Those of us who live with chronic illnesses can have many difficulties to deal with because of those illnesses. But I have found, from my own life and from coaching and talking with others with chronic illnesses, that there are five main illness-related challenges, and most of us have to contend with one or more of them. These challenges aren’t independent of each other. On the contrary, they are all connected and inter-related. They are: chronic pain, chronic fatigue, lack of money, depression, and finding meaning in our lives. In this post, I’m going to share three strategies for dealing with one of those challenges: chronic fatigue.
The suggestions I’m going to share with you are ones I wish I had known when my chronic illness (Crohn’s disease) was in an almost constant flare, instead of being in remission like it is now. I often suffered from severe fatigue, and at that time I only knew three strategies for dealing with it. They were to nap in my car during my lunch hour at work, to get as much rest as possible on the weekends to recover from the previous week and get as ready as I could for the next one, and to learn about all the standard and alternative treatments for my illness and try the ones that seemed like they might help (I often spent two hours a day doing research on the internet).
Those were pretty good strategies, but if I had that period of my life to live over again, I would add three more that I think would have helped a lot. They are:
1) Look for and think about small things I could to make my life better. For example, I could have made a list of movies I wanted to watch, including comedies to cheer me up and uplifting ones to give me hope, and then watched them (while resting in bed, if necessary).
2) Keep a gratitude journal. Gratitude has been shown to to improve people’s health and their outlook on life. In spite of having overwhelming fatigue (and many other difficult symptoms), I had a lot to be grateful for, including a roof over my head, food on the table, a bed to sleep on, and a whole lot more.
3) Give myself lots of self compassion and hugs because of how difficult my life was (instead of spending a lot of my time dwelling on how sick I was).
As I said, I wish I had known these strategies when my life was a overwhelming struggle because of chronic fatigue and my other symptoms. But I’m very glad that they’ve been very helpful for my clients and others I’ve shared them with, and I hope you will find them helpful too. And if you would like even more strategies, I invite you to get and read my How to Have a Chronic Illness – Without Letting Your Chronic Illness Have You report.
Tags: chronic fatigue, chronic illness, chronic pain, depression, finding meaning, gratitude, hugs, lack of money, self compassion, standard and alternative treatments
I was just googling around and found your site. I love your recommendations…these are tools I have found useful too. When I am in the midst of an MS exacerbation, Netflix instant is my best friend!!! Gratitude is huge on my list of alternative healing practices (actually, I don’t really think it’s so alternative…it’s essential!) And compassion…well that has also been a huge part of my healing practice. Discovering that all of my body, heart, mind and soul needs hugs and gentleness…and forgiveness too. It isn’t my body’s fault that I’m sick…it’s just the way it is.
The other thing I would add to your wonderful list that has helped me tremendously is daily meditation/mindfulness….it could be a formal sit of a half an hour…or just simply checking in with my breath through out the day.
gentle steps,
Laura
Laura,
I concur with what you’ve said. I sometimes set aside time to meditate, but even when I don’t I check in several times during the day.
Take care and thank you for your comment,
Tom
I love your three “additional” strategies. When I became chronically ill nine years ago, one of the first things I did was to join Netflix. (I was probably one of its earliest members!). Those movies kept me company during the first years of illness when I was almost entirely isolated from the world. (I had contracted a viral infection while on a trip but it turned into a severe case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome forcing me to give up my teaching career.)
For many years I was angry about becoming ill but then I, too, learned that thinking about all I had to be grateful for was a great antidote for that anger. Once the anger subsided, I could also begin to treat myself and this illness with compassion.
Now I accept that being chronically ill is part of my life and I’ve turned my attention to things other than my illness as much as possible even though I’m house-bound.
Thanks for sharing your strategies. They’ve worked for me and your post encourages me to keep working at it.
Toni,
Thank you for your comment.
Congratulations on your book. I know it will help many people. I would like to get a copy when it is published.
You wrote that “Once the anger subsided, I could also begin to treat myself and this illness with compassion.” My suggestion for you when you get angry for any reason is to have compassion for the one who is angry as soon as you can, rather than waiting for the anger to subside before you give yourself compassion.
Since you liked my additional strategies, I think you will also like a post I wrote last August that I called I’m So Sorry.
Finally, here’s an article about the difference between sickness and illness. Dr. Richard Johnson is Catholic, not Buddhist, but I think you will like much of what he says (Note: I have no association with Dr. Johnson or financial interest in any of the programs he offers).
Best wishes,
Tom