Gratitude is an incredibly powerful practice for people of all ages. When seniors are feeling lonely or overwhelmed by life, it can be more difficult for them to connect with feelings of gratitude. Companion care at home can help seniors to find ways to incorporate gratitude into daily routines in ways that are simple and easy to implement.
Gratitude and Seniors
Feeling and expressing gratitude has some big benefits for aging adults. It helps them to have a more positive outlook on life in general, which can work to reduce feelings of sadness. Expressing gratitude helps seniors to improve relationships with others, as well. They focus on the people in their lives and why they appreciate them. Gratitude can also lead to things like better sleep, lower blood pressure, and a healthier body. All of these are great reasons to give gratitude practices a try.
Simple Practices
It’s always better to stick with simple practices for anything, but especially gratitude. Making the process complicated makes it difficult to keep up with it, and then it just doesn’t happen. Some of the things seniors might try include keeping a gratitude journal or list, practicing mindfulness, or simply sharing gratitude with others in the moment. Expressing gratitude immediately helps other people feel valued and strengthens connections with other people.
Engaging in Social Activities
Something that is easy to do is for home care providers and seniors to start a social gratitude practice with each other. They can share with each other something that happened since they last saw each other that caused them to feel gratitude. Another way to make gratitude social is to write thank you cards together to send out to friends and family members.
Spending Time Journaling
Seniors who are more introverted might be interested in doing more journaling. Gratitude journaling can be as easy as making a list. If seniors want to write more and delve deeper into what they’re grateful for, then spending time journaling can help them to do just that. Journaling together gives seniors and companion caregivers another shared experience.
Creating a Positive Environment
Seniors tend to do better overall in a positive environment and that’s tougher to do when they’re feeling lonely, anxious, and depressed. Spending time with companion care at home can help to alleviate those feelings and improve the general environment seniors are spending most of their time in. Companion caregivers can bring up topics for conversations, share positive stories, and offer emotional support. When seniors need to talk about heavier topics, however, they need to feel comfortable doing so. This is why it’s so important to build connections with the people around them and to feel safe expressing themselves within those relationships.
Practicing gratitude can feel awkward at first, especially if this is a new practice for aging adults. With support from companion care at home, seniors can learn more about incorporating gratitude into daily life and take the time to feel and express gratitude more often. They may even find that doing so helps them to see the world around them a little differently than they used to.
If you or an aging loved one is considering companion care at home in Darien, IL, please contact the caring staff at Suburban Home Care today at (630) 964-9000.
There are several great reasons why Suburban Home Care® should be your choice for quality homecare. All of our Certified Nursing Assistants and Home Health Aides are screened, trained, bonded and insured.
Every family needs to be aware that almost every Homeowner’s insurance policy specifically excludes anyone working within your home. If the person you hire becomes injured while working for you, you will become personally responsible for all of their medical bills. This has left several families very vulnerable when their caregiver injured themselves at their home.
The potential to lose everything you have worked so hard to achieve seems an unnecessary risk. Every one of Suburban Home Care®’s employees are completely covered by insurance so you and your loved ones can relax knowing that if something unforeseen happens to your caregiver, they are completely covered by insurance.
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