The Age Guide: Perspectives on the Aging Journey

The Great Reconnection: Stress Busting for Family Caregivers

• Age Guide • Season 3 • Episode 8

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In this episode, we recognize Mental Health Awareness Month as we explore the impact AgeGuide and its funded partners are making on mental wellness for older adults and caregivers and uncover the benefits of investing in our own mental health.

Our guest this month is Nathan Underhile, the Clinical Program Supervisor at Metropolitan Family Services. Nathan brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise in aging mental health, caregiver stress, and an evidence-based strategy called Stressbusting for Family Caregivers.

Throughout our discussion, Nathan delves into the challenges faced by caregivers and the transformative power of reconnecting with what matters most in our lives. The Great Re-Connection, as we discover, has a lot to do with getting outside of our own heads, finding support, and nurturing our own well-being.

Contact Information:
Nathan Underhile
UnderhiN@metrofamily.org

Meditation Videos:
https://youtu.be/GZhtUMrqNSU
https://youtu.be/zTvSESrziFs
https://youtu.be/WvlTYzcp4o4

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Twitter: twitter.com/AgeGuide
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Podcast: ageguide.org/the-age-guide-podcast
Website: ageguide.org

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, and welcome to The Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey. We are here to be your personal guide and enhance your quality of life on the road ahead. Welcome to another episode of Age Guide's 50th anniversary theme, The Great Reconnection. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And today we embark on a journey to explore the impact Age Guide and its funded partners are making on mental wellness for older adults and caregivers. Joining us in this insightful conversation is Nathan Underhile, the Clinical Program Supervisor at Metropolitan Family Services. Nathan brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise in aging mental health, caregiver stress, and an evidence-based strategy called stress busting for family caregivers. Throughout our discussion, Nathan delves into the challenges faced by caregivers and the transformative power of reconnecting with what matters most in our lives. The great reconnection, as we discover, has a lot to do with getting outside of our own heads, finding support, and nurturing our own well-being. So let's dive in and uncover the benefits of investing in our mental health. Let's listen in.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, welcome, Nathan. Thank you so much for being with us today. It was great for you to come over to Lombard to our office, our in-office studio, so to speak, and join us today for the podcast to talk about some of the mental health programs that you guys do at Metropolitan Family.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03:

Welcome. So today, we're having this podcast in honor of May being Mental Health Awareness Month. So we wanted to share with our listeners some of the programs that we have for older adults to help them to age well with healthy mental health specifically. And the theme of this season's episodes in honor of our 50th anniversary is the Great Reconnection. So we're really focusing on things that help people to be socially connected. Everybody got so isolated during the pandemic, and it's been hard for people to reconnect. I'm sure you've experienced some of that with the folks that you work with.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, certainly.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. And that's definitely a mental health issue. So it ties in with this really nicely. So we're going to share some of the things that you're offering folks to help with that mental health and that social connection and stress relief, specifically around caregiving. But I know you offer some great programming at Metropolitan. So I'll let you do a little introduction of what you do and what Metropolitan Family has to offer.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, sure. So just a little bit of history because this is just kind of an interesting fact about the company is we've been around since 1857. We're one of the oldest social service agencies around. We started off by providing smallpox vaccines and relief aid for some of the Civil War veterans and a little bit after that the Great Chicago Fire happened and we were named is the sole organization designated to distribute all the relief funding after the Chicago fire. Oh,

SPEAKER_03:

wow.

