What Is The Cost Of Caregiver Burnout?

 Today we’re talking about this dreaded caregiver disease:  Burnout.  I know it’s not officially a disease but it is the hazard of caregiving.  

Think about it,  all professions have downfalls, risks or hazards.   

• Reba McEntire postponed her concerts in November to rest her vocal cords
• My daughter-in-law is a teacher and is at higher risks of respiratory infections 
• Working Mom fight priorities and expectations, sleep deprivation and managing time effectively.

What do all three of theses examples have in common?   Burnout.

Burnout is the hazard of the caregiver role.   But you can take measures to overcome it or avoid it.   Yes.  that’s what I said.  

It breaks my heart when I hear caregivers say:  It is what it is. I can’t.  I’m the only one.  I can do this .  My vows say for better or for worse.     

Is your caregiving unhealthy and becoming a hazard?   What is caregiving i costing you?   

The obvious one is the impact of caregiving on your personal time  

Another is the impact caregiving can have on your income or job advancement

This ones a biggie:  Impacts of caregiving on your physical health

Then there’s the whole emotional cost of caregiving.    

I’m not telling you this to bring you down.  Heck, I want this to motivate you to fight like all hell to get out of burnout or avoid it.   

If you are still telling yourself you can’t or you’re stuck, then you really need to ask yourself why and find the inner strength to change.  

I want you to really take a seriously look at yourself right now.   Embrace and hug yourself for doing a dam good job as a caregiver.     Now I want you accelerate your caregiver game.   

• Are you taking care of yourself?   
• What about asking for help?  
• Embrace joy. 

There is a difference between providing loving care vs unhealthy caregiving.  

