What Can You Do to Help Your Senior to Manage Stress?

Lots of people believe that aging adults don’t experience stress after retirement. The reality is that stress is a big part of life for anyone, including your elderly family member. The big thing is to figure out how to help your elderly family member to deal with the stress she’s experiencing. That might mean different strategies, like relying on companion care at home, depending on what is causing your senior the most stress. Some of these ideas can help a great deal.

Help Her to Find New Things to Try

Finding new things to try, whether that’s making a new dish or trying a new hobby, can be a lot of fun. It’s a way to get your senior’s brain moving in a different way and it helps her to focus on something besides whatever might be irritating or upsetting her. Encourage your senior to make a list of things she might want to try.

Consider Meditating, Journaling, and Other Mindfulness Techniques

Mindfulness techniques like journaling, meditating, and practicing being present can help your elderly family member to deal with her stress, too. These activities don’t have to be complicated in order to work for her. Even just giving them a try for short periods of time can help her quite a lot.

Encourage Her to Take “Media Breaks”

Too much exposure to the news and to social media can actually be damaging to mental health, even for your senior. Encouraging her to take media breaks for a day can help her to enjoy her time in other ways. It’s impossible to stay up to date on every single thing that is happening, and if your elderly family member is trying to do so, that can be frustrating and stressful.

Schedule a Massage

Massages have huge benefits for people of all ages. Besides reducing stress and supporting relaxation, massage helps to improve circulation, reduce muscle tension, reduce muscle soreness, and reduce blood pressure. Regular massage can help to ensure that those benefits stick around longer than a couple of days for your elderly family member, too.

Hire Companion Care at Home

Having someone stopping by to spend time with your senior can offer her another way to reduce her stress levels. Caregivers can offer companionship, conversation, and just someone to be there to watch something with or sit quietly together. Companion care at home can offer your elderly family member the extent of companionship she wants to have, even if that’s only a friendly presence. If you live farther away from your senior, this is also a great way for you to keep up with how your senior is really doing. You’ll have another set of eyes on the situation, keeping you apprised of what’s going on.

Often managing stress really is easier once your senior acknowledges that there truly is some stress in her life. That stress does not have to be big in order to have an impact on her life, either. Finding the right answers for her can greatly improve her quality of life.