SPEAKER_02:

We've gone through some name changes since then. So now we're Metropolitan Family Services. We are a pretty large organization. We're all over the Chicago and surrounding Collier County areas. We have different sites. So I'm out of what we would say the MFS DuPage site and we are located in Wheaton. And so Metropolitan as a whole covers a wide range of social services. So different sites might have different ones. So what we have at DuPage wouldn't necessarily be the same as one we would have, say, like at Palos, but sometimes they are the same. So specifically at DuPage, some of the services we have, we have the early childhood education, the Head Start program, we have the adoption preservation program, We have behavioral health. So it's just sort of a, you know, the general mental health treatment. And then my program is the caregiver and senior counseling program. So we primarily do provide counseling, but we do do quite a bit of other things. And we are always grateful to Age Guide for the funding that is provided for our services. So we provide mental health counseling for seniors in DuPage County, ages 60 and up. We also provide that individual counseling for caregivers as well. So as long as that caregiver is caring for a senior or if that person is not a senior and they have some sort of memory impairment, possibly dementia, they would be covered by our services as well. So we can do that individual counseling. We have a caregiver support group that we do twice a month. We have the stress busting program that we're going to talk about today. We have Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, which is a pretty popular group that we run. Oh,

SPEAKER_03:

okay. Yeah, we had a podcast about that program recently as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's such a great group and such a need for that out there.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, excellent. So tell us a little specifically about the stress busting program. What is it?

SPEAKER_02:

Sure. So stress busting is an evidence-based program. So just a little bit evidence-based basically just means it's gone through a fair amount of scientific rigor. We've done I shouldn't say we, like I was the person doing the research on it. So the scientists, they come up with this program and they run experiments and see, okay, well, is this program better than other programs comparing it? And so to get that evidence-based label, it needs to show some evidence that it is more effective. It is effective at what it aims to be. So it is a nine-week group program. It's once a week.

SPEAKER_03:

In person or virtually? You can do

SPEAKER_02:

either. You can do both. It allows for hybrid Zoom only or in person only. Hybrid meetings are a little tricky to juggle sometimes, but sometimes that is the best of both worlds. So it's a program designed just like a stress busting for caregivers. So trying to help caregivers out with a lot of stress that they deal with. One of the most difficult jobs there is And it's not paid. And you got to juggle all your other responsibilities of life on top of that. And so it is incredibly stressful. I work with a lot of people who just don't know what to do. They weren't given a manual when their parent or their loved one got ill and what to do. And there are a lot of books out there. And so we do talk about different books. Sometimes we run a caregiver support group, like I mentioned, where we'll talk about things like that. So... We talk about kind of the ins and outs of caregiving responsibilities. I should clarify, there's two different types of stress busting programs. They're both very similar. One of them is specifically dealing with Alzheimer's and other related dementias. So that group, you would get participants just with a loved one with that diagnosis or just those symptoms indicating that diagnosis. They wouldn't necessarily have to have that diagnosis. that formal diagnosis. And then the other one is for chronic illnesses. So that's more general. We talk about just different illnesses that people may be dealing with. You can be in that one as well. If your loved one has dementia, that's OK. Really, the only difference between the two is just one chapter. So there's one chapter in the dementia one that really goes into a lot more detail about dealing with some of the difficult behaviors with someone with dementia. And so we talk about why is it that you're stressed? What is stress? What's going on in your body when you're feeling that stress? And a big part of it is just how... Right, right. And so we will work with our participants. So nine weeks, uh, every week we're, we're showing them a different relaxation technique. And the idea there is to kind of throw a bunch of stuff at you and you're not, you're not going to be able to do it. We're not gonna expect you to do all of them, but finding the ones that you like, the ones that work well for you, the things you enjoy, you're gonna end up doing more often. Like if you're trying to get in physical shape and you do exercises you enjoy, you're more likely to keep coming back to that over and over again. And it's the same thing with these relaxation exercises, that if you like it, you're gonna take that time out of your day to practice that. And the more we practice it, when we don't need it, the better we're going to be at it, at using it when we do need it.

SPEAKER_03:

So that it comes naturally. It's that, what is that called? Muscle memory?

SPEAKER_02:

Muscle memory. And you can do that with your brain too? Absolutely. And you know, it is muscle memory with a lot of these things. The breathing, especially. We start with the breathing techniques, like almost the entirety of the first session is just doing breathing stuff. And there is really, if you practice that over and over again, that muscle memory that is going to keep you breathing in that manner that's going to keep you relaxed. And also, you know, you're going to be a lot more effective with it when you do need it.

