The goal of this post is to share some tips and ideas that could be useful as you manage your health and mental health. You don’t need to try all of these at once — see what feels like a good fit to you and start there.

1. Pace yourself

Before you were diagnosed with your chronic illness or disability, you may have been used to doing things a certain way — perhaps with greater speed, energy, and motivation. You may feel like you have to compete with your former self or prove to yourself that you can do it just like you did before.

Give yourself permission to not do everything exactly the way you used to. Recognize that you are still the same person — abilities and challenges in all — and go at a pace that suits you best based on your current situation.

2. Focus on energy conservation

Similarly, you may even need to figure out when to hold yourself back in times when you need to rest before a day of medical appointments, travel, work or volunteer work (modified or not), or a social engagement. Perhaps you are a morning bird or a late night owl — or maybe this all changed after your diagnosis and you are adapting to a new internal shift.

Learning what makes you feel energized or drained is a good first step. This will help you determine when you need to put on the brakes and when you can push yourself. Monitor how your energy ebbs and flows depending on the time of day or type of activity and try to use that as a guiding principle for how you structure your day, including fitting in time for rest.

3. Be a good self-advocate

Educating yourself about your new needs, asking questions, and speaking up when something concerns or worries you are important skills to learn as you adjust to your new chronic illness or disability.

If you feel nervous at the thought of using your voice, perhaps it may help to give yourself a pep talk or an encouraging internal monologue before a medical appointment or difficult conversation. Or bring a trusted loved one to an appointment if you feel you need moral support or a little prompt every so often to share your point of view. Knowing that someone is there who has your back can mean the world in a hard scenario.

4. Speak kindly to yourself

You can learn to be your best friend. How do you do that? Well, you can start by speaking to yourself in a positive, supportive way. Let go of the self-critical statements and instead choose to use words that reflect you just as worthy, loveable, deserving, and important as anyone else.

Remember: your chronic illness or disability doesn’t make you any less of a person. You are still you. Your health issues don’t define you. You do.

5. Do what makes you happy

It can be hard to turn your attention to positive things when you are feeling sad, lonely, frustrated, or demoralized. But that’s when you might need to the most. Bring to the forefront of your mind what makes you happy, fulfilled, motivated, and energized.

Is it spending time with loved ones? Being with your pet? Being in nature? Creating art? Listening to music? What else? Tune into yourself and find ways of bringing these things back into your life even if it is incorporated a little differently now compared to your pre-illness or pre-disability life. Adding these things back in can make a difference in boosting your daily mood and outlook on life.

6. Pursue activities that align with your skills and abilities

If there are activities you used to do that you now can’t as it presents a significant risk to your health — or if you cannot do it anymore from a physical/mental/emotional standpoint — then maybe you can explore these activities in a modified or adapted way or possibly find a related activity that is more feasible and that you feel will still be enjoyable. Choose something that is not as demanding of your energy or endurance or perhaps fits more with your current abilities. Take some time to think about what fits best with you at this present time and start there.

If your job used to be very physically involved and this is not possible anymore, maybe there are other tasks in your job that you can perform that is more desk-based. You may of course also decide to take a completely different direction in your career and that is ok as well. Listen to what you need and honour it.

You may also want to join new in-person or online communities where you can meet people who are going through similar challenges as you. The peer support they provide can be extremely valuable to you, especially if you are adjusting to a new health problem.

7. Move towards acceptance

Adjusting to a new disability or chronic illness can be a very difficult process. You are going to understandably grieve all the things you could do before your diagnosis. Perhaps you are also grieving major changes you will need to make regarding your living environment and your career, or you may now depend on health professionals or family to do some of your basic personal care tasks.

Ever so slowly, you will eventually reach a place in your mind and your heart where you come to terms with what has happened to you. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to be happy about it. But recognizing how it affects you and what you need to do to live the best quality of life you can will help you navigate these difficult times that much more easily.

8. Enjoy the little moments

Nestled between moments of pain and sadness will be little moments of joy: hearing a good result at a medical appointment; being able to complete a physical exercise successfully; having a good day in terms of minimal pain or fatigue; doing something you previously couldn’t do; enjoying quality time with a loved one.

Hold on to these moments as they are important for keeping your eyes focused ahead and on your future rather than turning to look backward at your past.

9. Remember your wins

Just as you will want to enjoy the little positive moments, you will also want to remember your wins as well — both big and small. Recalling your strengths, what you do well, what you are capable of, and what you are looking forward to are all important factors in building you up and helping you maintain your momentum.

Consider these wins as signs that you have so much to give and so much to gain as you move forward. Keep going one step at a time. Wishing you the best on your mental health journey.

The post 9 Tips for How to Cope with a Chronic Illness or Disability appeared first on Medika Life.

