Maintaining your emotional and physical health may be hard, especially within the year of the pandemic. Maintaining it while also juggling life with chronic illness may be even harder for those living with a chronic condition.
Here are seven tips that we thought of so you do not have to:
1. Get to know your mind and body
The best advocate for your mental and physical well-being is you, so get to know your mind and body intimately. Chronic illness and chronic pain manifest differently in each person and may be expressed in a variety of ways, too. If you have a diagnosis for your ailment, do a little research about your condition to prepare you to be the best advocate for your health. When you know how to describe your experience with illness, others are compelled to listen.
2. Give medication a try
Obtaining medication, especially prescription medication, for your diagnosis may come with varying difficulty depending on your individual diagnosis or condition. Access to specific medicines may also depend on where you are geographically located, as well. However, with an Rx card from USA Rx, you can qualify for coupons on your prescriptions with their free discount card. USA Rx offers coupons on brand name and generic medications and searches several of the nation’s lowest pharmacy discount sources to find prescription discount cards and coupons that will work for you.
3. Try meditation, mindfulness, and breathing exercises.
Mindfulness is a nice supplement to medication to help maintain your emotional and physical health. It may seem difficult to carve out time dedicated solely to quiet time or you and your body, but the NIMH suggests tending to your mental health because depression can persist long after physical symptoms are managed or even cured. Depression is common in those who may also be diagnosed with:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Cancer
- Heart Disease
- HIV/AIDS
- Epilepsy
- Lupus
- Parkinson’s disease
- Rheumatoid arthritis
4. Make preparations
When trying to put your mind and body at ease, you can also achieve financial ease by making some preparations ahead of time. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, any individual with a chronic illness and an existing insurance policy may qualify for a viatical life settlement. Each life settlement company considers several factors, such as the type of condition, the policy’s face value, insurance premiums, among other relevant information, for your settlement when assessing your sum of money. American Life Fund can help you with your viatical settlement with licensed brokers who can facilitate and negotiate viatical settlement contracts.
With the American Life Fund, viators may receive a lump sum of money immediately through a viatical settlement provider without having to wait for an insurance producer for the expected death benefit of the policy, which can be especially beneficial to those who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.
5. Seek counseling with trained therapists.
Take care of your brain with the help of trained professionals at a mental health care facility with a therapy service that suits your individual needs. If you are located within the eastern region of the United States, the Ross Center offers therapy services in three locations: New York, Northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The Ross Center treats anyone from children and adolescents, teenagers and adults, to even parents, families, and couples who would like to be seen by a compassionate professional on the patient care team.
Your brain is a part of your body, so treat it like one. Mental health professionals are just a phone call or email away from getting you the care that you need.
6. Journal or keep track of your symptoms as well as your mental and emotional health.
Journaling may be a self-care tool for many, but it also has other positive qualities. Take inventory of your emotional health while also tracking your day-to-day symptoms or levels of pain in a journal, calendar, or whatever works best for you. It may be helpful to you and your doctors to have personal documentation of your experiences with your illness, as medical professionals may ask you to describe your symptoms as they affect you in your everyday life during appointments or medical exams.
7. “Shop around” for your ideal doctor.
Many people who have experienced severe illness or chronic pain will mention that they had to “shop around” to find the perfect doctor for them and their unique medical needs (if you have the finances to do so). Try to find a provider under your insurance whom you trust and whose professional opinion you trust too.
Remember, you are your best advocate for your mental, emotional, and physical well-being as you continue to try to find the right medical professional and care center for you.
