The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique: How to Deeply Relax Your Body and Mind
Without even realizing it, you’ve been quietly working on an invisible CV every day since you became sick. This chronic illness résumé doesn’t list your titles or degrees, not even your diagnoses and medical records. No, it’s an inventory of all the achievements you didn’t get enough credit for.
Because there are no prizes for handling pain with grace. You don’t get a gold star for advocating for yourself in the doctor’s office after your symptoms have been dismissed before. Nobody sees the patience you need to have waiting for appointments, waiting for test results to return, waiting for your medications and therapy to start having positive effects. Life doesn’t give you any credentials for putting a smile on your face on days when you’re so exhausted you want to hide under the covers.
And yet, it takes hard-earned skill to live with chronic illness day in and day out. You have to learn how to listen to your body and interpret the sensations you’re feeling. You have to manage a rollercoaster of emotions, communicate your needs and limitations kindly but clearly, and navigate a complex medical system on limited energy. More than anything, you need resilience to bounce back after setbacks, because there are plenty of those.
Psychology actually has a word for the acquired repertoire of problem-solving skills, self-regulation and beliefs that you need to handle challenging situations: learned resourcefulness. Resourceful people talk themselves through stressful times, deal with difficult emotions, use helpful coping strategies and keep their confidence up. Research shows that this learned resourcefulness is key to achieving meaningful goals despite the obstacles on your way.
And that’s exactly what you’ve been cultivating, each time you’ve tried to pace your energy, experimented with ways to get practical things done with chronic illness, accepted your current reality without giving up hope for a better tomorrow. Even though there probably wasn’t anybody around to teach you this chronic illness curriculum, you’ve made it through.
You won’t receive a good grade on your report card for any of these skills. But you have every right to celebrate these tiny victories. Share your wins with someone who understands your struggles, treat yourself to your favorite meal or write down your small accomplishments down in your journal. And forget etiquette, toast to yourself (even if you’re having dinner by yourself)!
Because if no one has told you lately: your invisible chronic illness résumé is pretty impressive, and you earned every line on it.
For more in-depth advice on the psychological skills you need when living with chronic illness, check out:
