Caregiver Mental Health Toolkit

It’s important to take care of your own health and well-being in order to care for others.

A caregiver is someone who helps or cares for someone in need including an ill child, parent, spouse or partner, relative or friend. With the demands of being a caregiver, self-care often gets over-looked or neglected leading to high levels of physical or emotional stress.

These higher levels of stress jeopardize the caregiver’s health and lead to:

  • Feeling alone
  • Feeling helpless or depressed
  • Financial insecurity
  • Feeling helpless
  • Inability to cope or problem-solve

Caregivers often focus most, if not all, of their attention on their loved one and may overlook the toll it is taking on their own health and mental well-being. It’s important to recognize the signs of caregiver stress and burnout. Some common signs are:

  • A constant state of worry or feeling burdened
  • Feeling tired often
  • Sleeping too much or too little
  • Drastic fluctuation in weight (gaining or losing weight)
  • Easily becoming angry or irritable
  • Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed
  • Sadness
  • Frequent headaches, pain, or other health problems
  • Missing your own medical appointments
  • Misuse of drugs (including prescription drugs) or alcohol

The demands of caregiving can cause emotional and physical strain. The resources in this Mental Health Toolkit are tools to help you care for your loved one as well as yourself. You can’t properly care for someone else if you neglect your own health and well-being.

Please see below for links to helpful articles, websites, worksheets and more:

Stress and Emotional Well-Being

Self-Care

Self-care refers to practices and activities that we engage in regularly to reduce stress and enhance our health and well-being.  Self-care is necessary for being successful in our personal and professional commitments.

Develop Your Own Self-Care Plan

Many people don’t know where to start with self-care so it can be helpful to develop a personalized plan for self-care. Below are some ideas and tools to help you assess how you are currently coping with stress and possibly identify other health habits to incorporate into your daily routine and during times of stress.

  • How do you cope with stress?
    Assessing your current coping mechanisms can help highlight unhealthy behaviors that you may want to change or bring awareness to healthy behaviors that you may want to build upon.
  • How do you currently practice self-care?
    Assessing which self-care activities you’re already doing in your life can also highlight areas of imbalance where you’d like to improve.  A self-care assessment can also offer new ideas that you’d like to incorporate into your self-care routine. 
  • Plan to maintain self-care.
    When you have identified activities that are important to your well-being and choose to practice regularly.
  • Develop an emergency self-care plan.
    Identifying routine self-care is important for maintenance. But, the need for self-care usually comes into focus under very stressful circumstances or difficult times. It’s helpful to have an emergency self-care plan in place before facing a crisis.

Crisis Hotlines

  • If you have a medical emergency or there is immediate danger of harm, call 911 and explain that you need support for a mental health crisis. 
  • The Crisis Text Line serves anyone in any type of crisis, 24-hours a day. Trained crisis counselors will respond and help you.
  • If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline provides 24/7 connection to confidential support.
  • The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
  • In the absence of a trusted adult in a child’s life, Safe2Help Illinois offers students a safe, confidential way to share information that might help prevent suicides, bullying, school violence or other threats to school safety. The program is focused on getting students to “Seek Help Before Harm.”
  • If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and needs help, you can call, text or chat live with the Illinois Statewide Domestic Violence Hotline at (877) 863-6338 (877-TO END DV). The hotline is available 24/7 and provides crisis intervention and referrals to an emergency situation and support services to victims who are in an abusive relationship. In addition, hotline advocates can provide information and resources to concerned family and friends.
  • Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the National Domestic Violence Hotline provides essential tools and support to help survivors of domestic violence so they can live their lives free of abuse. Call (800) 799-SAFE (7233) or (800) 787-3224 (TTY). You can also text “START” to 88788 or chat live on The Hotline website.

