Getting out of bed every morning when you have a chronic illness can be a daunting task and we’d all love anything to make mornings with chronic illness easier. Healthy people often wake up at least feeling a little more rested than they did the night before, but when you have a chronic illness you often wake up feeling worse. Sometimes it feels like you’ve been hit by a ton of bricks as your body drags you unwillingly back to an awakened state. All you want to do is stay and bed and hide from the world, but most of the time that isn’t really an option. So how can you make those mornings easier?
1. Give yourself plenty of time to get up and get moving
This one is a hard one for me because I have kids that have to get to school on time, so I have to get up earlier than I would like. And scheduling extra time to get out of bed means I have to get up even earlier. However, I do a lot better when I give myself a few minutes to stretch and a few minutes to mentally prepare myself for the day ahead.
2. Take the time to eat a healthy breakfast
I’m not great at this one either because I’m often in a rush to get out the door. I tend to grab an apple and call it good. However, I do notice a difference in how I function when I take the time to eat an actual breakfast. It helps me to be for focused mentally, and definitely gives me more energy.
3. Stretching/Yoga
I’m a huge proponent of yoga for chronic illness. While many doctors lecture their sick patients about exercise, they often don’t take the time to explain how exercise affects each of our bodies and illnesses differently. If you life with chronic fatigue or excruciating pain, lifting weights and running marathons is probably not a great idea. Yoga is a gentler way of building up strength. Yoga can sometimes be portrayed as exercise available to only flexible people, but there are many different types of yoga. There’s yoga programs out there specially designed for older people, back pain, leg pain, to promote energy, Fibromyalgia, arthritis etc. Once you find the right program it can be a great way to start off your morning.
Yoga isn’t going to cure any illness (despite what some people say), but it can:
- reduce stress
- lesson fatigue
- lower pain levels
- improve your immune system
- improve flexibility
4. Focus on one day at a time
Sometimes when I wake up and I already feel terrible I feel completely overwhelmed. I start thinking of the week ahead and wondering how in the world I’m going to make my reluctant body function. This is obviously not a great way to start the morning. Lately, I’ve been trying to take one day at a time. I wake up and start thinking about what I need to do to get through that day, and that day only. This helps me to not feel as overwhelmed.
5. Establish a routine
Your mornings are not going to look like they did when you were healthy. It’s important to establish a new routine that works for your illness. You’ll have to make adjustments here and there based on your health and circumstances, but the hard days will feel less overwhelming if you have an established routine. If you’re used to rolling out of bed and doing yoga first thing, even on the hard days you can roll out of bed and do some basic stretching (or even do it in bed!).
While none of these tips are going to make an illness disappear, they can help you to function better with your chronic illness. Hopefully, they make it a little easier to get out of bed and face the world when your body doesn’t want to cooperate with you.
Great suggestions Shelley. I think one thing you realize with chronic illness is that if you don’t look after yourself no one else will. I am like you and you and use to rush out the door with my apple and carrot. Now I am not working I take time for breakfast. What’s your best healthy breakfast? We are going into Winter her in Oz and I am really enjoying oats and oat bran and flaxseeds. Miraculously my fingernails, which forever split, are now getting quite strong.