Comments (10)

By Little Mummy, January 18, 2010 10:18 am

In 2001 I fell ill unexpectedly, I was being sick all the time had chronic diarroea and cramps. I lost my appetite and I lost a lot of weight as a result. Over a period of five months I went through many tests, which I won’t go into detail about but which were very unpleasant. Eventually after going from a size 12 to a size 6/8 I was finally diagnosed with crohns disease. Crohns is a chronic bowel disorder, the doctor explained it to me like this;

Your body thinks your bowel is a foreign object and your immune system is attacking it

For me this means bouts of the above symptoms. Over time I have come to notice how much stress brings on these bouts and so now my motto is “Keep Calm and Carry On”. You may have seen the posters, I have one hanging on my wall as a reminder that no amount of stress or worry will rectify a situation and for me it can (and often does) result in a serious bout of illness.

I can admit that I used to be a terrible worrier and didn’t deal with stress at all well, over the eight years of managing the crohns I have become much better at managing stress. Here are some of the things I do;

Tips for managing and eradicating stress

1. There are very few things that are worth making yourself ill over (stress can make anyone ill) so just let it go.

2. Put the problem into perspective, is it life altering? If not it’s probably not something you need to stress about.

3. Improve your communication with your partner, the more they understand what stresses you the more you can work together to eradicate the stress (this works both ways).

4. Get your finances in order, one of the biggest things in life to stress about is money. Save more, spend less, earn more, automate everything, just do whatever you need to do to eradicate the thing that causes stress.

5. Don’t endlessly worry what other people are thinking about you, I once read somewhere that they’re probably to busy living their life to be to spend time worrying about you.

6. Deal with your past. Have counseling, make amends, whatever it is let it go.

7. Have a cry, it’s a great stress reliever. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cry quite a bit!

8. Be thankful for what you have. Don’t spend your life stressing about how you’ll purchase the next gadget, car, house or whatever.

9. Change your work situation if its causing you stress. I’ve had to do this several times since getting crohns, it’s not easy but it’s better to do it than suffer.

10. If all else fails eat chocolate, and for god sake never worry about being fat (unless your health is at risk). I’ve been a bag of bones and it makes you no happier than being a bit more curvy. And that’s a fact!

Add your own tips…2010 could be our least stressed out year yet