I have been caring for children with diagnoses for many years.
When I began to feel depressed I wanted to keep myself from sinking into a complete depression. I came up with some ideas to make sure I stayed healthy both mentally and physically.
If I didn’t start taking care of myself I knew I wouldn’t be able to care for my kids.
These tips will work just as well if you are caring for an older child, partner, or parent who has a diagnosis or needs extra care due to aging.
Workout 8 minutes a day
When things were not going well with my children, I felt like I had no time to workout. This is precisely when I needed it the most.
In desperation, I bought a book with a workout plan for eight minutes a day! It has been a lifesaver! I try to do this workout every day and later get out of the house for a short walk.
The book I bought has a variety of workouts for different parts of the body and you don’t need to buy weights or other equipment.
Check out the ‘Our Favorite Resources’ Page for several workout book tips. https://theadhdminimalist.com/our-favourite-resources/
Or try prevention’s Article ‘Get fit in 8 Minutes’ by Jorge Cruise. You will need some lighter weights for these exercises. https://www.prevention.com/fitness/workouts/a20440902/exercise-8-minutes-in-the-morning-for-fitness/
Make time for a hobby you love.
I have always loved sewing, and I continued to sew even when it felt like family life was in chaos.
The pluses to having a hobby you can do at home are that you can do a little at a time. I would often start a sewing project that I would work on in fifteen-minute increments.
When things at home went well I spent more time on my projects. This was a wonderful creative outlet for me and my kids were more forgiving when I was sewing because I often made things for them.
There are all kinds of hobbies where you can create things for yourself and your loved ones.
- Knitting
- crocheting
- scrapbooking
- sewing
- painting
- woodworking
- whiddeling
- playing musical instruments
- singing
- just to name a few.
If you like hobbies that require you to leave the house this can still be well worth the effort.
There are many benefits for you if you; get out of the house, spend time outside, exercise while doing your hobby, meet other people, or have some solitude.
Just having an hour a week when you don’t need to care for anyone (except you), and when you can do what you are passionate about can make a huge impact on how you feel both psychologically and physically.
It’s always good to have something to look forward to.
Take long showers or baths
Locking myself in the bathroom was one of the only ways I got time by myself.
It was often not possible for me to shower every day, but when I got the chance I made sure that I had at least half an hour to enjoy my shower or bath and relax.
Volunteer
Once a week take the time to volunteer.
There are many nonprofit organizations, clubs for kids, churches, scouts groups, and homes for the elderly that need help.
I started volunteering at a local church once a week when my son who has ADHD was at his worst.
He wanted me to come to youth group with him and the church needed more volunteers in order for the program to continue. It was a win-win situation.
He was only in fourth grade, but he was having panic attacks, keeping us from socializing, hitting his sisters, and completely disrupting our family life.
What I didn’t realize at the time was volunteer work was just what I needed. It got me out of the house once a week, and I was blessed to work with a good friend.
Meeting a couple of wonderful grown-ups and a bunch of rambunctious kids weekly gave me back much more than the time I invested.
Honestly being able to give to others is probably what kept me from being depressed and isolated. It was worth the time and effort to get babysitters for my younger children every week.
Do something fun with the person you are caring for.
Just having some fun together can make caring for them seem like less of a chore.
If you have small children maybe just getting them outside to take a walk with you or hang out in the backyard can be good for you because you will get outside.
Try playing a garden game like horseshoes, garden Yahtzee, or crochet together. In Sweden, we have a fun garden game called Kubb where you try to knock down small pieces of wood without hitting the ‘king’.
Some grown-ups really enjoy coloring, baking, or playing guitar.
If you can have fun doing something together (That you as an adult honestly enjoy) it will make your days much more enjoyable.
My brother and I used to run around my grandma’s house and dance while she played the piano. Grandma loved to play the piano and we loved to dance win-win.
If you are caring for an older or elderly person try playing games that they know how to play. My husband and I often played Yahtzee with his grandpa during his last years.
Even though he forgot my name he never forgot how to play Yahtzee! Checkers and chess are often appreciated by the elderly. Games are stimulating and fun for them.
Be creative and try to find some common ground.
Take walks in nature
I try to go on short walks in the forest every day. Since I made an effort to walk 15 min daily I feel more positive.
Getting some vitamin D from the sun is a big plus. The US National Library of Medicine has an article called ‘Psychological benefits of walking through forest areas’. They found. . .
The results revealed that walking through forest areas decreased the negative moods of “depression-dejection”, “tension-anxiety”, “anger-hostility”, “fatigue”, and “confusion” and improved the participants’ positive mood of “vigor” compared with walking through city areas.
