Physical illness often represents a significant challenge to emotional well-being. Even minor or temporary illness can interrupt typical patterns of physical activity and other routines which can negatively impact mood, increase feelings of stress or anxiety, and reduce our ability to manage day-to-day life. In the case of chronic and/or severe illness, the impact on overall wellness can be dramatic.

Chronic or severe illness at least temporarily draws attention, energy, and resilience away from life’s usual ups-and-downs toward attending to health appointments, adjusting finances to account for time off work and the costs of health care, and considering the impact of major illness on yourself and your loved ones. Given these strains, it is a reasonable time to struggle with maintaining your mental health, even if this has rarely or never been a concern for you before. A few areas of focus can help to support mental wellness as you navigate physical health difficulties.

  • Keep moving. To the extent you are able, continue to move your body. Physical activity is such an important part of both physical and mental wellness, and even something as simple as a brief walk can remind your body of its abilities and get some feel-good chemicals moving in your brain. If standing to move isn’t in the cards for you right now, exercise or stretch your upper body. And if that’s too much, exercise your brain – read about something new, start an art project, or take on a word or number puzzle. Thinking critically or creatively makes your brain work very differently than it works when managing worry or feeling down, and it is important to find breaks from those experiences.
  • Stay social. Physical illness can be very isolating. Whether due to compromised immunity or less energy for other than people than you usually have, times of physical illness often change how much social interaction one gets. Humans have brains which are wired for connection and can experience major mood changes when their social lives shift. Although your ability to connect may be different now, get creative about how you can engage with the people most important to you. Let them be listening ears, caregivers, and sources of encouragement – you need it, and they likely very much want to offer that help! Take time, at least occasionally, to check in with people who are sending well wishes from afar. Even if you don’t have the energy to respond, read encouraging messages from those who have contributed to fundraisers on your behalf. Take a moment to glance through your text messages and see who is rooting for you today. When you feel up to a providing an update, let it be as brief or as detailed as you wish, and be specific if there are ways you can use help right now.
  • Let yourself feel. Whatever you’re feeling is right. Find ways to acknowledge and express those feelings, whether only with you (e.g., naming them, writing about your thoughts/feelings in a journal, etc.) or by sharing them with trusted others. Physical illness can lead to fear, sadness, anger, and a host of other experiences. Although there may be pressure to ignore them, avoid them, or make them go away, feelings exist to show us who we are and how we’re doing. Simply by acknowledging them and allowing them to tell us about what we want/need right now, we give them permission to offer up information and then move along. This tends to prevent us from getting “stuck” in any particular feeling, and feeling badly for a moment will always be more manageable than being “stuck” feeling badly.
  • Look forward, but only a little. Particularly in early phases of major illness, there can be pressure to ask all the questions, know all the answers, anticipate all the future steps, and so on. Managing worries through information is a helpful and adaptive strategy for coping, but it can quickly become overwhelming if we take it took far. Focus on the next step – the next test, procedure, or appointment. Engage with your worries enough to understand what questions you have for your doctor(s) about this next step and what it means for you. Ask those questions, and let the answers provide realistic expectations for the process. Allowing yourself to fast forward too far tends to take you beyond what can be known right now, into a full range of scary possibilities many of which may never be a reality for you. Focus and refocus (as often as your brain needs) on the next step in your process and on what is knowable now. Fear lives in what we do not (and often cannot) know; whereas, confidence and reassurance is found in knowing what we can and focusing on the plan as we are able to understand it today.

Times of physical illness are difficult in a number of ways, and extended illness is among the more challenging stressors a human can experience. It can be helpful to know you are not alone, and you are not simply at the mercy of illness when it comes to how you care for yourself and your mental wellness. In addition to these steps, there is long-standing research evidence that meeting with a licensed therapist is an effective strategy for coping with the impacts of physical illness. If you could use the support, please reach out.

Take care!

-pm