Arlene Blix was 60 years old when her husband Glen was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Seemingly overnight, she went from wife of 13 years to caregiver. Even though she thought she was prepared – she’s a registered nurse who taught about the stress of caregiving at California State University–Fullerton – she quickly found herself consumed by the process.
“I thought it would be no problem,” says Arlene Blix, now 72. “But I discovered I didn’t have a clue. It was exhausting and the most stressful thing I’ve ever experienced.”
The six months her husband was homebound between his diagnosis and death was the most difficult time of her life. Between inserting feeding tubes, waking in the middle of the night to administer medication and assembling wheelchairs, she found herself overwhelmed, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“The demands just kept coming,” Blix says. “Caregiving is a 24/7 job. I’m a strong, independent woman, and I just expected that I could and should do it all.”
Eventually, the stress began taking a toll on her body. She felt run down and noticed she was getting sick more often.
“When you’re stressed, the body produces the hormone cortisol,” says Blix, who has a doctorate in public health. “When cortisol gets in the system, it starts setting up the physiological effects of disease.”
Studies have linked caregiving to a plethora of physical and emotional problems, including heart disease, stroke, obesity, depression and premature death – all of which are attributable to the stress that caregiving brings, Blix says. She adds that managing stress is one of the most important aspects of being a caregiver.
“You can’t stop stress, you can only manage it,” she says. “The good thing is that you can learn to handle it, but it’s incredibly difficult.”
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help… Being a caregiver is taxing, so make sure you rely on friends, family or even services like adult day care to give yourself a break.
Part of the difficulty is that caregivers often feel guilty for being so stressed, says Sharon Roth Maguire, chief clinical officer at the home care agency BrightStar Care. “Spouses often feel terribly burdened or begin to resent their partner,” Maguire says, “which is an incredibly uncomfortable feeling to have towards your partner.”
These feelings of burden and resentment, coupled with the stress of caregiving, may be at the heart of the increased divorce rate among caregivers, according to new research presented today at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America. Researchers from Indiana University-Purdue University – Indianapolis analyzed data on 2,717 couples and found that a partner diagnosed with a serious illness puts the couple at a risk of divorce twice as high as that of a healthy couple.
So how do you keep your marriage, and health, intact when you become a caregiver? Start by gathering a strong support system.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out for help,” Maguire says. “Being a caregiver is taxing, so make sure you rely on friends, family or even services like adult day care to give yourself a break.” BrightStar Care offers a free tool called CareTogether to help organize visits, doctor’s appointments and other aspects of care to ensure all of your loved one’s needs are met.
Blix was hesitant to reach out for help when she began feeling overwhelmed, but says once she did, the whole ordeal became more manageable. Friends and family helped bring her husband to doctor’s appointments, do odd jobs around the house and even cook dinner so she wouldn’t have to.
“I realized that they wanted to help, and that I wasn’t burdening them by asking,” Blix says. “Letting them help me also provided a service to them. I can’t imagine how I would have done it without that support. The stress would have killed me.”
That time off from caregiving was important for Blix’s mental health, and it allowed her to further reduce her stress her favorite way – running.
“I’ve been a runner since I was in my 20s,” she says. “So being able to take an hour off here and there to go running helped me feel like a normal person again.”
While Blix found solace in running, many other people relieve stress through food, which can compound the problems. “We see so often that caregivers don’t eat properly, because they’re so focused on their partner or because they’re stressed,” Maguire says. “It’s important to make time for yourself, to make sure you exercise and eat well.” She adds that you can relieve stress in constructive ways, like taking up a hobby.
You can also use the times when someone else is caring for your spouse to get some sleep, which Blix points out can help reduce your stress even further. “Rest is important, and often your rest will be disrupted during the night as a caregiver,” she says. “I felt burnt out all the time until I started taking naps here and there. It really helped my sanity.”
Ultimately, there’s no way to completely eliminate the stress that comes with being a caregiver, Blix says. It’s a grueling process that leaves you emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted – more than she ever thought possible. All you can do, she says, is do your best to manage the stress that comes with it.
“Be kind to yourself,” Blix says. “Don’t try to do everything alone, and do what you can to relieve yourself every once in a while. If you don’t, you won’t be any good to anyone. You can’t care for someone else if you’re sick.”