SPEAKER_03:

it can address some of the situational things, but it's really about the individual caregiver where so many of the services that we provide are for the care recipient, right? They, they need a lot of support and help too, but caregivers sometimes neglect their own care when they're caring for somebody. So this is a way for them to look internally and think, what can I do for myself today to make this better so that I can be a better caregiver to my loved one?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. Cause again, There's only so much time in the day, you know, and a lot of our caregivers are sometimes they're raising small children and caring for their older parents or loved one at the same time or just trying to work full time and care for that loved one, which is can be a full time job or more sometimes just doing that fine. Okay, where do I have time in my day to take care of myself? I don't. So usually that is what falls away first. Caring for you could be able to think sometimes think that's selfish. Oh, I don't want to think about myself when I've got this person in need in front of me. We often tell people, and this is in the stress-busting manual, that when you're on an airline and they're doing their safety spiel and they say if you're with a small child and the oxygen masks fall down, you put that on yourself first before the child. You think about yourself first because if you pass out,

SPEAKER_03:

You're not going to be able to help anyone else. That's

SPEAKER_02:

right. If you get burnt out from caring for your loved one, you're still going to care for them. And I see a lot of caregivers who are very burnt out and still doing an incredibly great job of caring for their loved ones. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are things that we can do to make that. It's not going to make that easy. Nothing's going to make that easy. But it'll make it easier, more tolerable. Finding time for yourself is so important. Even if it's just a little bit of time, you've got to carve that out. You need to refuel or you're not going to be able to keep going.

SPEAKER_03:

So that's why these sessions are so important, because they have an appointment with you with the group, right? So they feel some obligation, I'm sure, to try to keep that and to show up every week. And that can sometimes just help you get started on a journey, right? If you're accountable to somebody, somebody is expecting you, that helps. And then you're with a group of other people who are struggling with the same thing and working on the same issues, and you can kind of walk through it together. That's got to be helpful as well.

SPEAKER_02:

I would say that's just as important. I've seen, you know, just connections that get made in the group with the caregivers and numbers and emails that get exchanged towards the end of the class and people who are staying in touch with each other to provide that support. And yeah, just that being around people dealing with a similar issue, struggling with similar stress can just make you feel so much better. Right. If you're not already, you will be at some point. Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And so learning how to take care of yourself through that is important for all of us. So later we're going to shoot some video of you doing some of these stress busting techniques and teaching us how to relax. And I would highly recommend that to anyone. Like you said, even if you're not a caregiver yet, you will be someday and you can start using these techniques now. But for those who are caregivers, it can be a lifeline to really learn how to do these things.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mentioned a caregiving manual earlier, but it's even simpler than that. I talked about how much time we spend just... Teaching people how to breathe effectively is something as simple as breathing. And how many lessons on breathing have you ever received in your life?

SPEAKER_03:

Right. They don't have college classes on breathing, but they

SPEAKER_02:

should. Go even younger. I think they are getting better at it where I'm seeing like, you know, meditation and yoga and breathing exercises in the elementary schools. That is a wonderful thing. We teach them young to be able to handle some of the stress. And that's just going to pay off huge dividends in the future for them.

SPEAKER_03:

That's true. Yeah. If the kids are learning it, we all need to be learning it now, too, so we can support these stressful situations like caregiving. So do you think stress busting classes is the first place people should start if they realize like, hey, I'm really doing a lot of caregiving here? Like sometimes it kind of sneaks up on you. You don't realize you're really a caregiver. And all of a sudden your loved one is needing more and more support. And all of a sudden you don't have time for it. things you used to have time for. You're not going out with your friends anymore. You barely have time to go to work if you're working. And all of a sudden you're like, hey, this caregiving is overwhelming. I'm going to need some support with this. What is the first step people should take?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, that would be a good first step if you're able to get into a stress busting class. You know, we're not running these all the time. So there may not be able to get into one immediately. You may have to wait for the next one to open up. So general advice for anyone providing, you know, caregiving services for their loved ones, reach out to whoever your caregiving resource center is. So for DuPage County, that is the DuPage County Community Services. There's people, you know, there's a lot of funding out there that people may not realize that they have access to. Some of it is means tested, but not all of it, you know, just because you have an income doesn't mean you may not qualify for some of these subsidies that are out there for people. And they can help link you up with it, maybe counselors. So they would be contacting us. And if you're not in DuPage County, you can still contact us and I can try and find the right place for you. Our intake department is great at providing referrals and I'm always looking for places for people. I mean, that's what social workers do. We try to link people up with the services they need.

