Everyone encounters stress during their lives —never-ending bills, demanding schedules, work, and family responsibilities can make stress seem inescapable and uncontrollable. What makes managing stress more complex are increased caregiving responsibilities. Whether it is at home or at work or both. Caregiving responsibilities often accompany many jobs in healthcare, education, as first responders, and many other public service roles. Caregiving is a natural role for parents; however, many are facing many more demands of balancing a job or caring for aging parents. An unexpected consequence for many is compassion fatigue.
Compassion fatigue includes two elements: burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Burnout is physical and mental exhaustion leading to reduced ability to cope with your environment. Burnout involves fatigue, frustration, a sense of helplessness, and reduced pleasure in work or other responsibilities. Secondary traumatic stress is the stress you may experience due to empathy with others you see going through trauma, including physical trauma such as serious injury, illness, or death. People also may experience secondary traumatic stress through empathy with others who talk with them about their traumas.
Some symptoms of compassion fatigue include:
- Unexplainable exhaustion
- Being on-edge or wound-up
- Difficulty making decisions
- Trouble Sleeping
- Increased irritability with patients
- Reduced enjoyment or satisfaction with job
- Intrusive thoughts about patients, their care, and work duties
Strategies for Stress Management
Sometimes being overwhelmed by stress is an isolated incident, but if a person begins to stray from normal daily activities and using alcohol excessively, there may be a more serious issue, and it is highly recommended to seek an appointment with a professional. Every case is unique and requires individual attention. There are several effective complementary ways of managing stress, including:
- Short-term counseling
- Self-care activities
- Changes in lifestyle
Finally, don’t feel like you must solve stress management on your own. Don’t let stress become chronic and become a bigger issue.