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. Today we're talking about this dreaded caregiver disease, burnout. I know it's not officially a disease, but it's the hazards of the job of caregiving. Think about it. All professions have this downfall risk or hazards, whatever you want to call it, of their profession. I think about Reba McIntyre. I'm a big Reba McIntyre fan all my life. And in November, she postponed a weekend of concerts to rest her vocal uh cords. The doctor ordered that she had to go ahead and rest her vocal cords. Another example is my daughter-in-law, Crystal, is a teacher. And when you look at the high risks for teachers right now, it's respiratory infections. And think about it, during the pandemic, you know, they had to go ahead and uh do a lot of their teaching virtually. And so they they risked stress and trying to adapt to their new environment. Another example I think about is when I raised my three boys. I raised my three boys and now that are 40, and tomorrow my middle son is 36, and then I can't even remember the age of my youngest one. He's in his mid-20s. Oh my gosh, that's terrible. But uh, I always remembered I had to work. I I didn't have a choice. I had to be a working mom and raise my three boys. Uh, there weren't any hazards uh of motherhood, but there were risks and of working. Um, although I'm I'm gonna just sidebar. One of the major risks of raising three boys is their stinky clothes, um, and also the Lego, stepping on the Lego. So that's just a little sidebar. But when you're when you're working, a working mom like I was, there were all of the challenges, like managing all of the priorities and setting expectations. And no matter what age your children are, being a parent, you're sleep deprived. And for me, it was also managing my time effectively, just to name a few. So, what do all these three examples have in common? And why are we talking about them? You know, they're all they all risk, and I think we could probably justify almost every profession you can burn out, including caregiving. So let me go back to Reba now. The doctor ordered her to vocally rest. And if she didn't, you think about it, she may permanently affect her singing profession and and and her singing to the best of her ability. And so her vocal cords must have been pretty taxed for them to go ahead and sing, you need to rest. And so, like from my daughter-in-law, uh being a teacher, if she doesn't take care of her immune system and herself, she will physically miss work because she could go ahead and get, I know right now it's they they call it the triple pandemic right now. It's the influenza and the RSV and COVID. And so she really has to go ahead and pay attention to herself and her immune system. And for me, when I was a working mom, if I didn't figure out a system on how to be the best mom, which means I had to take care of myself and I had to figure out this work-life balance and managing my time so that in return I could enjoy my children in my home life. I knew what my choices were and had to make those. So burnout is the hazard of the caregiving role. Uh, but you can take, you can, you can really take, I'm trying to think, you can really manage it and you can take measures to overcome it or avoid it. Yes, that's what I said. You can overcome caregiver burnout, and you can, if you're not there yet, you can work on avoiding it. Taking a sip of my coffee. I'm recording this on Monday before um you hear it. So at the month, I always do it on the weekend, but with it being the Christmas weekend, I'm doing it on Monday morning. Kind of like this on Monday morning because right now the dogs are resting and Dennis is off to work and it's really quiet in the house. So, but back to you can take uh you can take measures to overcome it or avoid it. I'm going to be bold and honest in this podcast for a bit and um just a little bit. I usually don't say very many swear or cuss words. I might say some because I'm feeling really passionate this morning. It really breaks my heart when I hear caregivers say things. And I'm gonna give you a few things and tell you why it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart, and a little disclaimer, I used to say some of these as well. Have you ever said it is what it is? I used to say that. It's good if you say it as if you're going to accept the reality now. It is what it is, and now I have to figure it out. That's good. But when you say it because you're stuck and frustrated, and you don't give yourself any hope to go ahead and overcome it, and you don't see a path to overcoming it, that it is what it is, is means you're accepting being stuck, being frustrated, living in this, this uh really reverse side of burnout. Another one that kind of breaks my heart is when I when they say, Oh, well, I can't. Many of my clients, when I coach them at the very beginning, say, I can't do this because of I can't hire help because I don't have any financial finan, I'm not in a financial system to do that. I can't go ahead and get out of the house because there's nobody else. When you only see the glass half full versus what you can do or what can help you, that's the tipping point. And you know, it's kind of like being with a negative person, and all they talk about is negative, negative, negative. You're eventually going to get that way. And they convince themselves, and the brain is really good at convincing themselves that you can't do it. What I'm telling you, my friend, is you can figure things out and you can do things and you can look for ways to help you. Another situation is I'm the only one. I get this. I get it. If you're the only child in the family, or you're the only one that can take care of mom because the other two or three siblings say they can't. You may convince yourself that you can do everything, but what it is is if you continue to say, I'm the only one, but if you continue to do everything alone, there is a huge, huge risk. And we're gonna talk about those risks, but I know you know what those risks are because you're going to burn out, you're going to experience all of these symptoms, and it's going to affect your health, your mental health, your physical health. It's going to affect you personally and professionally. It's a downward spiral. Or another one is I can do this. Okay, I get it. You're a high achiever. I am too. You