly in a post-pandemic world. When elderly relatives are feeling isolated, it’s going to arise from a number of issues, for example, losing their hearing, meaning they naturally withdraw, which can also have an impact on their mental health.  

Attending to their social interactions can reiterate the importance of our own. We can easily become caught in our own world, and when we’re not experiencing those human connections that are vital for community and mental health, we may very well see physical and psychological impacts in other aspects of our lives.  

Looking after elderly relatives can also teach us about our own resilience. We have an overriding sense of duty, and it’s important to point out that carers can experience that very visceral thing they call burnout. This is why it’s not just about viewing this type of thing as a task that we need to step up to but also recognizing that there’s a variety of lessons, particularly in terms of self-care, that we can use and incorporate into our own lives.