Are We Sometimes Hurting Ourselves? | MyCOPDTeam

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Are We Sometimes Hurting Ourselves?
A MyCOPDTeam Member asked a question 💭

It seems I do things without thinking, that make me feel worse soon after. I eat meat or spicy foods for a late dinner. Many times that results in a night of propping up on 3 pillows and sipping water. Sometimes the results are even worse than that. Another big issue I have is stress. Why can't I remember that in a world of COPD, a few dirty plates in the sink just don't matter? So I was wondering, are there things that you find yourself doing that make things some things worse and nothing… read more

posted April 18, 2019 (edited)
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A MyCOPDTeam Member

@A MyCOPDTeam Member,good evening i think we all at one time or another over do it before we realize it. I'm at a stage now i can't do what i took for granted before COPD. As a friend once told me ( Nice and slow you'll soon will Glow, To fast you'll soon will Gasp ) xx

posted April 18, 2019
A MyCOPDTeam Member

To help relieve your stress, I am writing you a post that was in our local paper under the heading Police Blotter:
March 29: At 10:42 a.m., a person advised he got a call from another male reporting he had a suspicious substance in his front yard. Officers responded and advised the substance was snow.
We all deal with stress in different ways. Me, I bake. I used to let it eat at me. I refuse to let it do that anymore. If I need help with my house work, I call someone. I'm not going to beat myself up over it anymore. And you shouldn't either. Yell, if it helps. Talk to someone. Have a cupcake, coffee and sit for a while.

posted April 18, 2019
A MyCOPDTeam Member

@A MyCOPDTeam Member, good morning...been there, done that...yep, sometimes we do stuff that makes our breathing worse, but think the fact of the matter you are bringing up is that COPD makes big changes in our “routine” of life. Nobody likes change, we want to be who we were before COPD. We want to be able to go wherever we want (and not to have to worry if it’s windy or raining, or dusty outside), eat like we used to and not worry about it if will affect our breathing), keep everything nice and clean (“what if we died in our sleep and “they” found dirty dishes in the sink😉 -what would they think of us😳), etc etc etc...it’s frustrating, stressful, just tough. But keep talking to myself and saying things like, okay you got a bad deal, but others have it worse—and they look for a way to be positive - they inspire me.

The short of it is that yes, we hurt ourselves by being who we are, whatever that is. And COPD requires changes in that, and we don’t like it!🥴. But together, because each of us know how hard getting a good breath, a restful night’s sleep, etc can be. But we can find encouragement by being able to express just how ticked off we are sometimes at how hard this disease is, but help each other to find ways to cope.

So look forward to your quick wit, Kathy’s positive attitude, Ken’s humor, Ann’s trivia, Scooby’s encouragement, etc. together, we are stronger.

So I say, get a hot fudge sundae 😉, take that drive if you can, and be as happy as you can be, Life is a journey, and hopefully, along the way, we will be able to make another’s journey a little bit better because we are here.

Whoa! You get the inner person going very early in the day!😂. Hope your day is blessed🦋

posted April 18, 2019
A MyCOPDTeam Member

You can either stop doing some of the things that make you feel worse, slow down, hire a housekeeper or you could actually DO something that would help you and improve your life significantly. One of the best ways to deal with stress is exercise. Talk with your doc about beginning a daily exercise program. Maybe pulmonary rehab is available and that certainly works to get started. You could also join a gym and exercise with the rest of the world. Exercise is not only a great stress reliever, it's also good for losing weight, and most importantly, improving your breathing! To the person who said it took 45 minutes to change the bed, exercise could reduce that to the usual 10 minutes it used to take. Exercise won't cure you, but it will make whatever lung function you have much more efficient, making it a lot easier to do a lot more much more comfortably. Exercise works. Try it.

posted April 18, 2019
A MyCOPDTeam Member

@A MyCOPDTeam Member
I have a sign on my front door that says "Our house is lived in, it's not for show. If you don't like the mess, you know where to go."
I used to sell real estate, and once a week the office would tour the new listings. I used to walk through these homes and think that my house needed to look that neat, clean, and organized. Not possible, I had kids, dogs, and no maid.

posted April 19, 2019

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