Studies have shown that after 6 lessons in Mindfulness patients with COPD have shown significant improvement in exacerbation and improvements in emotional function. Mindfulness Exacerbation. How Do You Handle Your Exacerbation? They have also experienced greater pain reduction with increased attention span along with better sleep and improved overall well-being, While in Respiratory Rehab I began to study Cognitive Behavioural Techniques. It was there that I began to journal every day and to get a better understanding of myself and what my body was telling me.
Mindfulness Makes an Exacerbation Easier
Staying in the moment with your commitment to self-care along with a willingness to be relieved of stress and anxiety. You should have the intention to be present by giving yourself permission to use all of your senses and accepting what is happening without trying to change it and by making thoughtful choices in the moment
You don’t set aside a time of day to be mindful, with practice we become mindful all day, everyday
Mindfulness Exacerbation Makes Pacing and Slowing Down Necessary
Slowing down and focusing only on the task at hand while pacing yourself and taking as much time as you need to carry out what you are doing. Connecting with all 5 of your senses and acknowledging the feelings of happy or sad, mad or glad and then letting those feelings go. Studies have shown that mindfulness improves your emotional function while increasing your attention span simply by staying in the moment and concentrating on what you are doing. It also reduces pain and increases your overall well-being including sleeping. Mindfulness, it is said, improves your overall quality of life.
Practising Mindfulness
Writing
Visiting your journal on a twice a day basis is being mindful and is good practice for you to better understand your symptoms. Writing about what happened, what you felt, what you saw, the things you heard. What have you observed about writing in you journal?
After you keep it going for a few days and you will realize more of what is happening and understand why it is happening.
Hopefully, you will begin to fully understand your symptoms of short of breath and what triggers them and be better able to explain it your doctor. https://catchyourbreath60.com/health-tracker-journal-join-us
Walking
Feeling the sensation of your feet hitting the ground and feeling your weight as you shifting from leg to leg is part of mindfulness.
Notice the weight of you arms and your hands as you shift from side to side.
Touch and feel the textures of what surrounds you. Notice the cracks in the sidewalk and the pull of walking up or down a hill, remember the smell of the flowers and hear the birds.
Waking in nature allows you to create an experience, using all five senses. Store this experience in your mind and recall when your situation is not so good. It was this recall I used when I woke up vented with hands tied to the bed.
Mindfulness Breathing
Most of the 20,000 breathes taken each day are shallow breathes. Make abdominal breathing a twice daily habit and do it with an intention of increasing lung capacity and cleaning out residual carbon dioxide.
Sitting or laying if you can, with shoulders back and your chin pointing to your chest and placing a hand on your stomach.
Take a deep cough. Do you feel that part of your abdomen that popped out? That is you diaphragm. Keeping one hand on your diaphragm take a breath deep enough to move your diagram. This is diaphragmatic Breathing, it is breathing at its best.
Now to practice, take a deep breath in through your nose counting to 7. Holding that breath for the count of 5 while imagining your lungs expanding. Then release that air through pursed lip for the count of 10.
Writing A Gratitude Journal Helps You Through Exacerbation
Being grateful allows us to turn those bad times into good opportunities. Gratefulness allows us to accept positive energy into our lives.
Keeping a list of positive gives us more opportunities to attract more of those good things. Our life allows us to focus on the good things that happen and not the bad things.
Making a list of 5 things you are grateful for today. Begin with a prompt such as, “This is what happened to me today” and then expanding in your story. Talk about your exercise and any other accomplishments.
If you can’t think of what to be grateful for, take you mind back to the worse day of your life, now expand on how lucky you were to have survived it and why you are grateful that time is over.
Eating A Proper Diet Helps Alleviate Exacerbation
only when you feel hungry and stop eating when you are full. Keep your space clean by cleaning before and after eating and removing all clutter from your space. Turn off all electronics including your phone and the TV. Use the fine china, using small plates and utensils and eating in a designated place.
Make good food and healthy snacks to encourage good eating habits.
Consume your food slowly, taking small bites and chewing slowly so you can taste the food. Put your fork down between bites and savor the flavours and smell to fully enjoy the experience.
Writing in your food journal after each meal. Noting the textures and tastes and how you felt leading up to the meal as well as after it was over and why.
Practice Makes Perfect To Get You Past an Exacerbation
Mindfulness practice gives us control over what is happening. How we respond to what is happening along with how we react to everyday situations.
