What is Causing Your Stress?

In the right situation, stress can be a good thing. If you are worried about being late for an appointment, the stress may get you out the door sooner. If it is storming out, stress may make you drive a little more carefully. But too much stress is not good for your health, and knowing where the stress is coming from is the first step to controlling it.

Take an inventory of your daily activities and really look at what parts of your life are causing you to feel out of control. Keeping a stress diary for a week or two may also help you look back and see where you need to make changes. Is there a co-worker who just makes you nuts when you eat together at lunch? You could choose to avoid the break room and eat outside or at your desk. If your kids come home and stress you out with their whining about homework and snacks, plan ahead. Have their homework area ready for them and prepare their after school snack ahead of time. Mornings around my house were getting tough, so I started packing most of the boys’ lunches the night before and we laid out their clothes for the week on Sunday night and stored them in a hanging closet organizer. Identifying the sources of your stress is the first step in reducing the stress levels in your life.

The stress of fibromyalgia can also significantly add to your stress levels. You don’t know from day to day how you will feel. When you are in pain, you find that you have to alter daily activities to work around your discomfort. Because your daily life is affected, more stress is added. This is why controlling stress needs to coexist with any pain management plan you have in place.

How Does Stress Affect the Body?

Chronic stress can wreak havoc on your body. Stress will intensify pain of any kind, including that associated with fibromyalgia. It can also trigger flare-ups of many conditions. Stress can put such a strain on your mind and body that it inhibits your sleep. You may toss and turn as you worry about the next day and whether you will have enough energy to accomplish all that is on your plate. Of course, the less you sleep, the more you hurt…the more you hurt, the less you sleep. This is not a healthy pattern to get into. The stress and the resulting lack of sleep will also make fibro fog more debilitating. Fibro fog is a condition where you lack focus because of your decreased mental status.

Stress can also affect your diet and lead to weight gain. Most know that when you are stressed, you are more likely to reach for that gallon of ice cream in the freezer. Stress leads to cravings for sugars and carbohydrates, which in turn increase fat in the body. Studies have shown that sugars and fats may actually help the body respond to stress.

One-Stop Shopping for Stress Relief/Relaxation Products

When you are stressed, you will also find less time to exercise. Couple that with poor eating habits, and the weight will creep on. As we often see, this weight gain will lead to more pain.

Importance of Reducing Stress

Why is it important to reduce your stress levels? As discussed above, stress is harmful to your body in many ways. If you don’t reduce your stress, you will gain weight, sleep less, and tax your body in ways that will cause harm for many years to come. The stress, weight gain, and sleeplessness is hard on many of your body systems, including your heart. To put it simply, to live a long and healthy life, you must work to reduce the stress in your life.

Controlling and Reducing Stress

Once you realize how stress affects your life, you will see that changes need to be made. So, where do you start when you look to reduce the stress that is in your daily life.

First, look at the little daily events that seem to stress you out and try to see them in a new light. If you are stuck in traffic, stick in your favorite music or keep a good book on tape in your car and listen to it as you wait. Take that stressful situation and try and turn it into some quiet time for yourself. Just today, my son lost a case holding about $500 worth of games in it. I just about went off the deep end…okay, I did for a brief moment. Then I took a deep breath and realized that it was just stuff, and stuff can be replaced. Things could be worse! So, keep things in perspective.

Just say no! Don’t overschedule yourself or your family. Leave some downtime in your weekly calendar so that you do not have to push yourself to the brink. We limit our kids to one sport per season, while many of their classmates are doing two. If they come to you to run the next PTO fundraiser, respectfully decline but offer to help in a lesser role. Don’t try and be everything to everyone.

Sleep…sleep…sleep. Adopt strategies to help improve your sleep habits. It can be hard with fibromyalgia, but it just takes a little extra effort. Keep a bedtime schedule and stick with it. Don’t eat too close to bedtime, especially avoid caffeine. Limit your exposure to screens when bedtime is near (television, computer); exposure to the brightness of these items right before going to bed is like telling your body it is daytime. If you have to work on the computer before bed like I do, save your shower for before bed. This gives your eyes a rest before hitting the pillow.

Make your bedroom comfortable and keep it just for sleep; don’t work or watch television from bed. Keep your room no higher than 70 degrees. Some recommend that if you don’t fall asleep within 20 minutes, you should get up and do something else for awhile. It is important to associate your bed with sleep, not tossing and turning. If sleep is too elusive, there are medications that you can talk to your doctor about. However, sleep medications can be addictive, so they should be taken only with the advice of your physician.

No matter the path you take, stress management is a crucial step in managing fibromyalgia and its symptoms. Discover your stress triggers and face the problem head on, armed with knowledge.

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