Find greater happiness despite the challenges of living with a chronic health condition.

People who live with chronic illness deal with a number of stressors. Illnesses such as arthritis, fibromyalgia and lupus, among others, require physical changes, lifestyle modifications, and new treatments. Emotional pain, sadness, anger and fear are common in people who live with chronic illness. Further, one of the most common responses to being diagnosed is the desire to return to a time when your body was healthy. Since there are no cures for most chronic illnesses, returning back to “normal” is unrealistic. However, developing resilience can make living with chronic illness easier.

Research has found that the stress associated with chronic illness has an effect on your immune system and can be detrimental to your overall health. The best way to manage chronic illness stress is to make choices that can help to improve your mood and overall health through resilience. You can and will bounce back by adjusting to your new situation and learning to grow despite setbacks.

What Is Resilience?

Resilience is the ability to bounce back willingly from illness or depression or other adversities. Being resilient doesn’t mean that you won’t experience stress or pain. In fact, it is normal to feel sadness or grief as you find a balance between being chronically ill and experiencing good health. And the road to resilience will require you to work through painful emotions.

Resilience isn’t something we are born with. It is something that develops as we grow and find knowledgeable and skillful ways to manage our lives. It also comes from our most supportive relationships – our parents, our peers and our educators - as well as beliefs and traditions. Resilience is found in our behaviors and our thoughts and is something we learn over to time to help us cope with and get through the hurdles that we experience in life.

Developing Resilience

Developing resilience through a positive outlook about the future may seem impossible at first, but it can be accomplished. Here are three ways to help you develop resilience.

Connecting With Others: We are not alone in living with chronic illness. It takes mere minutes to get online and connect with others who share your same struggles and worries about chronic illness. They have all been there, they have heard it all, and they are more than happy to encourage you along the way.

Go ahead, reach out to others or lend an ear. You will never feel alone when you find support among others who can relate the challenges you face daily.

Taking Care of Yourself: By making lifestyle changes, taking medication as prescribed and maintaining a healthy diet, you are working towards reducing stress and managing your overall health. Further, being active is a powerful tool to help you develop resilience as you work though the daily challenges imposed by your chronic illness. Moreover, physical activity increases your body’s feel-good endorphins, thereby improving mood and furthering your resilience.

Remember that if you find you are struggling to cope and your resilience is low and affecting your daily living, it is important to reach out to a mental health professional. A therapist can help you to work through the obstacles that can keep you from developing resilience and maintaining a healthy life.

Finding a New Normal: From the moment of diagnosis, chronically ill people are forced to find a new normal. There is no way any of us can ever go back to the lives that we were accustomed to before being diagnosed and before being sick and in pain. There is no denying that chronic illness changes us and our lives. Moreover, your outlook on life is permanently altered and if you are not careful, chronic illness will divide you from the people and the life that you love. But through effective resilience skills, you can productively create a new normal.

Just remember, your new normal doesn’t shut out the people who love you, and it does not separate you from healthy people who don’t understand your challenges. Your new normal fights to cope, heal and live with the challenges imposed by chronic illness. Your new normal should feel good and create balance. It should not be filled with anger, depression or regret. Your normal is going to be different than anyone else’s, and that is fine. Fine-tune your normal and be content with it.

Resilience and Happiness

Resilience and happiness are closely linked. Through support, taking care of ourselves, and developing a new definition of “normal,” we can still experience joy even when chronic illness seems to dominate our lives. We can still find pleasure and meaning by making good health choices and from the actions that lead us to overcome challenges.

To learn more about this topic:

The Power of Social Networks for Health
5 Tips to Manage Chronic-Illness Grief
Newly Diagnosed? 10 Tips to Becoming Your Own Best Advocate