Caregiver Advice – Combating Stress

Recently I felt like I was playing with fire. For many days in a row I woke up around 4:00 am with a headache on my left side, aggravated by lying on my left, alleviated by sitting up for a long while. Some recent articles revealed that the same conditions leading to dementia in women instead can cause microbleeding in men. Even without this tidbit of information I am well aware of my family’s history for brain aneurysms with males. Something had to be done.

I resolved to improve three things immediately: diet, exercise and stress. In reality all three relate to stress, as oxidative stress from inflammation is perhaps the key factor in reduced brain health. Here are the three key tips for combating stress I used.

Diet: Yeah, I reduced some of the bad food, like Halloween candy and tortilla chips, but mainly I returned to adhering rigidly to fasting. Not eating for 12 hours overnight, three hours before going to bed, allows the body to maintain proper blood sugar levels. This has proven for me to be more important than eliminating all possible processed foods (though it is important to limit them).

Exercise: The Denise Austin videotape is back! Why would exercise, which causes oxidation, be good for oxidative stress? Well, that’s precisely the reason! Our bodies have evolved to be efficient at mitigating the oxidation caused by our own, needed exercise. If that oxidative stress still occurs without exercise our bodies have not been fine tuned to handle that. Besides, exercise also helps to eliminate stress from our lifestyles, through the beta-endorphins and other chemicals released.

I don’t think anything beats nature walking on a challenging trail for brain health exercise, but that’s not going to happen any more as Cindy’s balance continues to deteriorate. The videos provide for me the type of exercise I need to keep the body fine-tuned for fighting oxidative stress. As I do this on a regular basis the workout becomes more automatic, which allows my mind to become more meditative, shedding the stress from my lifestyle. My video workout also provides entertainment to Cindy, particularly as I imitate Denise. A call to “squeeze the buttocks” never fails to make her smile.

Meditation: While an exercise video provides entertainment value for Cindy as well, simply meditating does not. I cannot immerse myself in a nature walk; I cannot do prolonged meditation at home. What I do for short periods at a time is come up with my own, very simple routine. I close my eyes and focus on my deliberate breathing. Meanwhile, I touch my thumbs to each fingertip at each apex. Breathe in, count one, touch each fingertip, breathe out, feel and hear each breath expelled. Breathe in, count two, touch each fingertip, etc. I set one hundred as my target, but I never reach it. My mind is calmed before then. For all I know this “meditation” routine of mine may cause gurus to roll their eyes, but it works for me. Most importantly, despite being a dedicated caregiver I can use this technique almost anytime, anywhere.

My strategy for combating stress worked, except for a little relapse around Thanksgiving. The headaches on the left side came gradually later in the morning, until I was able to sleep through the night. This is a very “caregiver friendly” strategy and should help anyone in that position.