SPEAKER_03:

Connections. There's the great Reconnection

SPEAKER_02:

right there. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I... I hear this probably at least once a week, sometimes more often. I'll get a call from someone who is just frantic and they have been, you know, I might be the 15th person that they've called and they've left messages everywhere and no one's called them back and they don't know where to go. And a lot of times I'm not the right person either. I don't want to say, oh, I give you the runaround and here you need to go. But I will make every effort I can to try and find the right resources. Kind of walk

SPEAKER_03:

them through that process of getting connected to somebody and do a nice handoff for them that's really helpful and that's part of the information and assistance that all of our funded partners provide out in the community for folks looking for resources that are hard to find so we'll definitely put your contact information in the show notes and people can reach out if they need help finding some of these resources especially the mental health resources are challenging to find these days

SPEAKER_02:

yeah and I would I'm okay with you giving out my email address if anyone wants to contact me directly with any questions at all. I'm happy to help out. You're

SPEAKER_03:

going to be bombarded now.

SPEAKER_02:

Probably. I may regret that.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that'll be great. An age guide can do that

SPEAKER_02:

as well. Age guide is great at doing that as well. Yeah. So just finding what's out there would be the first step. The first step is making that call. You don't know what you don't know. Exactly. And talking to people who maybe do know a little bit more can be really helpful. There's an assessment online called T-Care you can do. And it's a quick self-assessment just assesses your caregiver stress run it through a little algorithm if you score over a certain amount the county does a little evaluation and sees you know okay well here are some gaps that you may need some extra help with and it's just a good way to get linked up with those services and maybe getting a case manager that can help guide you through this process because you know not everyone went to grad school for a couple years and knows how to manage and navigate that system. And it's very difficult. And that in and of itself is very stressful.

SPEAKER_03:

You're right. Navigating the system can be one of the huge barriers for folks. So I think you're right, starting with a T-care assessment online. And there's links to that on the Age Guide website. And then you'll be contacted by a case manager who will walk you through finding the right services. So that's great. I'm glad you brought that up. And the stress busting program doesn't run all the time. But you do have your other supports. You have your mental health counseling and you have your caregiver support program. So there would be some way to connect folks into caregiving supports regardless.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. You know, yeah, someone calls me their caregiver. I get you into our you know, we do have a waiting list for individual counseling, but I'll get you into our support group immediately. And I tell you, that support group is a wonderful resource. I show up there and I learn so much from our participants and I I always joke that it's, it's one of the easiest jobs I have is because I don't have to do anything. You know, they, they show up, they talk to each other, they, they provide so much support and I'm always learning something new every single time. And it's just a great group of people and they're incredibly supportive. And if you fit that criteria, come meet them, please.

SPEAKER_03:

