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Dealing with Illness-Related Stress

It’s stressful to be sick, especially if it’s a serious illness, and illness-related stress can make you even sicker. Dealing with illness-related stress is very difficult, because it is multi-factorial, while not dealing with it can be a killer… literally.

This article will discuss four aspects of dealing with illness-related stress: the illness itself, enforced lifestyle change, financial concerns, and social support.

Illness and Stress

Being sick sucks. Being very sick sucks even more, and it triggers the stress response. The stress response is your body’s way of meeting a threat, and serious illness is very definitely a threat. Unfortunately, the stress response isn’t very efficient when the threat is serious illness.

The chemicals your body releases when you are stressed reduce your body’s ability to fight off disease, making it harder to digest food and convert that food into energy for healing. In illness-related stress, the stress response works against you, not for you.

When you are sick, it is even more important than usual to eat a healthy diet and get some exercise and fresh air. It is also harder to do those things, so you have to make a point of it. As much as you are able, eat well and get a little exercise every day.

Other things that may help you manage illness-related stress are stress management techniques, spiritual practices, increased social support, and counseling.

Enforced Lifestyle Change

One of the reasons for illness-related stress is that you are nearly always forced to make lifestyle changes. Things are out of your control, and we humans need control. The more control you need, the more stressful enforced lifestyle changes will be for you. 

Spiritual practices, such as prayer, are helpful for some people in managing the illness-related stress of lifestyle change, as well as social support. People who have high control needs may want to talk to a counselor who can help them sort out their control issues.

It’s helpful in this situation to control whatever you can. You do not have to do everything everybody tells you to do. You are responsible for yourself, and for taking care of yourself. If your daughter wants you to drink lots of vegetable juice when the only thing that sounds good is fresh peaches, eat peaches. If your friends want you to get out more and it exhausts you, decline and ask them to visit you instead.

Financial Concerns

Being sick in the United States of America is a very expensive proposition. You may not be able to work as much as usual and have lost income, but medical care is expensive, whether you have insurance or not.

Dealing with financial stress is difficult, because there are few resources there to help. A social worker may be able to help you, and if resources exist, a social worker will know about them. You can usually find a social worker at your local hospital or through the Department of Health and Social Services.

You may have to give up your pride and receive help from the people who care about you. If your children, parents, or friends want to help you financially, you may need to graciously accept it.

Social Support

Your best defense against illness-related stress may be the social support of family and good friends. Accepting love and care from others takes the burden off of you. Maybe it’s accepting meals from church ladies, or letting someone worry about getting the kids to soccer practice.

Allowing people to help you helps them, since they are expressing their love for you in a practical way. As you allow them to help you, you’ll realize that you are blessed to have people who care about you – you’ll be grateful, and at least some of your illness-related stress will dissolve.