Mental Health Apps and Online Tools

  • BellyBio – Provides an interactive breathing app with real-time feedback on your deep breathing. (Apple App Store only)
  • Bearable – Allows users to track and evaluate their moods, medications, healthcare routines and symptoms to determine whether their daily habits are improving or hindering their quality of life.
  • Breathe2Relax – Assists in breathing techniques that promote relaxation.
  • Calm.com – Offers help with sleep, mediation and relaxation.
  • eMoods Classic– Designed to help track mood symptoms and medication changes for those with Bipolar Disorder, anxiety and depression.
  • Healthy Minds Program – Helps users develop skills to reduce stress, focus and maintain positive social connections.
  • iSleep Easy Meditations Light – Provides three guided meditations to help users fall asleep.
  • Mindshift CBT App – Free evidence-based anxiety relief based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) practices and strategies.
  • Mood Mission – Uses different activities or missions for people dealing with stress, anxiety or depression.
  • Operation Reach Out – Encourages people experiencing suicidal thoughts to reach out for help.
  • PTSD Coach – Helps users learn about and manage symptoms that often occur after trauma.
  • QuitNow! – Assists those wanting to quit smoking.
  • Relax with Andrew Johnson Lite – Helps with healthier eating, meditations for panic attacks and aiding users with winding down and de-stressing with relaxation techniques and guided sleep mediations.
  • Shine – Aims to make mental health care more accessible to and representative of people of color. The app offers daily meditations, gratitude check-ins and motivational messages. 
  • Smiling Mind – Provides a mindfulness-based app and website for children and adults.
  • Take a Break! – Offers short, guided meditations with or without music and nature sounds.
  • Unwinding by Sharecare – Provides science-based practices and tools to help users feel calmer, more aware, more in your body and mind, and more focused on the things that matter most to you right now.
  • What’s Up? A Mental Health App – Mental Health App – Uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques to help users cope with anxiety, depression, anger, stress and more.

Videos

Podcasts

  • Everyday Caregiver Tips – Provides guidance, support, and tips to family members, friends and loved ones who care for others.
  • Caregiver Relief Podcast– Features experts and caregivers who offer advice, support and resources to navigate caregiving.
  • Happy Healthy Caregiver– Highlights family caregivers who share how to be happy and healthy while caring for others.

Websites

  • FindTreatment.gov is a confidential and anonymous resource for people seeking treatment options anywhere in the United States. 
  • Caregiver Action Network (CAN) is a national nonprofit organization that aims to improve the quality of life for Americans who care for loved ones with chronic conditions, disabilities, disease or the frailties old age.
  • Postpartum Support International (PSI) promotes awareness, prevention and treatment of mental health issues related to childbearing in every country worldwide. It offers 50-plus free online support groups to connect with other parents and also has a helpline to get basic information, support and resources in English and Spanish.
  • The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Find Help webpage provides information on finding treatment and support for mental health, substance use disorders and more.
  • If left unmanaged, stress can negatively impact our physical health, emotional well-being, relationships, work, and many other things in our lives. To effectively manage stress, one must identify the stressor and take active steps to reduce the impact of the stressor by using effective and individualized coping tools. Illinois Extension provides this list of resources to help reduce stress and enhance coping skills.
  • The Courageous Parents Network aims to empower, support and equip families and providers caring for children with serious illness.
  • The Family Caregiver Alliance’s mission is to improve the quality of life for family caregivers and the people who receive their care. Its website provides in-depth information and tips on a variety of caregiving topics, including legal and financial planning, advanced illness and end of life, self-care and more. Resources are available in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and more.
  • Give an Hour aims to create resilient communities of support for rare disease caregivers and families. Through one-on-one peer support, group support, professional training and research, Give an Hour strives to build a sustainable support system for rare caregivers.
  • The demands of caregiving can be exhausting and overwhelming. HelpGuide has helpful information and steps you can take to rein in stress and regain a sense of balance, joy and hope in your life.
  • The Mighty provides a digital toolkit to help caregivers learn more about the ins and outs of caregiving and discover helpful resources to utilize along their caregiving journey.
  • Easterseals offers a variety of programs and resources to provide support and care for caregivers, including respite care, a step-by-step caregiving guide and more