In today’s challenging economy, it’s not unusual to know someone who’s facing tough times. I can think of at least three friends across the country who have either lost jobs due to downsizing or who are struggling with financial challenges.
When you add in financial worries to daily stress and family responsibilities, the potential for poor mental and physical health is even greater. For families, especially, it’s important to find strategies and activities that will help relieve stress before it leads to health problems.
According to Dr. Jon Crook, a licensed family therapist, there are key ways families can tackle financially challenging times:
Be Proactive: Start by acknowledging your financial situation clearly and truthfully to yourself. Do not dramatize, but do not minimize.
Identify What is Essential for Your Family: Be sure you define the “nice to haves” and “must haves.”
Identify Actions You Can Take: Focus on the things you can control, such as discretionary spending and your attitude.
Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle: Find activities that can help reduce stress and increase family interaction, like eating at home, hosting a family movie night, taking family hikes or playing board games.
Volunteer with Your Family: By learning about others’ struggles and seeing their gratitude, you help your family focus on the abundance of their lives and the importance of generosity and thankfulness in difficult times.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Most importantly, there’s no shame in seeking help. Reach out to family and friends, local support groups and churches. Additionally, companies like LifeSynch offer confidential 24-hour crisis counseling services to help their members deal with mounting anxiety and stress. A service like this might be offered through your company’s employee assistance program (EAP) at no cost to you. Financial information is also available through free work/life services offered through many employers.
Read the Full Article
Read the full article by Dr. Crook, who serves as clinical director for LifeSynch’s employee assistance program (EAP). LifeSynch is a Humana subsidiary providing behavioral healthcare for 10 million members.
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
In my last post, I had taken my first step in volunteering for Hosparus and had scheduled my interview and training session. I have to admit that when my appointment came around I experienced a mix of apprehension and excitement. On one hand, I was really excited to have the opportunity to help out, but I also had mixed feelings thinking back to the times in my life when Hosparus helped my dad and grandfather.
I couldn’t help but think of those things as I was sitting in my car getting ready to go in and try to make a good first impression. I probably sat in front of the building for 10 minutes or so collecting my thoughts and just having one of those self-reflective moments we have prior to doing something worth doing.
The Hosparus group is housed in a well-maintained building from the early 1900s. When I entered the building, I was greeted by a friendly staff working away on older equipment. I hate to see such good work being done on older equipment, but it also let me immediately know the funds and monies raised were going to where they do the most good. It helped affirm my decision to help out.
My initial interview went well and I submitted all my information for the necessary background check, etc. The director was extremely nice and we had a pleasant discussion about all the opportunities for me to assist. Since my grandfather passed earlier in the year I’m not able to interact directly with patient care, but I’m OK with that for now. There are several open spots I can help out in such as administrative work, the thrift store, special event planning and even public speaking.
In my next post, I’ll go over the training and tell a little more about the process of determining which volunteer role to pursue.
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