may be a people pleaser and you want to do it. And I think we all go into caregiving all in. We're going to figure it out and we can do it all. But it's not reality. And for a big part of it, you don't have to be the martyr. You don't have to do it all. You may want to convince yourself that you're going to go ahead and do everything, but what's going to happen is sooner or later, you're, you're, you'll be not be able to do everything. You're going to get sick. You're going to have health issues. You're going to have mental and emotional issues. Um, I always tell everybody when I like in our circle and with my clients, what if you get sick? What if you pull your back helping your parent or your loved one in the shower? What if you run out of energy and you have no energy and it just is a downward spiral? And I'm saying that word a couple of times today, but I just feel like that, like there's a big hole, and you're just going further and further and further down. Another one, and this last one that I that breaks my heart that I have written down here is my vow say for better or for worse, right? I get that you're committed to your spouse, your partner, your fiance. I get it that you love them dearly and you want to go ahead and be there with them all the time, every step of the way. But it doesn't mean you give up on yourself. Seriously, it breaks my heart seeing this happen. This is the difference, and get me here. This is the difference between providing loving care for your spouse or your loved one or being an unhealthy caregiver. Let me repeat that again. There is a difference between providing loving care for your loved one or being an unhealthy caregiver. Yes, there is. I really want to ask you if you're giving your caregiving is unhealthy right now, or you you're becoming a hazard in your profession or you're facing hazards. I want to ask you what caregiving is costing you. I seriously want to think you to think about it. Are you unhealthy? Are there risks and hazards and you know these these things happening to you that are just like, oh my gosh, I never had high blood pressure before and now I have. Or what I want you to ask yourself, what is caregiving costing you? Because it doesn't have to be there. These costs can be visible, but they also may be hidden. Uh, I wish I would have brought up the stats, but you can Google the stats yourself because there the suicide rate for caregiver, caregiving is very, very high. The depression rate for caregiving is even higher. The the uh the the unemployment rate, or you know, the the people that are trying to work a job and trying to balance everything, something's going to suffer. I wanna I want to just go through some of the the things that I think are um maybe some visible and also some hidden ones that might be obvious for you. One of the obvious ones that you can really feel and see is the impact caregiving has on your personal time now. Think about what you had for personal time to what you are in right now. Caregiving, I'm gonna use the example of caregiving for a parent, can be a great opportunity for you to spend time and bond with them now. But depending on their health and caregiving needs, it can also require more of your time, significantly more of your time than you have expected. As a caregiver, it can be challenging to juggle your caregiving responsibilities with family time, social time, and even alone time. I think about, you know, your relationships with others may suffer too, because all of your time is getting sucked into caregiving for your parent or caregiving for your loved one. And you may lose friends, you may lose connections with co-workers or your hobbies, that sort of thing. Another one is the impact caregiving can have on your income or maybe even your job advancements, you know. And I I pulled up a stat here. According to a Gallup survey, more than one in six Americans work full-time or part-time while they're caring for their loved one. As care needs can change, many caregivers will continue to work full-time, but they may have to cut their hours so they can keep up with the caregiving duties. It's like this double-edged sword because you're you're pulling in a direction of one or the other. And then the hazards of that is your lost wages or uh potentially lost eligibility for benefits because you have to go ahead and uh quit your job or make hard decisions as well. Uh, for and this is maybe three years ago, I got I got I got uh uh in trouble for going ahead and taking too much time off. And then I went ahead and gotten written up at work for doing that. And I was like devastated because at that time my dad and my husband Dennis were in there. I was the breadwinner when it came to the benefits piece of the income. Um, thank goodness my husband had short-term disability, but I couldn't afford to lose my job. But then how do I go ahead and be in three places at one time? You're just you're you're pushed up against the wall. And how do you damn do this all? You know? While some employers may be flexible with working caregivers, others may not. I guess my advice to you, and this is where we'll get at it, is these are the hazards of the job, but getting a community of caregivers together and helping you brainstorm through this will help you understand. A lot of people will talk about the legalities, what you can do, where you can pull in help, that sort of thing. Others may not be able to work the flexibilities and they may have to overlook their promotions or advancement opportunities because they're a caregiver, you know, and you know, right away you say that's not fair, but those are the hard decisions you have to make. Trying to balance caregiving and a full-time job can be demanding. Are you doing that? Are you trying to balance that or even balancing caregiving and maybe you have children at home, or maybe you have another person you're caregiving for, whatever it is? Um, you know, and but be because also there's not only because you don't see other opportunities, and you can, you can kind of look at those eventually. Like, is there like assistant living, or is there a uh daycare that you can bring to your loved one to during the day, or is there uh somebody that can watch in the home? And we'll get to that later. But the next one I want to talk about is this one's a baggie, and I baggie mean B-I-G-G-I-E. And I've talked