This page may help you if you are caring for someone who is experiencing health challenges, in either a paid or unpaid caring role, or perhaps as a friend or family member. We know that caring for someone else means that we are at higher risk of having health difficulties ourselves and it also means we might find it harder to access other support. Using LAMP and the six pillars of sleeping better, moving more, eating well, reducing stress, deepening connection and minimising harm can help us look after our own health but also give us resources to use with the person we are supporting. Working through the pillars together has been shown to help keep us motivated. Spend a moment thinking about which pillar you would like to look at first – there’s no right answer! What matters most to you? Remember they all link together. This is not about giving you more to do when life is stressful and time is pressured. This is about supporting you to find the healthiest version of yourself, whatever your starting point.
If we are supporting someone else, what can we think about to both support them to sleep better, but also ourselves? Find lots of ideas to try to improve your sleep quality here, on our Sleep Better page.
The evidence shows that we are more motivated to do physical activity if we move with someone else. So if we are caring for someone, moving with them is a really powerful way to support both their physical and mental health. And what about you? By moving yourself, you are also giving your own health a boost. Find out more on our Move More page.
We are learning more and more about how our nutrition and gut health impact our mental health as well as the physical benefits. Eating with someone can have a really positive impact. You will find more ideas to eat well on our Eat Well page.
Tackling stress effectively looks different for all of us – have you found what supports you best? And can you share that with someone you are caring for? There are ideas that you might like to try on our Reduce Stress page.
Feeling connected is something lots of us struggle with. If you are supporting alongside someone, you are already providing them with a sense of connection which has a massive health benefit. To help them find additional connections, which might be with other people, with their natural environment or indeed with themselves, take a look at our Deepen Connection page.
All of us lean on behaviours that are less positive from time to time. Find out more on our Minimise Harm page for ideas of how to support someone to be less reliant on negative coping strategies.