Breathing through this grounding exercise helps you control your thoughts and brings you back to the present.
Everything we do can become an experience. As we store successful experiences in our mind our recall helps us to stay grounded without anxiety.
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All of these are essential to staying healthy, whether preventatively or to work your way back to healthy. Great tips.
thank you for your kind words.
A positive attitude/being grateful and eating right are two big things I try to practice every day. Those are so important.
I honestly get distracted easily, and I twnd to multitask most of the times. But writing really helped me prioritize things. Thanks for this helpful piece!
Multitasking is a the worst thing ever. It is the catalyst to everything that is wrong in our lives now. Bosses are asking us to more and more until we are bent and broken. Keep writing, there is nothing like putting pen to paper. Thank you for the comments.
Hi Joy, I recognize your name. Thank for joining Tea Time, Let me know if you show up tomorrow. Thank you for taking the time to comment today.
I rush through food a lot, and my wife is not pleased about it. I will take time to learn to take it easy at the table.
I find that counting slowly keeps me on track. Thank you for commenting
Thank you Barbara!!! This is great info, I will practice, I watch tea time too.
Journals are so helpful with so many things, I love just writing in mine because I love all of my different pens and it helps keep me calm.
They are very helpful and will give us a trend pattern to show us how we got here. Thank you for commenting
Follow the link below to find my journal videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxY2BXO5Jsg7nSfit9p1kww?view_as=subscriber
Best Regards,
Barbara Moore
I love this! I am so used tackling so many things at hand that I lose the sense of the significance of what I am doing. What an awesome post to reflect on.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. Very much appreciated.
Wonderful tips, especially the section on gratitude. Consciously focusing on the positive happening in your life something we can each to daily to re-direct our thoughts.
Thank You. So glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for commenting
It is much easier to be happy. That is for sure. Thank you for commenting
This is good to know! Distractions are easy to fall into. I can see how being more mindful could approve a person’s wellbeing.
Thank you for commenting Candace. I appreciate you taking the time to write today.
I would love to practice mindfulness more often and actually get into the habit of having a mindful life without having to “try”. It can be very overwhelming trying to do it all as a busy stay at home/work at home mom!
It is hard at the beginning but it gets easier and soon you are practising without realizing. Thank you for your comments
I actually use a wellness happy planner to do this. It has really brought me a lot of peace and an attitude of gratitude.
That is a great idea and it puts a new so=pin on it when pen touches paper. Thank you for commenting.
With a two year old and a newborn at home I definitely need to improve in this area. Thank you for the implemtable tips
Thank you for taking the time to comment
I want to practice mindfulness. I am always distracted especially while eating. I’ll try maintaining a food journal. 😊
Highly educative article.It is so easy to get distracted in this fast paced life. Mindfulness practice helps us to master it over time & add to our well being.
Yes it is. Thank you for commenting
I love incorporating Mindfulness in my life – it’s vital for managing pain of chronic illnesses. The suggestions you’ve made for using it while doing everyday activities like walking and eating are so beneficial – thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to comment today.
everyday, i try to walk for at least 30 minutes to clear my mind and connect with my body! it’s easy to get caught up in a busy schedule and forget to make time for yourself. as a result, we are stressed, unproductive, and grumpy. being mindful allows me to see things clearly and see the good in life even during a challenging time!
Good for you Sharon, It is a vital part of your mental health. Thank you for your comments
It is interesting that gratitude is on the list of things to focus on. As your blog shows, it is important beyond being polite. It actually can help you on a mental level. Very interesting.
Thank you for taking the time to comment today.
Mindfulness is a powerful tool for those of us who live with a variety of chronic illnesses. This was a really useful review of all the small ways we can incorporate mindfulness in the every day. Thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to comment today
A gratitude journal is a great way to combine writing and being grateful. When you sit down and actually focus on all the good things in your life, it’s eye-opening. I also like to get out into nature–I think that really helps with being mindful. Life is usually slower for me when I’m outside. I can focus on relaxing, breathing, and being present.
Though I can’t imagine what it’s like to have COPD I do understand the importance of being mindful and present. As someone who works in the pharmaceutical field, I am all too familiar with the disease. Do things at your own pace. I love what you said about being grateful. It is something I am trying to practice more and more on a daily basis. Each day we’re upright is positive. 🙂 I’m going to read more about your journey.
Thank you for your kind words
Thank you for your kind thoughts. Please feel free to have a look around my site.
Thank you. I appreciate that.