about this one on previous episodes, but the impacts of caregiving, and I'm gonna talk about your physical health right now. You know, these are the hazards of the job. This is the hazards of your caregiving role. It's been well documented that caregivers are at the higher risk for stress and depression, which can eventually result in long-term physical health problems. Um, I am still fighting my weight. And sure, I'm still a caregiver, but I lost my mom in October. So my caregiving is in half, but I still have stomach issues, I still have the overweight issues. I'm I'm reducing them, but once you get them, they're hard to go ahead and get rid of. Because of many obligations we have as caregivers, there we are less likely to engage in preventive health measures. We're less likely to meet our own needs and put our own medical needs first. So my sidebar here is have you gotten your physical in the last year? Have you gotten your mammogram in the last year? Have you had your dentist appointment? Have you had your eye appointment? Because sometimes we put these on the back burner and it's understandable, but we can't ignore these. We need to go ahead and look at these and self-care and really taking a care of ourselves. Because if we don't, this is going to result in chronic stress, caregiver burnout, and all of the other personal challenges that come along with us becoming ill, becoming um unhealthy. Then there's the whole emotional cost of caregiving, right? I could do a whole episode, and I actually circled this one in my notes because the emotional cost of caregiving, I'm going to summarize it here, but it is huge. Caregiver burnout causes, in my opinion, trauma because our emotions and our feelings get taxed to the max. And you're adjusting your new schedule when you're a caregiver and you're trying to adapt to your loved one's illness and injury injuries, and eventually their own temperaments and moods and feelings in as well. So you're put in this caregiver role as a nurse, as a chauffeur, as an advocate that needs to understand their medication, their health needs. Uh, you're put into this role trying to go ahead and be a counselor, psychiatrist, or therapist for your loved one when they're going through their highs and their lows. I could go on and on. It's a burden and it affects you physically and mentally and socially and economically. You become a different person when you are a caregiver. And then on top of it, you're overwhelmed with stress and anxiety and other feelings of worry and anger and resentment and all of those other things, guilt, as your loved one condition goes on and on. I'm banging my watch here just as a sidebar. I'm banging my watch, and it's telling me to that my that, Kathy, you need to let your your um your heart rate go down a little bit. So I'm getting so excited here. But anyway, you are overwhelmed with stress and anxiety and all these other feelings. And then put on top of it, is your loved one's condition worsening? Are there new symptoms happening? Are they changing as a person? And so you have to go ahead and keep working through all of these. And some of your experiences become traumatic. They become traumatic. And it's no different than a soldier coming back from war with PTSD and you're experiencing PTSD. You know, maybe your loved one had an episode, and now every time you're you're reminded of this, and every time, and so your nerves and everything are shot. So I'm not telling you this to bring yourself down. Heck, I want this to motivate you to fight as as all hell, to go out of go out and saying, I'm going to overcome this burnout, come hell or high water, or I'm going to avoid it if I don't have it. I want you to go ahead and act like this burnout is like bad weather. And you're not going, you're going to close the window and you're not going to let the bad wind weather in your home. I want you to go out and think that way. If you are still telling yourself, though, I can't, there's no way in heck I can do this. I'm going to be stuck forever. Then you really need to ask yourself why? Why can't you overcome this? Why can't you motivate yourself to figure out ways to do it? And if you still can't, my thought for you is you're going to have to find some new inner strength to change. You're going to have to find and open yourself up to intervention. Maybe it's talking to somebody. Maybe it's really reflecting on it. Because, my friend, if you stay this way, I'm I'm fearful for your health. I'm fearful for your well-being. I'm fearful what it will do to you. So I really want this. This is a weird analogy, but I'm going to share this one. So bear with me. And I'm going to just take a quick drink of coffee here once. Think about this. If you were stuck in a collapsed building and you're stuck there, would you give up? Or would you keep yelling for help and digging yourself out? I hope you would find the inner strength and mindset to figure out a way to get out, to figure out a way to scream and holler and ask for help. So I want you to really take a serious look at yourself right now. Embrace and hug yourself. Yeah, hold your arms out and then hug yourself to the point where you're feeling your back, you're feeling your back of your so shoulder blades for doing a damn good job as a caregiver. Embrace that and be proud of yourself. Then and now I want you to accelerate your caregiving game. And that doesn't mean accelerate it and do more. I want you to accelerate it to being a smarter and more resourceful caregiver. I have a few thoughts here. Ask, I want you to ask yourself some of these. Are you taking care of yourself right now? Or are you an unhealthy caregiver physically right now? And that's okay. If you are saying, No, I'm not healthy, I am not taking care of myself. Say kudos to yourself. And now you're ready to take baby steps. And maybe your baby steps might be you might brainstorm out some things where you can take baby steps. Do one thing at a time. Maybe you're gonna hydrate more and drink more water and avoid some of those beverages that do you no good, that are endless empty calories or too much caffeine or alcohol that's not helping you. Maybe it's making better food choices. You're eating more veggies so that you can fight your fatigue. Maybe it's protecting and going ahead and saying, I need the sleep, and I things are just gonna have to wait. I