recovery Archives - The Health Sessions

5 Reasons Why You Should Explore Alternative Therapy Care for Chronic Illness

This article is written by Pat Tiffin.

The only option to maintain a good quality of life with chronic illness is symptom management. More and more in recent years, patients are turning to complementary and alternative therapies to improve their health outcomes.

Conventional treatment often leans heavily on medication. Though pharmaceuticals can be helpful in symptom management, quality of life is a whole different issue. For example, ‘mild side effects’ from drugs that manage high blood pressure (hypertension) can include nervousness, coughing, diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, lethargy and even skin rash. Although your body may adjust over time, symptom management by medication could reproduce new symptoms.

Granted, there’s nothing life-threatening in that list of side-effects, but if you weren’t taking medication and felt sick like that, you’d probably take yourself to the doctor.

How You Can Enjoy Safe Exercise at Home With Chronic Illness

This article is written by Jacklyn Donalds.

Exercise can and should be considered an important part of your strategy in combatting chronic illness – considering its important effect on aspects such as depression, weight maintenance, and vitality. While some of the most common chronic illnesses in America – including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, won’t necessarily keep you at home, if you are in recovery or your illness has affected aspects like strength, balance, and flexibility, building your fitness at home can be beneficial in many ways. Research by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who exercise report better sleep than those who don’t. Quality is as important as quantity, and there are specific criteria that need to be met for sleep to be truly restorative and reinvigorating.

Don’t Take My Breath Away: 10 Sports That Can Improve Your Asthma Condition

This article is written by Hannah Belger.

Sometimes it feels like exercising and asthma are a match made in hell. Although working out can trigger shortness of breath or other symptoms, having asthma doesn’t have to keep you on the bench. In fact, some Olympic athletes have this condition and still manage to take the medals home.

If you have asthma, you can successfully exercise with proper guidance and treatment, and even benefit from the physical activity. Although there are no sports that should be off limits to people suffering from asthma, there are some activities that will probably trigger asthma symptoms because you have to be active for a long time. These include soccer, cross-country skiing, and ice hockey. On the other hand, there are those that can have a positive impact on your health and help you stay in shape.

Here is a list of activities you could include in your daily routine without worrying you will run out of breath.

What to Do after Receiving a Cancer Diagnosis

This article has been written by dr. Garvita Arora for CancerBro.

Being diagnosed with cancer has a major impact on the person’s life rigorously affecting their everyday routine, lifestyle, work and emotions. More than 24 million people have received a diagnosis of cancer over the past 5 years worldwide with more than 40% reporting of challenges in accomplishing some of their daily activities. While there is not a definite answer to what you must certainly do after receiving a diagnosis, this article will show you ways to cope with your physical and emotional health after receiving a cancer diagnosis.

Having cancer puts you at the edge of asking questions about the prognosis of cancer, how serious your cancer is, in how long will you be cured and will you be treated at all. It is normal to ask all these sorts of questions from your physician and oncologist in order to gain clarity about your diagnosis. Feel free to ask as many questions from your cancer group and understand what kind of treatment is the best suited for you.

Enquire about your treatment options and also about the side effects, because they are very likely to occur. Being aware of the side effects of your treatment at the earliest stage will help you in taking protective measures at the earliest. Ask your doctor how severe your side effects could be and how you should manage them. Also ask how your diagnosis is expected to affect your daily lifestyle: can you regularly go to work and have a routine social life? It’s important to seek your doctor’s advice for the management of your condition.

8 Mind Tricks to Cope with Chronic Pain | The Health Sessions

8 Mental Techniques to Cope with Chronic Pain

There’s an overwhelming amount of advice available about how to reduce pain. But how exactly do you deal with pain that won’t go away?

Millions of people around the world suffer from pain that continues beyond the expected period of healing. When you experience chronic pain, your body is in a constant state of fight-or-flight. This on-going stress damages your body and even changes the neural circuits in your brain. Chronic pain can also lead to depression, anxiety, sleeping disorders and avoidant behavior, which in turn worsen your existing pain.

Everyone copes with pain differently, but some ways are more effective and constructive than others. When it comes to chronic pain, there’s one group of strategies you may easily overlook: how to manage pain with your mind.