(Source) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30544682
If you can’t walk in nature take a walk in your neighborhood. Getting sunlight and exercise are great benefits you can get from walking anywhere.
Read books
Reading novels, or books that spark your interest can be a way to escape.
I found that when my son had a really bad day I did not have the mental energy to read or take in self-help or parenting books, but reading novels before bed helped me escape my worried thoughts and caused me to sleep better.
If you’re not dealing with a psychological illness you may not need to escape in the same way, but it can still be relaxing to read an interesting novel.
check out the books on Our Favourite Resources page https://theadhdminimalist.com/our-favourite-resources/
Go on a weekend trip once a year
Get a babysitter and take a trip! I suggest leaving the kids or other loved ones for at least three days and two nights. This will give you enough time to relax and take a breather.
If you’re like me and you don’t sleep well the first night in a new bed it will give you one good night of sleep. Try to sleep in and recharge.
Don’t fill your entire vacation schedule before you leave. Allow yourself to be spontaneous and see what you feel like doing.
If you have a partner this is a great time to invest in your relationship. If you are single and you like to travel by yourself enjoy your solitude. If you like the company invite a friend.
We have taken trips to the next big city which is 3 hours away when we felt the need to be somewhat available in case there was a major crisis with the kids. When things were going better we flew and took a few more days.
A friend who was struggling with several children who were not doing well warned me that when the kids started doing better problems usually began to surface in her relationship with her husband.
It’s easy to just sweep things under the rug when you don’t have the time or energy to deal with the cracks in your relationship.
Take some time out together and nurture your relationship. The last thing sick kids need is to go through a divorce.
When your children are chronically sick, a loved one is dealing with Alzheimer’s, family members have other psychological illnesses, or a child is going through an identity crisis and having trouble with friends at school It sucks all the energy out of you.
If you are going to be any help in the long run you need to recharge.
I took her advice and my husband and I started taking a yearly trip.
It was not easy to find somewhere for 3 kids to stay for several days. On top of that our son would go on strike the week before we planned to leave!
He would pretend to be sick, refuse to go to school, have panic attacks, and say all kinds of horrible things about how terrible parents we were because we were going to go away and leave him.
When it came time to leave he made it almost impossible. Somehow we managed to leave anyway.
I think this was good for him. It’s good to know that even if mommy and daddy are not there things will be ok.
The outbursts about leaving have lessened over the years. Although these outbursts are not completely gone I have high hopes that he will grow out of them completely.
My husband and I are still going strong thanks to some advice from a friend.
Journal
Writing a journal helped me process some of the problems our son and daughter were having. I usually only wrote when it was an extremely bad day.
This was a way to blow off steam without taking it out on my children or my husband.
If you don’t like to write try making an audio journal on your phone.
Put yourself in time out!
Have a secret word or hand signal for when you have had more problems than you can take for the moment. It’s better to get yourself out of the way before you explode and make everything worse.
Learn to recognize when your stress levels are rising and you need a break. Think of caring for your child or loved one as a relay.
Give the baton to your spouse (or a good friend or relative) and take a break. When they need to give the baton back to you hopefully you can meet the situation with a level head.
We found that when dealing with…
- Panic attacks
- Depressed children
- Children who talk about suicide
- Outbursts because of changed plans
- Tantrums due to medicine like Ritalin which leaves the body in the afternoon
- Even just normal ADHD behavior
- Kids needing mom and dad’s full attention all the time
- Kids talking and talking and never letting anyone else say anything at all
It was often better to take turns caring for our child because it took a huge toll on our own mental health.
We noticed when we were both present trying to help with an especially hard situation we usually got our wires crossed and made it worse.
Maybe my husband and I didn’t always have the same ideas on how to handle the situation.
We seldom got space to talk about a plan of action when a crisis had started without the kid overhearing.
Sometimes we just needed to be in the same room and listen, and when it’s hard for one person not to interrupt it’s twice as hard for two people.
We started taking turns. When one of us was getting bombarded the other one got some mental space so they could take over later.
Be Honest
Hiding what is going on with your child or loved one will not serve you in the long run.
My husband and I first tried to smooth things over, we made excuses for our children, we didn’t talk in-depth to anyone about the actual problems we were having, and finally, it got to the point where we couldn’t hide the problems anymore.
The bad thing about not being honest from the beginning was when I finally opened up and tried to explain in detail what had happened one really bad day some of the people we know and love didn’t want to believe us.