need to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and you know what? I'm gonna have to figure out ways to get things done during the day, and we're we'll figure things out. Take baby steps, maybe to shift your mindset. Are you focusing on the right things like gratitude, for example? What can you do to focus in on more gratitude and start your day with gratitude or shift your day in gratitude? Yesterday was Christmas for me. It was very, very, very hard. I was in a really bad place for about three hours because I miss my mom. I miss her so, so, so much. But I can't stay there. I can't. I ate up like six cookies. I was so depressed, and then I felt like dog crap. So I pulled out my gratitude journal and I started great gratitude or journaling gratitude about all of the beautiful gifts my mom gave to me, about the beautiful family that I have, about how the circle of life goes. I had to figure out a way. Are you surrounding yourself with positivity? And if things are negative right now for you and you are in this negative, negative space all the time, what's causing it for you? Are you watching the news? Turn it off. I'm yelling at you. Turn off the news. If you're hanging out with negative people, then maybe you shouldn't hang out with so many negative people. Or maybe you turn your Facebook off because it just makes you feel feel crappy because you can't be with other people. Maybe it's finding a community or finding a caregiver buddy that is positive that you focus in on saying, you know, I'm gonna find somebody and we're gonna lift each other up. Find ways to lift each other up, find things that lift you up. Is it music? Is it a comedy? Is it looking out the window at the sunshine? What can you do? Another one is are you taking a break? Caregiving is a job and a responsibility. It's not uh I'm gonna be really blunt, a death sentence. You cannot go 24-7 and expect your body and your mind to keep functioning. Maybe it's 30 minutes a day that you find that you take a break, or getting out of the house, or going for coffee with a friend. And if you're saying I can't, then I think you need to ask yourself why going back to my scenario again and finding out why you're saying why, and I can't. What about asking for help? Help help can be asking somebody to sit with your loved one while you get away. It can be hiring a cleaning person or ordering groceries online versus taking an hour to get groceries. You can't do it all. Start small and test things to see what works for you. It's okay to let go of things. Let me say it again. It's okay to let go of things and feel good about it. Let that guilt go. You can't do it all. I want another thing too is are you embracing joy? I want you to look at your caregiver role right now and imagine it better. What would a better caregiver role look like for you? Now, what things can you control? What things can't you control? Because right away your brain wants to say, Well, it's great. I want my loved one to be better. Well, that's not gonna happen. But what can you control if you're doing the laundry and the mopping the floors and you're running errands and you're being an advocate and you're going ahead and working from you know seven o'clock in the morning until 11 p.m. at night? That's not realistic. I know these have to be done, things have to be done, but do you have to do them yourself? What it remember is sitting, you know, I'm trying to, I'm reading my notes and getting emotional here, but let me back up here a minute. What you want to remember, what do you want to remember? You want to remember things like sitting and playing a game with your loved one while they're up. You don't want your loved one to see you racing around like a maniac while they're sitting and relaxing. Most of the time, why can't you sit with them and enjoy some company with them? Or playing a game with your loved one, or watching a movie and taking a break, or maybe meeting up with a friend, or better yet, you start a maybe 2023 is a year you start a new hobby. You have a distraction during this challenging time that you can say that it takes me away for an hour or two every day while your loved one sits and watches, like my dad, the hundredth episode of Gunsmoke or the Gunsmoke epithet episode for the hundredth of time. You're sitting at the kitchen table behind his chair, or you're sitting at a table and you're doing a hobby while they're doing that. And you know your loved one is resting and enjoying their trying to enjoy their time, but so are you. Maybe you're painting pottery or a painting cab canvas or knitting or crocheting or you're taking up a new hobby, whatever it would be. I'd love to hear what a hobby of yours would be. It doesn't have to be mean that you don't get to be creative and do something that you enjoy. Now, working towards a better caregiver life isn't easy, but it is doable. And let me tell you, it is doable. I get messages from caregivers and other caregivers that I coach all the time. And I'm gonna just share, I think I have four uh comments or success stories or chats that I've had with caregivers over the last month. One had said, I am now scheduling my lunch break. You know, think about it. You're working full time. Maybe you're for me, I was working at home. Dennis, my husband, was sitting downstairs recovering from his chemotherapy, or I was working at my mom and dad's my mom's kitchen table while she was um in her apartment, whatever it is. It doesn't mean you don't get a break. It you should be scheduling a lunch break and then pick what you want to do during that lunch break. Do you want to eat a healthy meal and not sit at your computer or sit and eat your lunch on the run or stand at the counter at the kitchen countertop? Or better yet, you're working your full-time job and you don't even eat lunch. You need to refuel your body or your mind. Maybe you go for a walk, or maybe you go ahead and you just want to sit and read your book or listen to music. Schedule yourself a break, a lunch break. That's what she did. I had another person, another caregiver, come to me and she said, I finally figured out a way and I hired a cleaning person once a month. I no longer do the deep cleaning in the house, and it feels amazing. Sure, I do the vacuuming and the dishes and that kind of stuff, but I got back three or four hours that I never thought I would