No matter the cause, it’s clearly an extremely difficult process to adjust to having a physical disability. Learning how to adjust can take quite some time and is not a straightforward path. Everyone copes differently and no two journeys look exactly alike.

If you have a new physical disability and are understandably struggling to cope, it may be helpful to keep a few things in mind as you try to figure out this new world you are in.

Take the time you need

Adjusting to a new disability will take a very long time. There’s no telling how long it may be until it begins to feel like a “new normal” for you or until you begin feeling like “you” again.

It doesn’t happen in a day, a month, or a year. It’s an ongoing process that evolves as you continue to evolve and learn how to live in what may feel like a new body or a body that isn’t yours.

Give yourself the time and space you need to come to terms with all of the major changes that have happened in your life.

Reach out to your closest family and friends for support

This is a very challenging time in your life. You may have a few very close people- your partner, your sibling, your parent, your best friend — who you want to get comfort from in your time of need. Be sure to connect with them for support. Now more than ever is a time to lean on those family members and friends who will be there for you no matter what.

Your closest social network can help you when you need to cry, to laugh, or to just sit in silence together with a supportive companion.

Set boundaries

After a new disability, you may not want to talk to every single well-meaning person who reaches out to you to express how concerned they are for you — and that’s ok.
Permit yourself to not feel like you have to respond to every person right away. They will understand if you need time alone to process your thoughts, feelings, and emotions through this phase. You can connect with them when you feel ready to talk.

Ask questions

You are your best advocate and you know your body best. Ask your doctor, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, personal support worker, nurse, and other health professionals involved in your care any questions you have.

You might have questions about your physical disability diagnosis, what your recovery process is expected to look like, how much recovery you may have in the short term and the long term, what you should prepare for in the future to be as healthy as possible while living with a physical disability, how to best take care of yourself and your new needs, and so on.

Ask a family member or friend to help you think of questions or support you in asking these questions if needed. And, if something doesn’t make sense to you, it’s ok to ask the professional to explain it again or in another way.

Focus on the here and now

Your mind might be racing right now. Will I ever be able to walk again? Will I be able to take care of myself? How will I get into my house/apartment or bathroom? Can I go back to work? Who will help me if I can’t do everything on my own?….

Give yourself some space to slow down. You don’t have to have all the answers right now. You will get more information as time goes on about what to expect and what to plan for.

Right now, try to focus on understanding what has happened to you, getting used to how your body feels and moves, and exploring small, simple goals to start working towards.

Go with the flow

You may have heard this saying before: it’s often easier to go with the flow than to fight against it

It’s common to have times when you have made solid progress only to then have a setback that feels like all the hard work you did has been undone or lost.
Having a mindset where you try to be flexible with and adapt to changes as they occur, as hard as that might be, could help with your adjustment.

There will be “good” and “bad” days

Recognizing that there will be “good” days, where you feel like you are handling things well, and “bad” days, where you feel sad or angry or frustrated, is expected.
Permitting yourself to deal with the ups and downs and being compassionate towards yourself can help you cope.

Think about your favorite activities and interests in a new way
It may be hard to imagine this right now, and it may take some time for you to get to this point, but having a physical disability does not mean that you cannot enjoy activities you used to love. It does mean you may need to consider a different way of doing them.

Do you love sports? Maybe there is a way you can look into adapted sports, like wheelchair basketball, for example. Do you love to write or read but have a limited ability to use your hands? There may be occupational therapy services or assistive technology services that might be able to help you figure out how to use a phone, iPad or tablet, or computer in a way that works best for you.

Think of activities you are interested in and speak with your healthcare team for ideas on how you might be able to make this happen. There’s no need to rush into this though. You may need time before you try something you love in a new way, which can be an adjustment in itself. Again, give yourself the time you need and explore these ideas when you are ready.

Work towards long term goals

It’s good to have goals and dreams for the future. Perhaps you want to be able to eventually walk with a walker or a cane. Your doctor and healthcare team may talk about whether that is a realistic future goal for you given the current research, medical knowledge, and your healthcare team’s past experience with patients with a similar disability diagnosis and health profile to you

Maybe you want to cook for yourself or learn how to direct others to prepare meals just the way you like it if you can’t do it for yourself. Or perhaps you want to go back to work or school and focus on building on your skills and knowledge in a topic you are passionate about but might need some accessibility modifications. The options are endless.

Talk with your healthcare team to see what may be feasible for you and begin thinking about what steps you can take to reach these goals.

Stay hopeful

Even if it seems like you may never be able to do some of the things you want to be able to do, it is always important to not give up on yourself.

Hope is what keeps us going and encourages us to move forward. We may need to somehow learn to accept what our current situation is while we keep aiming to reach our goals and what we want for our future.

We can move along parallel paths where we do what we can right now and continue working towards our dreams. Stay hopeful.

The post Adjusting to a New Physical Disability appeared first on Medika Life.