Plan Flexibility

We've all been there. You go to bed feeling fine and have a list of things to do the next day that shouldn't be a problem. Until you wake up to a monumentally bad day and spend it limping around carefully, being very frustrated that you can't get to your list. Having a Plan  A, B and C can be good for your mental (and physical) health -- if you're too wrecked to clean the house, a less physically intensive task like paying the bills or making a few phone calls can help you feel productive even on days where you have to sit still and rest.

Rest

And speaking of rest, get some. Whether it involves curling up on the couch with a blanket and a good book or having a nap in the middle of the day, taking a rest can be an important part of maintaining your energy and reducing pain. After explaining for the 47th time that I wasn't napping as an indulgence, I renamed my mid-afternoon downtime to Mandatory Rest Periods. Feel free to use the term if you need to emphasize the necessity of a rest to clueless family and friends. If you need more reasons to nap, check out this article -- it has 19 of them.

Meditation

Taking 20-30 minutes a day for yourself to meditate makes you feel refreshed, relaxed and can help you get in touch with your body, enabling you to pay better attention to the messages it sends you. The audio program Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn is an excellent introduction to the practice of mindfulness which can be a tremendous help for people living with chronic illness and pain.  As an added bonus, the program also contains several meditation lessons.

Counseling

Counseling can do more than help you adjust after a diagnosis -- a good counselor can give you valuable coping mechanisms you can use for the rest of your life. Cognitive therapy can be especially valuable, as it helps you discover the way you think about your life and your disease and it can help you change your thinking, making it easier to live with a chronic illness. A pain management course is also a terrific idea, but if you can't find one in your area, try a course in stress management -- many of the coping skills you learn in a stress management course can be applied to living with pain.  Stress management courses are sometimes offered through your employer, colleges, continuing education courses, job centers or in numerous places on the internet.

You can read more of Lene's writing on The Seated View.