How do you react to Stress?

You may have heard that it’s Stress Awareness month, so I thought I’d share some insight on Stress.

But what about carers? What are they stressed about? Because it can undoubtedly be a very stressful experience to be living with. But there are no deadlines to meet and they’re often in the comfort of their own home.

CARER TYPES

There are four sorts of people: CREATIVE, PEOPLE, SERVICE AND TIMING and LOGICAL – and, for each of them, elements of caring can be extremely stressful.

In my experience, CREATIVE People can find caring an easier process to manage, as they can use their creativity to come up with fresh ideas. In a work situation, they’re the ones to start a new project or lead a change of direction – but they’re not the ones to implement it. They run fast and people can find it hard to keep up. Caring is particularly stressful for them when it’s repetitive and they feel they’re not getting anywhere with it.

PEOPLE People just want everyone to be happy! They like chatting, and mixing with people is important to them. They are the ones who go to meetings and parties and talk to everyone. In a work situation, talking to staff is more important than attending meetings. They can find caring particularly stressful when either ‘Mum isn’t happy’ and they can’t fix it; or they can’t get out. It’s important they honour the importance of other people in their life or they may feel isolated and lost.

SERVICE AND TIMING People are extremely good at getting things done (on time), but they can become stressed if the days start to drift and they feel things aren’t happening as they should. In a work situation, they’re good at administration and are never late. As a carer, they will find it easy to keep up with all the medication, but caring can have a looser timetable too depending on what’s required, and this is particularly stressful for them. Honouring their brilliance at getting things done on time needs to be balanced with what needs to be done.

LOGICAL People are very sensible and will do what needs to be done very efficiently. They probably wouldn’t call it stress but they may complain that it took a long time to do something that should have been relatively simple. They are likely to become frustrated when they can’t complete something they were working on, or do an activity they used to do. Over time this can be stressful.

HOW TO AVOID STRESS
You can do a test to find out how much of each type of person you have access to and what will help you avoid stress.
If you’d like to access the test to find out your ‘type’ and tips on how to avoid stress, contact me and I’ll send you over instructions on how to access it.

Best wishes

Caroline