[ad_1]
We all have different flare triggers, but I want to address the one I believe is the hardest to control. An exercise regiment can be adopted. You can just follow a 10–15 minute video on YouTube once per day. Your diet can be changed. If you cut back on fast foods or buy more steam-in-bag vegetables from the frozen aisle, you will see some benefits. But stress — and its accompanying symptoms like restlessness, exhaustion, anger, etc. — is so invasive and sudden.
It’s particularly difficult to manage stress when your life is in a pressure cooker of circumstances: a challenging job or lack thereof, a difficult family situation, a season of financial struggle, etc. I get it. We have to work. We have to make money. We have to pay the bills. We have to keep the family together. However, we also have to accept that if we don’t manage our daily stress, our Lupus may very well kill us.
This step, reducing stress, is where I struggle every day. I made some big changes that hurt initially to reduce my workload. I left school administration, for example, and I think I’m just getting over that. (It was three years ago.) I stopped working evenings and weekends (for any reason), which cut back on creative endeavors that I enjoy (writing, producing vlogs, music, etc.). More recently I left my in-person teaching position for an online one to save myself the stresses of mitigating COVID-19 exposure until I can be vaccinated.
After all, I am immunocompromised, and COVID-19 is not like the suite of seasonal sicknesses I have caught at least once a year since I returned to the classroom in 2018.
My decision to continually and intentionally back out of stressful situations is costing me what I still think are excellent opportunities to do great things, but I cannot expect to do even good things if I am dead. So, there you have it.
[ad_2]
Source link