We continued being honest and almost everyone has come around. For some people, it took seeing what was happening with our kids to make believers out of them.
That was not something we could force because some of our children’s worst behavior only showed up with safe people (often my husband and I) and in a safe place (usually at home).
Most of the heavy problems we had been dealing with no one else ever saw. The kids would hide from other people or try to hold up a facade when they met others.
Fortunately when things had gotten so bad that I was on the verge of calling in sick to my part-time job (I was crying all the time) they believed me.
They let me come to work and hide in the kitchen. I spent a couple of days at work crying as I prepared food and talked to my colleagues about how my seven-year-old kept talking about suicide.
Because I was honest I could skip working with customer service until I felt more stable.
My coworkers listened to me and allowed me to vent. This was more helpful for me than being shut up at home crying by myself.
ASK FOR HELP!!!
We are often terrible at being honest with others about how things are going at home.
If you’re not honest you don’t have any grounds to ask for help.
Let your closest friends and family know what you need help with. Be specific!!!
Do you need someone to watch the kids for three hours every week so you can be by yourself, or do you need a friend to take your child out and work on social skills while you spend some ‘normal’ time with your other children?
Do you need practical help to get the garbage can to the curb or the lawn mowed? If you can be specific you’ll be more likely to receive help.
Saying, ‘’It would be nice to have help whenever you have time’’ will probably not result in your friend immediately getting out their schedule to book you in.
If you’re too general, your friends may forget that you have a need in the first place.
See a counselor
I called a local counselor because I was looking for someone for my child to talk to, and I ended up going to see her myself.
Sometimes both my husband and I see her together. Having someone to listen and give a new perspective on things can be a huge help.
We are meeting with a counselor through our local doctor’s office.
This costs a little, but many churches offer counseling for free if you need help and don’t have the funds to pay for long-term counseling.
Minimize
I felt better when I threw out most of our junk. It seemed impossible to keep the house clean and I was always picking up toys, clothes, and other things off the floor.
Picking up the stuff, that the rest of the family left all over the house, took so much time that I often didn’t save enough time to clean the kitchen properly.
This drove my husband nuts! I wanted to feel like the living room and playroom were under control and he wanted to see a sparkling kitchen.
Getting rid of things, sometimes perfectly good things that we were not using, helped cut the time I spent picking up in half.
Make sure that you get rid of your extra stuff completely! Don’t just put it in the storage room or it will come back to bite you!
I tried that approach and the kids kept bringing things from the storage room back into the house. Suddenly, I was back to square one and I needed to declutter all over again.
Invite your closest family and friends over
Don’t quit inviting people over. Let those closest to you hang at your house.
Let them see that your dishes are not done and that the kids or elderly parents are having a hard time with social norms.
Sometimes it was easier to invite our family over for dinner than to eat at another family member’s house. My children would often be really demanding at other people’s houses.
They were not sure of themselves in the new environment, and they would hang on me, make a big fuss, need help with things they do themselves at home, refuse to eat any of the food, the list could go on and on. My kids would not let me socialize at other people’s houses.
At least at our house, I had a chance of some grown social time if we invited people over that the kids knew and trusted.
If you are caring for older family members this can also be a good solution. Especially if they are bedridden or have trouble getting in and out of the car.
Be honest with your family and friends and let them know that you need them to bring most of the food.
Get enough sleep
If you have small children or if you are caring for someone who wakes you often at night, this can seem impossible, but getting enough sleep is extremely important.
If you’re like me and made it through the small child phase (my youngest is five) and you still don’t sleep well, get help from your doctor.
I have tried more ways to fix my sleep than I can count! I bounced back and forth between not being able to fall asleep and not being able to go back to sleep when I woke up at night.
- I found that being stressed about my poor sleep causes me to have worse sleep. I got rid of the glowing alarm clock and I usually feel more relaxed when I don’t know what time it is.
- Playing with my phone directly before bed keeps me awake. Every time I get my phone out in the bedroom I regret it when I can’t fall asleep.
- Relaxing and breathing exercises usually help me fall asleep. There are all kinds of these exercises you can try. Check out the articles below or the Youtube clip.
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324417 https://www.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/treatment/relaxation-exercise
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDzpCjRFFic
- I started taking melatonin before bed a couple of years ago. I tried this for a year, but I am not really sure how well it works. I don’t take it every night anymore, but I do have a bottle by my bed for when I have an especially hard time falling asleep. Sometimes I take one in the middle of the night if I get woken up and can get back to sleep.
