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How to Make the Most of Rest Days | The Health Sessions

47 Ways You Can Make the Most of Rest Days

Resting sounds so balanced and zen – until it’s something you have to do. When you live with chronic illness, the key to managing your precious energy is alternating activities with plenty of relaxation. Not to mention that thanks to the unpredictability of chronic illness, symptoms can flare up at any time, forcing you to stop and take a break.

At first, binge-watching your favorite series all day long feels fun. But when you’re stuck in bed a lot of the time, while you’d rather be doing something else, resting becomes dreadful, mind-numbingly boring and lonely.

So when you’re having another undesired rest day, is there anything you can do to make the most of your situation? In general, there are 3 strategies you can apply:

Focus on deep restoration and replenishing. By doing simple things that support your health, you may reduce your symptoms – or even the number of future rest days.
Have a better time. Who doesn’t want to feel more comforted and entertained when you’re sick?
Living your best life while being housebound. Of course this is not what you signed up for. But your illness doesn’t have to stop you from doing tiny things that are meaningful to you.

Obviously, what works for you depends a lot on your personal situation. Do you need to rest after doing something fun, or because you’re exhausted from folding laundry? Are you feeling really sick too? Do you live alone or do you have partners, kids or pets that require your attention?

Not all tips will work for everyone, but here’s a list of 47 ideas of how you can make the most of rest days.

3 Inspiring True Stories about Overcoming Illness

One of the hardest things about chronic illness is that there’s no end date. You have no idea when, if ever, you’re going to feel better again.

On days when it feels like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, transformational stories can be powerful tools to keep hope alive. During my sickest periods, I turned to books and movies about epic quests and kick-ass heroines overcoming hardship against all odds to spark my determination. And what’s more motivational than reading true stories about what others have done to overcome illness?

Don’t get me wrong: regaining your former health may not always be possible. No matter how hard you try, your body may not be able to heal itself. And that may be a harsh fact to accept. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve your quality of life and reach your own definition of recovery.

So fuel your motivation and determination with these 3 inspirational memoirs about overcoming illness.

How to Start Any Kind of Medical Diet

Food is medicine.

More and more medical experts agree that what you eat has a significant impact on your health. After all, nutrients like protein, healthy fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals are the building blocks or your body. And to function optimally, your body and brain require good fuel.

Unfortunately, Western diets high in refined sugars and trans fats cause insulin resistance and inflammation in the body, which contributes to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And it’s not just your physical health that’s affected by what you eat – the budding field of nutritional psychiatry also links the foods you consume to how you feel and behave.

It’s no wonder that a growing body of doctors are prescribing healthy foods as part of their treatment plan. What’s more, lots of chronically ill people themselves turn to wholesome diets to alleviate or manage their symptoms.

But with an overwhelming amount of information out there, where do you begin?

Take a look at these 10 psychological principles for starting any kind of medical diet.

How to Start Strength Training When You Have a Chronic Illness

We all know that strength training is key for keeping the body strong, maintaining a healthy weight and improving self-image. But if you have a chronic illness that comes with a host of unwanted symptoms like pain and fatigue (such as myalgia encephalomyelitis, Lyme, or fibromyalgia), the last thing you’d want to do is to hit the weight room.

But it’s still worth it. For those dealing with chronic illness, lifting weights may soothe and manage symptoms, increase energy, improve mobility and enhance life quality, research shows.

The niggling question is, how does one get started?

4 Top Physiotherapy Tips For Healthy Living

This article is written by Alyssa Moylan.

Do you think the term physiotherapy is a purely theoretical term? Well, let us tell you, physical therapy (PT) is something that we incorporate in our everyday lives without noticing much. All the stretches and finger flexing are part of relieving pain or pressure from an area, and that forms the base of physiotherapy. Besides the daily cricks, the more serious function of physiotherapy is to help people regain the use of their muscles and nerves to be able to move again. Be it old age, a genetic disorder or an accident or illness, a person who gets immobilized for a long time tends to lose sensations of the limbs and in order to ensure that the person is not permanently paralyzed, many doctors suggest physiotherapy.

Besides improving joints and muscular mobility, physiotherapy also helps in preventing injuries from overworking or even underworking. Further, a healthy lifestyle also requires some level of physical action and conditioning if you want to keep up with the fast pace of the world and achieve your dreams. And physiotherapy can be your companion in that.