Excellent. That is so good to know. And that's really important. That social connection piece for caregivers, because caregiving is very isolating uses like we, you talked about already. You end up not taking care of yourself, but you're also not getting out of the house as much. You're not making those connections with other people. And to find somebody who's doing the same kind of role, even if it's a little bit of a different situation, is very, very helpful. So it sounds like an excellent program. I'm excited to see how it actually works and to have you walk through some of this. But I wonder if you can kind of tell us what it's like for, I know everybody's situation is different, but can you give us an example of one caregiver's story and how the services were able to help and support someone?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So I'm thinking of someone specifically, just like how I was describing earlier, you know, they call and they don't know where to turn. They don't know what resources are out there. So just from, from the get go, being able to say, okay, here, you can get this from the County. This is what we're, we're able to provide you. We're going to get you into our support group right away. And that's helpful. And then, you know, okay, for this person, I think maybe like a month later, we'd started a stress busting session. And one of my, one of the things I, My favorite thing about my job is being a therapist. I love it. It's what gives me energy, just that one-on-one intimate communication with someone and doing what I can to help them out. And just that the moment of, you know, it doesn't happen every session. I'm not that good, but you're working with someone and they have that click of insight in their eyes where just something clicks and comes together and that aha moment where they see something in their life that they hadn't seen before. That's what keeps me going. I love that feeling. And you get that in groups too. Sometimes it might be a little more rare, but just to see that. So this person, their mother had dementia and... She was dealing with a lot of very difficult behaviors, and a lot of it was just, this isn't my mom anymore. Who is this person? And one thing we'll frequently tell people is it's not the person, it's the disease. And just reminding yourself that those difficult behaviors, that's not that person I love, that's not my mom. That's this horrible, horrible disease this person has that's coming out. And I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. Not that I have one, but if I had one, I would not wish that on them. It is absolutely horrible. But just her being able to reconcile that and it clicked and that, you know, just that relief that she experienced at the moment of group, that aha, that, yeah, yeah. My mom has changed, and it's not her fault. I don't like the situation I'm in. I don't have to like the situation I'm in. But I'm in, and I understand it a little bit better now. It's a shift in perspective that can click and make things a lot easier. Regarding the stress-busting book has a ton of just– really great inspirational quotes throughout. So where it's talking about how your perception of stress is one of the major factors and how you experience that. There's a quote from Mark Twain. He said, I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

SPEAKER_03:

That's a good one. Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's something that sort of drew me to this field was just... how our minds operate and how interesting they can be. And when we're stressed out, we're stuck. Especially

SPEAKER_03:

if you're not talking to people a

SPEAKER_02:

lot. Yes, being isolated. Getting that

SPEAKER_03:

feedback.

SPEAKER_02:

And one of the best things you can do for being stuck in your own head is to get into your body, to experience what's going on in your own body. So some of these relaxation techniques where we are getting more in touch with our body,

SPEAKER_00:

we're able to feel where that stress is

SPEAKER_02:

in our own body and able to take action about that. So one of my favorite self-help books is called Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, good. It's all about recognizing where you're holding on to that stress and where your pain points are and trying to deal with it in a proactive way. And there are things that you can do. That's the other thing that I think is so valuable about this program. I think forget that our brains are so malleable and as they're doing more and more brain research, they're finding out that people continue learning throughout the whole entire lifespan, right? So you're never too old to learn a new technique and this is something that can really improve life and anyone can do it regardless of how old you are or how many things you've been through in your life and you're kind of thinking you're set in your ways. It's never too late to learn some really good stress busting techniques. So that's another really exciting thing. exciting thing about this program and the evidence-based proves that it works.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, but better late than never. You know, yeah, these things do get a little more difficult for us when we get older and that's okay, that's part of life. So it does take a bit of effort to do some of these things too. It's, you know, going to the gym every day is not easy, but we recognize that's important for our physical health. So taking care of our mind is just as important and it's not easy either. It's not easy and

SPEAKER_03:

change isn't easy. So if you haven't been doing this And you've been holding on to your stress in a certain pattern your whole life. It's hard to change that. It's hard to breathe differently. It's hard to change your mind and make yourself think differently. But that's the beauty of having a class to kind of walk you through that and teach it to you. So what would you say to me if I was reluctant to try the stress busting because I'm a caregiver? I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed out. I don't have time for this, to be frank. I don't have time to do this class and to start breathing differently anymore. And I'm just completely stressed out. What would you say to me?

SPEAKER_02:

I would just start working with you on a very simple breathing exercise. So it's called abdominal breathing or belly breathing. And we'll go into that a little bit later, but it's like something we all knew how to do when we were babies. You ever watch a baby breathe and you see their belly, their sides, even their back expanding with each inhale. We forgot how to do it at some point. Most of us tend to be test breathers. I'm not sure why that is. I think a lot of it has to do with posture, sitting in chairs a lot, but it Regardless, it's the way most of us as adults breathe and we're not getting enough oxygen into our body doing that. So the simplest thing, just learning how to do that abdominal breath doesn't take long. I would I would say to you. Can you practice this? Do you have one minute a day to practice this? That's all I'm asking. One minute a day. Okay, you don't have a minute. Let's do 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_03:

Excellent. So we're going to start really small. You're going to take me to 30 seconds and I can work up to it. And I'm probably going to want to. The more I do it, the more comfortable I feel with it, the more I'm going to make time for it. And it's not going to feel like such a stretch anymore when I see the results.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. You know, if you were going to start jogging, you wouldn't start by running a marathon. You would start small. Something manageable. Just racking up those early wins whenever you're trying to start a new behavior is good. So setting small, manageable goals and having something, I can check that off on my calendar and see that. A visual aid can be really helpful. And then if you want to work up, you can start doing more. If you don't, fine. Keep doing a minute a day. That's good. A minute a day is good. It's

SPEAKER_03:

something.

SPEAKER_02:

That's right. One small thing. And you may find some of that starts to carry through into the other parts of your day. Do you spend a lot of time driving? You can practice these breathing exercises while you're driving.

SPEAKER_03:

Taking somebody to a medical appointment, waiting in the waiting room with them.

SPEAKER_02:

Eventually, you practice the abdominal breath enough. You'll get to a point where you just do it all the time. You don't have to practice. That's just your natural way of breathing. And that ideally is where we would want to get with that.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. Well, I'm starting to, just as I'm sitting here listening to you, thinking about how I'm breathing. So I'm excited to get some lessons on proper breathing techniques and stress relief. That'll be excellent.

SPEAKER_02:

There's a common saying I hear a lot in meditation circles. Someone asks, how long should I meditate every day? Someone says an hour. Well, I don't have an hour. Well, in that case, two.

SPEAKER_03:

Two hours? Two

SPEAKER_02:

hours a

SPEAKER_03:

day.

SPEAKER_02:

It is a time commitment. But on the other hand, the rest of your day, you find you're more organized, you're more efficient with your time. So you do get some of that time back just through your own efficiency by practicing.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. All right. Well, I'm excited to hear how this works and to learn something new today. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing your wisdom and your resources with us.

SPEAKER_02:

You're most welcome.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Before we go, we have a quick word from Age Guide featuring the Medicare Minute. Hello and welcome to your Medicare Minute. We are here with Val Guzman, our Benefit Access Specialist here at Age Guide. On this episode, we have a question from Delilah in Kankakee County. She asked, I'm going to retire this summer and will be switching over to Medicare, but I want to know more about Medicare supplement plans. What should

SPEAKER_00:

I do? Medicare supplement plans, also known as Medigap plans, are extra coverage that you can purchase to cover the costs that Medicare doesn't pay. This includes deductibles and co-pays that you normally pay out of pocket. Coming from employer-provided plans, it often surprises people how much you pay with just Medicare and the fact that there's no limit to how much you pay per year with Medicare. Medigap plans give give you a peace of mind of knowing that you're more fully covered when you go to the doctor or to the hospital. But a SHIP counselor can give you more details about how these plans work and help you find a Medigap plan that works best for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for listening to The Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey. We hope you learned something new on this podcast because we all have a stake in promoting a high quality of life for people on their aging journey. Age Guide coordinates and administers many services for older adults in Northeastern Illinois. We serve DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties. Our specially trained professionals are available to answer questions and connect you with local service providers and resources If you are interested in these services or want to learn more, go to our website at ageguide.org. Call our offices at 630-293-5990. Please follow our podcast so when we post our monthly podcast, you are notified on your streaming account. Thank you, and we will see you next time on The Age Guide, Perspectives on the Aging Journey.