- Worry during the day, not at night. I try to distract myself if I am really worried before bed. If I let my worries spiral out of control I won’t sleep at all.
- Reading a novel before bed usually helps me fall asleep. Self-help books or really complicated textbooks tend to keep me awake. Fiction is usually not strenuous to read. It can be a good distraction if you are worried about your loved one. Dimming the lights so it’s a bit strenuous to read makes me extra tired and I find myself turning off the light sooner than I anticipated.
- White noise can be a big help for some. I used a noise machine for a couple of years. Now I have white noise from Audible, but I don’t use it every day.
- Listen to audiobooks before bed. It may all depend on if you find the voice of the reader soothing or annoying if a particular audiobook can help you fall asleep or not. Don’t forget to turn the sleep timer on so the book doesn’t play all night.
Check if you are getting enough vitamins in your food and from the sun.
Make sure that you get out in the sun every day so you can maintain good vitamin D levels. If this is not possible or you live in a darker climate as I do in Sweden you may want to consider taking vitamin D supplements.
If you are not sure what your D levels are ask your doctor to check them. https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/vitamin-d-test/
If you are low on energy you may need other supplements as well.
You can get a hair analysis and check what your vitamin, mineral, and heavy metal levels are. The company that does the test will often recommend which vitamins you should take.
https://www.mineralstate.co.uk/ http://www.nutri-tech.nu/
A hair analysis will not check your D levels because although D is called a vitamin it is actually a hormone.
Because D helps regulate the calcium concentration in the blood it’s often recommended to take magnesium and D together.
If you want to read more on vitamin D check out this article from the U.S. National Library of medicine. https://medlineplus.gov/vitaminddeficiency.html or a little harder to read but very good article from Harvard health education. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/vitamin-d-and-your-health-breaking-old-rules-raising-new-hopes
After I finished nursing my son, I had little energy and felt irritated all the time. I finally did a hair analysis.
Pregnancy and nursing had depleted my vitamin B reserves. This can lead to depression and irritability among other things.
I took multivitamin B which contained all the B vitamins 3 times a day (along with a few other supplements) for three months. I started to feel less irritated and more positive after about a month of supplements.
Check out the link below if you are curious about B. It talks about why B is important and goes through all the B vitamins explaining what they do, what foods they are in, and what happens if you don’t get enough.
https://www.healthline.com/health/symptoms-of-vitamin-b-deficiency
A few years after I took my vitamin B cure it struck me that my son may be low on vitamin B because my milk must have been low on Bs.
We had his hair tested around the age of 7 and he had low B and needed to eat supplements or radically change his diet.
Take all the shortcuts you can
Does your local grocery store have a meal plan where you can just pick up your food for the week or have it delivered?
Can you ask a friend to shop for you when she does her shopping?
Pick food that is easy and fast to make or invest in a slow cooker. Make extra food every other day and eat leftovers in between.
Make a home for your keys, purse or man bag, and other items that you need daily. You can save a ton of time not having to look for things.
Have an errands day. Try to group all your errands together so you don’t need to spend a lot of extra time in the car.
Don’t lose your sense of Humour!
Laugh at yourself when you do something stupid this lets those around you know that it’s ok to make a joke at your expense every once in a while.
If your family and friends can laugh at you usually they will let you laugh at them.
Laughter can reduce anxiety, depression, and negative thoughts. The positive benefits of laughter are many. It can give your immune system a boost, be good for your heart, and relieve pain.
My son was complaining about something completely ridiculous yesterday. He has ADHD and his brain functions differently than mine.
I could not wrap my brain around why he thought he had a problem. Finally, I burst out laughing. I wasn’t sure if he would laugh with me or get mad, but when he began to smile we had a good chuckle together.
Because I laughed with him about my clumsy behavior a few days prior he chose laughter over frustration.
Check out the link below if you want to read more about how laughter impacts the body.
https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/give-your-body-boost-with-laughter#1
Prayer
When I am really worried and stressed I pray. This helps me feel calmer.
I can use all the help I can get.
If you have ADHD kids check out my post on Limbic bonding. How Limbic Bonding Transforms ADHD Children
If you have kids with ADHD, ADD, Dyslexia, and need encouragement read my posts below.
Fourteen positive traits of ADHD that I see everyday!
16 positive traits of dyslexia, A new perspective
18 Positive traits of ADD (ADHD inattentive)
If you have questions or comments please send me an email at annie@theadhdminimalist.com.
For more information and reading tips check out Our Favourite Resources page. https://theadhdminimalist.com/our-favourite-resources/
Copyright Annie Eklöv
