Most people don't get enough sleep.
But, family caregivers aren't most people, right?
Our schedules make one-armed paper hangers look lazy.
We work. We take care of our kids and our parents. We even make time for volunteering and PTA meetings.
And, between midnight and 6:00 AM, we organize the hall closet, plan a vacation, write to relatives, save for kids' college, wash the dog, pick up dry cleaning and finish that master's degree.
When there's too much to do, we just do it. We just don't sleep.
A lot of the time I should be sleeping, I'm reading instead. Since I run a business and take care of seniors, I love when I find a book that overlaps the two.
In their book Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson describe how they've corrected some old fashioned business problems at their company, 37signals. One of those is that the workaholic is a hero at most companies. Bad idea. Fried and Hansson say cutting out sleep to work on your list can lead to:
Stubbornness: When you're really tired, it always seems easier to plow down whatever bad path you happen to be on instead of reconsidering the route. The finish line is a constant mirage and you wind up walking in the desert way too long.
Lack of creativity: Creativity is one of the first things to go when you lose sleep. What distinguishes people who are ten times more effective than the norm is not that they work ten times as hard; it's that they use their creativity to come up with solutions that require one-tenth of the effort. Without sleep, you stop coming up with those one-tenth solutions.
Diminished morale: When your brain isn't firing on all cylinders, it loves to feed on less demanding tasks. Like reading yet another article about stuff that doesn't matter. When you're tired, you lose motivation to attack the big problems.
Irritability: Your ability to remain patient and tolerant is severely reduced when you're tired. If you encounter someone who's acting like a fool, there's a good chance that person is suffering from sleep deprivation.
Sound familiar? We've all done it and suffered for it. Senior care is an emotionally exhausting assignment. So, get some sleep. You'll wake up a better senior caregiver.
How do you handle the work/life/caregiving balance?
| If you want our best advice about how to provide the outstanding care for your loved ones, subscribe to Tips for Senior Care Heros, the HeathBridge email newsletter. It's some of our best stuff, no junk, no fluff. You'll even get a free eBook. And of course we will never, ever spam you or share your information with anyone. |