get back. And so she hired in a cleaning person and figured out a way to financially do that. It can be anything for you, it could be somebody that shovels or does the lawn service or runs errands for you. Find somebody. There's always, if if financial situations are an issue, you can get creative. There's always somebody that says, let me know what I can do for you. Take them up on their offer. But when they say that to you, don't say, Oh, no, no, I'm fine. Say, I may take you up on that. So just wait for my call. And they would go ahead and, you know, saying, you know, what can you do for me? Another one that I said I got here from one of my clients was saying, I now can go to the gym an hour because my neighbor is visiting my spouse, and it lifts my spouse's mood up when my neighbor visits. And so it's not asking your neighbor to do something physically for you, but hey, would you mind coming over and and visiting, you know, so and so while I go ahead and do get away for an hour? As a matter of fact, my spouse, it happened to my spouse too, a couple of times when he was one was where he was recovering from his knee replacement surgery, and one was after his chemotherapy. And there were there were a couple of his male friends that said, Oh yeah, I missed Dennis. How is he doing? When I would see them out and about. And I'm saying, you know what would really lift his spirits if you came over and visited. And then I would go ahead and find something to do while you were there. And that was my way of sneaking away. But it was it my spouse is my spouse was like, you know, he got to hear new things and they got to talk about new things and do all of those things. And so it was really beneficial. And I love the fact that my client thought creatively as well and she went to the gym. The last one that I got was when my mom takes her afternoon nap, I now go for a walk. I put in a nanny cam or one of those cameras in her bedroom when so it gives me peace of mind. So it's kind of like when your baby's down for a nap and you have the baby monitor on or the or the baby camera on, you can see your baby sleeping. It's the same thing that goes for you as a caregiver. I was so glad to see that she went for a walk around the block and did those things. And what's nice about it is if you get your loved one to agree to that, you can tell your loved ones, hey, take your nap. And if you wake up and you need me right away, just speak into that camera or whatever it would be, and then you could be, you could get there right away. But it is, it's just a different way of thinking depending on your situation. So if you are looking to overcome caregiver burnout and you need some ideas or motivations to take your first steps, guess what? This week I'm doing another Caregiver workshop. And these are free caregiver workshops. If you're listening on Tuesday, the 27th, I'm having one at one o'clock. On the 28th of December, I'm having one at 3 p.m. Central Standard Time. And then on Friday the 30th, I'm having one at noon Central Standard Time. Guess what? The topic is it's the first steps to reduce caregiver burnout and move you to more caregiver joy. Just like these four ladies that gave me their ways that they're trying to overcome caregiver burnout, you know, the taking their lunch break, the cleaning lady, going to the gym, or um putting in a camera. These were their creative ways to start working on their caregiver burnout. So in the workshop, I'm going to give you the first steps to reduce caregiver burnout. I'm going to give you a few of them myself. Now, we could create this laundry list of things. We could create it. And that's what's unique about it. As we continue to talk about it, you're going to feel and hear things that are going to spark ideas. It's almost like a brainstorming session for you. But getting back to the workshop, you can register. And I want to invite you to this. It's it's going to be an hour long. Go to KathyLvan.com forward slash workout. We're going to talk through all of the things that burnout entails. But then if you stick with me about 30 minutes into it, we're going to talk about steps to reduce, but more importantly, to avoid or um overcome burnout. I couldn't think of the word there. Overcome burnout. I'm almost, you know what I'm doing right now? I'm holding a fist because I want to freaking fight this caregiver burnout for you. I don't want you to be in this bad space. And so I hope you continue to join me. We're on this mission together to go ahead and keep ourselves healthy as a caregiver so we can be our best selves. It's not right. It's not fair for you to be an unhealthy caregiver mentally, physically, spiritually, socially. You have we have to figure this out and you have to look for ways to go ahead and overcome it. So I guess I didn't swear too much. I hope that didn't offend you. But I hope, my hope is that you are motivated now to try new things. And remember, one step forward, two steps back once in a while, but just keep looking for new ways. And eventually you're gonna find some things that stick and find some things that work. And if we do we do this together, you're going to go ahead and be the best caregiver that you can be. Okay, I better stop because I'm starting to ramble. You have a good rest of the day. Um, this week coming up is New Year's uh 2023. I'm going to continue the Caregiver Cup podcast, but I have some exciting things under my belt that I'm going to continue to provide to you. Some of them will be free, and some of them will have a short, uh small offering for you. Because if you continue to want to be the caregiver that you want to be and you want to continue to be healthy, I'm here for you. We can do this together through my coaching, through my the Caregiver Cup Circle, through um, I have some things like uh downloads that I'm going to be able to offer to you. So the sky's the limit. So I hope that you continue to be my friend and follow me. And if you find my information beneficial, can you do me a favor? Can you tag me on social media so that we can start sharing it with more people? I'd love to grow this community and help as many caregivers that we possibly can be. So thank you, my friend, for supporting me in 2022. And let's say happy new year to 2023. And let's work on being the best caregiver that you can be from a healthier perspective. Bye for now.