if you are dealing with a sick pet then there is a real chance you might be
becoming stressed depressed anxious or even angry all of these will affect your
quality of life now this is a syndrome known as caregiver burden and while it is
well recognized in people who care for chronically ill family members it has
only recently been recognized in owners who have to look after sick pets now
this highlights just how important our dogs and cats are in our lives and that
they really are part of the family and that's something that I feel very
strongly about and I believe in helping both you and your pet to live healthier
happier lives so today I invited Chris over from the youtube channel the
rewired soul to come and give you three tips to help improve your mental health
when dealing with a sick pet now Chris is an expert when it comes to explaining
mental health problems in a simple and really understandable way and he's just
passionate about helping people and focusing on practical solutions to any
mental health issue so quite apart from caregiver burden if you have any form of
mental health struggle or if you know someone who does then you really owe it
to yourself to check out his channel which I'll link down below for now
though take it away Chris. Whats up everybody my name is
Chris and I'm from the youtube channel of the rewired soul and my channel is
all about mental health so doctor Alex invited me over to do this guest video
and I'm very very appreciative of it so first off before I get started I just
want to say if you are not subscribed to our Pet's healthier what are you waiting
for go ahead and click that subscribe button
doctor Alex's channel is amazing and it helped me out a lot don't worry we'll
wait
but on a serious note let's jump into this so dr. Alex invited me over to
discuss the mental health of pet owners when you're dealing with a sick pet so
as you just saw I have a beautiful little cat named Maya I am somebody who
never really owned pets before and I've had Maya for a little over a year now
and I kind of understand now where this love for pets come from so I've been
very fortunate that Maya hasn't fallen ill yet but as somebody who is an
advocate for mental health and teaches people about how to improve their mental
health I can understand how people get very distressed depressed anxious when
they're dealing with a sick animal and by the way that's one of the reasons why
I love what dr. alex is doing when you understand more about the health of your
pet it helps calm down some of your depression and anxiety when you're
dealing with a sick pet but in this video I'm gonna give you three tips on
how to manage your mental health when dealing with a sick pet so tip number
one is self-care so you might have heard that old analogy where they talk about
when you go on a plane there's a reason why they say put your oxygen mask on
first before you help somebody else when we don't help ourselves we can't help
anybody or anything or any pet that we love and care about so the very first
tip is making sure that your mental health is in order that's why this video
is so important so when dealing with a sick pet if you want to be there for
your animal you have to make sure that you're in a good place of being because
if you're running around all anxious or depressed or can't get out of bed
because you have a sick animal how are you supposed to help your sick animal
one of the best tips I can give you for self-care is to remember remember this
remember that your emotions come from a very good place you wouldn't be feeling
sad you wouldn't be feeling anxious you wouldn't be feeling worried about your
pet unless it was coming from a place of love so always remember that the source
of the emotions that you're feeling are genuinely coming from a good place and
that'll help you kind of cut yourself some slack and put you in a better place
to take care of your pet tip number two is
recognizing the difference between what you can and can't control so anxiety feeds
off of a lack of control so when you feel like you're not in control that's
when the part of your brain called the amygdala runs haywire and it triggers a
hormone called cortisol which increases anxiety and stress so one of the ways
that you can start managing your anxiety when dealing with a sick pet is really
start to dissect what you can and can't control so unless you're watching this
and you're a vet like dr. alex chances are that you cannot control the care for
your pet in certain aspects so in this instance make sure that you have a
quality vet that you can turn to or even somebody like dr. Alex who you can
reach out to and ask for advice or support remember that since you're not
the vet there's only so much that you can control now what can you control you
can control the love attention affection that you give to your pet once you take
your pet to a vet and you get medicine these are things that you can control
making sure that your pet is getting its medicine on time and you're taking the
advice of the vet when you help your brain separate the difference between
what you can and cannot control it really starts to reduce your anxiety so
you can take care of your pet better the third and final tip that I'm gonna give
you is join a community one way to do this right off the bat is joining the
our pets health community there are other people who are pet owners out
there who are in dr. Alex's community who are potentially dealing with the
same issues you're dealing with when you're dealing with a sick pet the other
thing that I always recommend to people for their mental health is Facebook
groups we live in 2018 Facebook is a great social media platform to meet with
other people so even a community of just other pet owners dog cat owners or
whatever a little kind of critter you have it's a great place to go see one of
the biggest triggers for depression is this feeling of loneliness and alone we
feel like nobody else is dealing with our struggle when that struggle is
shared amongst a community of people you start to see first off that you're not
alone but you also start to receive support you'll start to meet other
people who have been through what you're going through and
teach you about how they got through it and they'll be there for you but the
best part about it too is you have some people who you can celebrate the
successes with so when your pet heals when they get better you have a
community of people who are going to join with you in that celebratory
fashion you know what I mean so a great way to deal with this is by joining the
community so you're not alone and you guys can all celebrate together all
right anyways again dr. Alex thank you so much for having me as a guest on your
channel and if you guys didn't know this dr. alex has actually done a couple
videos over on my channel the rewired soul so make sure you come over and
check those out too and if you're into mental health stuff if you want to work
on your anxiety your depression or anything that has to do with your
emotional well-being come on over visit the rewired soul I got over 200 videos
just for you just for you all right but anyways thanks so much for watching
give this video a thumbs up for dr. Alex and again if you haven't yet make sure
that you subscribe alright thank you so much take care and we'll see you next
time wasn't that fantastic advice I'm so excited that Chris came and talked to us
and thanks so much for that I really hope it helps you cope with your sick
pets and I just add that if you're feeling overwhelmed if you're struggling
to treat your pet if you've become confused with what's going on or if
you're just finding all too much then make sure you reach out to your vet and
let them know as a vet I can only know if one of my clients is struggling if
they let me know please don't be embarrassed or shy we all just want to
help and come up with strategies that work for everybody
big thanks to Chris again for his amazing advice today and remember to
head over to the rewired soul for all of the information you need about any
mental health issue and until next time i'm dr. alex from our pets health take
care of yourself