Distress Relief

If you fall and graze your knee, applying a band-aid will help keep the dirt out. The real healing takes place below the surface. So it goes with relieving stress and distress. Pain relievers and tranquilizers are like band-aids. To relieve distress you need to meet your body’s needs, and one of the most important one of these is sleep.

Sleep. My father used to say that when a dog is sick, it sleeps and doesn’t eat. Over the years, doctors marvelled at the way he bounced back after each health setback and told me secretly they thought he had the answer, but not to quote them because "it’s not scientific." But they were wrong. Two separate reports in 1996 and 1997 have shown that going without sleep lowers lymphocyte levels, suppressing the immune system, and leaving your body more susceptible to infection. Don’t fight off sleep. It’s your body’s way of saying, "I want down time. I can’t keep going." 

Exercise. Exercise can play a key role in restoring your bodymind’s balance. Regular physical exercise can help reduce anxiety and mild depression, distract you from your misery, and raise your self-esteem.  Exercise stimulates the production of endorphins, the body’s own morphine, to raise your pain threshold and help control any pain you may have. The most important benefit of exercise is that it is a series of movements over which you have complete control; any physical stress it may cause is under your command. Physical exercise should not be tiring. To reap its full benefits, choose an exercise you like, and do it for no more than twenty to thirty minutes a day.

Reach out. You may think that if you are seriously ill or undergoing a major crisis is the right time to keep a stiff upper lip and show everyone around you how strong you are, how independent you can be. If you had fallen into a raging torrent and someone reached out to save you, would you grab their hand and allow yourself to be saved, or would you say, "No thanks, I’ll tough this one out on my own"? It’s O.K. to ask for help from your family, friends, your doctor and other caregivers.

There’s a real downside to refusing help: apart from failing to relieve your distress, you may drive people away at a time when it is essential you maintain good social relationships. As Montagu reminds us in On Being Human, the more cooperative the group, the greater is the fitness for survival of all its members.

Reaching out for help also includes touching. Fear of contagion from cancer is so strong that many people pull away at a time when you most need the touch of their skin on yours. Touch is our first contact with reality. Throughout our lives, it provides our whole conception of what exists outside us. We can be deprived of all our senses, except touch, and still survive. Touch can stimulate or calm us; it is our first and most lasting association with love.

Do something for yourself. When you are seriously ill, this is not the time for you to carry on as before or pretend you’re in good health and can manage on your own. Your family and friends shouldn’t expect you to do all the things you did for them before your diagnosis. You need to make sure you get enough rest, food and exercise. You need time out to heal yourself.

Set aside as much time as you possibly can—anything from twenty minutes to an hour or more per day—to do the things you want to do for yourself. You will surely run out of time if you say you don’t have the time. You can’t afford to put your life on hold if you want to give yourself a chance of fulfilling your dreams and enjoying the companionship of your family and friends—or whatever—for months or years to come.

"But my family needs me," you say, or "I have to think of my wife and children first," or "Who’s going to pay the mortgage if I don’t?" If you regard yourself as the center of your family’s universe, or think you are indispensable, you not only have a misplaced sense of your own importance, you also have little faith in their ability to manage without you—which they will have to do anyway if you don’t get better.

Maybe you should take time out to find out why you regard it as more important to satisfy everyone else’s needs rather than your own at this point in your life—and do it now if you want to give yourself a chance of healing or to find the peace of mind that comes from accepting the inevitable.

Start a journal. Writing is no substitute for professional counselling, but it can help you express your feelings, your fears, your doubts and your hopes. Writing them out will help you focus on your day-to-day activities, and so help you keep track of how you are coping. As a bonus, it will help you gain new insights into yourself – especially if you regard what you write as private and for your eyes only.

It’s hard to resolve problems while they’re whirling around in your head. Putting pen to paper, finger to keyboard, helps you to see the issues that beset you in black and white. Seeing them in this detached way usually makes them more manageable, and it will keep you psychologically honest.

If you have any health or illness related questions you would like me to answer, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. My answers to your questions will be posted on our blog and it is my sincere hope these will be helpful to you.

In light and peace
Joel