Working on improving a better me

    Healthier Lifestyles & Me

    One thing that everyone has had sometime in their life is stress. You could currently have it; you could have had it in the past, and you could have it come and go throughout your life. Every year people set resolutions for themselves to achieve. One of the biggest things I wanted to work on was my health, mainly because the doctors told me I had no choice, that I needed to start making changes or I would end up in worse care and be in the hospital for longer stints at a time. 

My Disease & Stress

    I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, with the disease can be numerous different triggers that can set off flare ups that directly impact my health. One of the biggest triggers is stress. I had so many gastrointestinal issues that I had to get every test in the book including a colonoscopy. “Stress can affect this brain-gut communication, and may trigger pain, bloating, and other gut discomfort to be felt more easily. The gut is also inhabited by millions of bacteria which can influence its health and the brain’s health, which can impact the ability to think and affect emotions” (American Psychological Association, 2018). After many doctors’ visits, therapy visits, and consultations, we were able to associate a lot of my direct flare ups to high stressed times in my life. I already work in a high stressed job that carries a lot of vicarious trauma, I also have a complicated and chaotic family dynamic that causes a good amount of stress as well. The doctors were noticing the more stress that I was taking on the harder my symptoms of my flare up would become. The doctors were having me take detailed log notes of everything that I was eating and doing to be able to pinpoint these things. Something that my doctors talked about with me was how ongoing stress can cause swelling in your body. I was directed by my doctors to do more research into these topics, an article I found shows that having chronic stress for a long time can cause a lot of damage to your mind and body, it can affect swelling within your body, it can lead to constant fatigue, stomach issues, and even lead to more dangerous issues like depression, having higher blood pressure, and struggles with sleep, even creating issue with your heart that can lead to heart attack and strokes (American Psychological Association, 2024).  One of the plus sides of having stress as the major trigger for my autoimmune is that I have various avenues to take to alleviate my stress. And getting rid of stress is nearly impossible for my line of work, but reducing stress would tremendously benefit my health creating a positive effect in my life. Being able to work on things that I can control in my life, like this video goes over, I need to look hard on myself, do I love my job, and do I love what I do? I need to be able to take control of my own life on create a work life balance myself because my job will not do it for me, I need to be able to know how to create boundaries and keep to them (TED, 2011).

Understanding & Selfcare

     One of my New Year’s resolutions last year was to work on my health when it comes to stress. My doctors, therapists, friends, and family were able to help a lot with that. Being able to understand that stress is a big trigger point for my disease, having a better understanding of how stress affects my body directly, and the long-term consequences that can arise if I remain at this high level of stress. I have utilized a lot of resources to help not take work home with me, working on hobbies, working on healthier lifestyle choices, and being able to balance my work and personal life has been a tremendous help. I have struggled with stress my entire life, I am a very anxious person, but having a therapist has benefited me more times than I can count. They gave me tools on how to create heathy boundaries, how to cope in a healthy manner, and taught me that selfcare is important.

 

 

References

American Psychological Association. (2018, November 1). Stress effects on the body. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body

American Psychological Association. (2024, October 21). How stress affects your health. American Psychological Association; American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/health

TED. (2011). How to make work-life balance work | Nigel Marsh [Youtube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdpIKXLLYYM