Food, Exercise and Rest. Improve Your Brain Health and Get Stronger to Fight MS

Today’s article is centered on a topic that has been part of my MS management strategy since the month of being diagnosed. It’s the first thing that came to mind: how can I take care of my body in order to minimize the possible effects this condition might have on me at some point.

It might seem like common sense to eat well, get your body moving and having a good night’s sleep, but in dealing with MS, they become crucial, as your body is attacking itself and needs all the help that it can receive in order to have a chance to fight back.

MS is primarily or at its early stages an inflammatory disease. To me it makes a lot of sense to do your best to reduce that inflammatory state. All these three elements are potent inflammation fighters, if used right and on a regular basis.

FOOD

Our bodies constantly renew cells, giving us new tissues, organs and a whole new body in just a few years. This is why what we eat it crucial to our health. 

Imagine your body as a dirty glass, the dirt in it being all the junk and processed foods we have, all the toxins and damage done by intestinal inflammatory processes throughout our lives. And now imagine opening the faucet and letting fresh water pour over the glass. What happens? At first, nothing much, the water fills the cup and then overflows. But if you let it on, the dirt will finally clean away, it will melt and let the glass cleaner. Not entirely clean, there will be harder bits remaining (scars), but you’ll end up with a clearer vessel. 

Eating healthy foods and as little processed or cooked as possible will get you similar results. Stick to it, make it part of your identity. Train to battle MS.

EXERCISE

Exercise is another must-do when your body faces getting weaker. Long story short: MS aims to get us totally paralized. There! I’ve said it! It gives me chills everytime I think or say it, but it is a fear I understood I must face from this year onwards. It has been at the back of my mind for a while now. But you know what they say about your “enemies”: keep them closer than your “friends”. And this year I will do just that: face my fears, say them out loud.

It’s the same thing as when my mother and I took our first airplane flight together. It was a first for the both of us, but she was more scared than I was. I don’t know exactly why, but heights don’t scare me. Not being in control does. So, she was so anxious about turbulences and getting safe to our destination and although I tried to calm her down, she had her fears. So I decided to say her (our) fear out loud: “What is the worst thing that could happen? The airplane falls down and we die. That’s it! Can we prevent it? Can we do something about it? Then why bother? Worrying is of no help. Just enjoy the ride!”. She looked surprised and a bit shocked, but in the end she agreed with me.

Likewise, what is the worse that can happen with MS? You can become paralyzed, have major pain or die. Can you prevent it? Can you control it? Can you do something about it? No, but you can make the ride the best it can possibly be. The ride is your life and you can help yourself by moving your body. Do whatever you can do. 

We all have different capabilities and MS affects us in different ways. There are MSers who do thriathlons and others who are bed bound. There are people who are afraid to get heated up or to get out of the house. There are people who have pain and decide that they can’t push through.

But YES, YOU CAN! YES, YOU CAN! “Use it or lose it” one expression used to say. I’m not mean, I’m not forcing you do do anything that you can’t or don’t feel comfortable doing. It’s just that I saw it to be possible. I see examples of people that do it. Of course that at the same time there are people who can’t. There are all kinds of situations. There are all kinds of snowflakes. #NoTwoTheSame, as Shift.ms says.

Our bodies are made for movement. As long as you can crawl, do that. Get better ar crawling. There is no shame in wanting to survive. There is no shame in wanting to live and get better. People make it so hard by having big egos, by being so influenced by what other people say about them, about being judged.

It might sound unbelievable to you, it might seem like I’m B.S.ing you, but little by little, I come to understand that there is no ego, there is nothing to be ashamed about. It is all in our minds. We humans are independent beings, and when we face losing that, we get scared, we refuse to accept it. But at the end of the day, who are you to feel that way? There are thousands of people going through the same battle everyday. Some push through. Be one of those people. Constantly. Make it a life quest: "Be on top of all my struggles!"

Be dignified enough to push through the struggle. It’s the hardest thing you might need to do, but it’s why God allows you to live. To make a difference, to be humble and to be more open to what others are going through. We are so selfish and think that our lives are the most impacted ever.

Open your eyes and see how many are in the same or even worse situations. Stop complaining and start acting and doing something to fight back. Get on that eliptical and peddal for as long as your body alows you, stretch your upper body half while sitting in the wheelchair, smile if you are bedbound.

You are a wonderful human being. Don’t feel sorrow. We all face the same end. There’s no need to make the road there even harder than it is. Cry, hit something, yell, journal, confess to a priest, pray, get it out of your system.

And then smile. It calms your soul.

REST

Sleep is the key element that binds the first two together. We eat, we move, but the body needs to rest and recuperate after all this effort. It needs to regenerate the organs, to recharge your energy supplies and to tend to the body. 

We sleep in 1 and a half stages. It has been recommended to sleep at least 5 stages like this, meaning a minimum of 8 hours a night in order for sleep to be efficient.

Of course, when you have MS and fatigue as a symptom, no amount of sleep can make you feel rested, I agree. But you must go with the flow. Do your best in managing your daily activities and hacking the life out of your tasks, as to help the body recharge. I’ve writter about this here. I will also come back with even more details about sleep and how well it correlates to what you eat and how you move.

INSTEAD OF A CONCLUSION

Nobody said that you can cure MS by doing these three things. That would be just junk talk, delusional and counterproductive. When MS hits you, cause it will, it’s best to be prepared and a little more stronger than you were yesterday. You’ll get through it with possible less damage, you’ll raise up the chances of recovering faster after a relapse. 

These three are not miracle cures, are not whishful thinking, but ways through which you can take care of yourself, in which you can help your body cope with life with MS.

It’s like healing the wounded. It’s fighting back. It’s not giving up, accept your faith and drown yourself in anger and frustration. Be assertive! Take control of your life as well as you can.

Why give in? Why be a victim? Choose to live!

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Until next time, make the SMart Choices for your lifestyle.

Love,

Alexandra

How To Silence Your Ego & Get Your Joy Of Living Back

Remember the moment the doctor told you that you have multiple sclerosis. Your entire world collapsed, right? You thought that your life was over then and there and that nothing else mattered. Probably the voice inside your head still shuts you down from the world outside, keeping you away from new experiences and positive emotions. That’s just your Ego telling you to survive. Let’s see how you can tame it and get your joy of living back.

What Is The Ego And What Does It Want From You?

The Ego is that part of your psyche that thinks about itself to be all-powerfull. You are probably thinking “what is she talking about? what is this woo-woo things she writes?”. But the Ego is just that: the conscious feeling you have of being alive and of being yourself. The Ego is just all your knowledge, your lessons learned, all the things that people told you from an early age untill now. It is how you see yourself in the mirror when you wake up. It sums up what you think about yourself to be true, and what you learned along the way.

A chronic illness diagnosis is a new and scary thing to live with. We are all scared of what we don’t know and we react to that with fear and anxiety. No matter how we try to rethink it, our Ego steps in the way and pulls the alarm system: “you need to survive this!”.

Think of the Ego as the little voice you hear in your head throughout the day. It’s that voice telling you that you’d better stay indoors today, as your energy is low and you can’t do much. It tries to trick you into staying into the comfort zone.

Lifestyle Shift

Change has never been easy or quick. Adapting to life’s new challenges takes time and practice. By not doing something to regain control, your mind will always be slowly whispering “you need to survive this!”, keeping you in a state of anxiety, fear and anger. There are so many ways these three things are damaging for you. To summarize it, I need to say that in order to survive this, you need to shake them off.

How do you do this? With patience and repetition. You challenge yourself daily. You set goals for yourself. You express a purpose to motivate you in living the life you need to live in order to survive. Let’s make peace with your Ego. I’ll help you with this, I’ve been there!

The “real you” is beyond the Ego. It’s that strenght you find when you think none is left. It’s that gut feeling you experience just before you take a decision. It’s that part of you that feels good when receiving a hug. The real you commands your Ego. It all begins with quieting the mind. It begins with standing still and allowing yourself to JUST BE. Breathe and explore how it feels to be in your body, how do you feel, how do you think, etc. Every day.

Educate Yourself

First things first: educate yourself on your condition. Find out what your symptoms are and what triggers them. Then start to minimize as much as possible the situations that get you in those states. Knowledge is indeed power, and as long as you are informed, you’ll gain power over your MS and considerably reduce the fear of the unknown.

Relax & Take It Slow

Second thing is to take it slow. Life can be hectic nowadays. We are all busy, we all want fast ways or tricks to deal with different situations. Well, I have news for you: MS doesn’t like being hurried. It feeds on stress, on exhaustion and overdrive. Learn how and what to do to relax.

This might be different from person to person. I personally learned yoga, meditation and daily journaling help me deal with my daily challenges. For you it might be speding a relaxing evening with your family or talking slow walks before dinner, maybe listening to your favourite songs. We are all different and different things work better for each and every one of us. Just try whatever fits your lifestyle and be persistent.

Have An Active Lifestyle

Third thing is to stay active. It’s one of the most important things you’ll ever do for your body and your health.

What happens in MS? Your body gets disconnected from your brain, making you unable to use movement. Why are you trying to help MS get it’s way?

Get up off the couch/chair/bed and MOVE! Even if you are bound to a wheelchair you CAN move. Do whatever you can in order to be active every day. A little goes a long way. Through daily repetitions and exercise, your body will slowly regain strenght, as your brain might begin to establish new or alternative connections to help you execute the things you want to do with your body.

I myself have days when I feel so fatigued that I don’t have the mood or energy for doing any of this. But I still make myself get up, stretch, breathe deeply and use my body in one way or another. There is a saying: “use it or lose it!”. Scary, but true! So go an move. Get up and walk, run if you can. Do whatever you can, but DON’T STOP MO-VING!

Have A Healthy Diet

The fourth thing and the second most important one in your daily lifestyle is nutrition. What you eat is fundamentally important when facing a chronic illness, especially MS! Choose healthy and foods, cook meals that keep the ingredients as close to their natural state as possible. Avoid toxins, packaged snacks and sweets. Avoid all that can damage your body chemistry.

Again, how does MS work? It attacks your myelin thinking it is a foreign body. Myelin is a type of fatty protein that insulates your axons. The food you eat can be natural, helping your body have all the nutrients that make it work better, or… It can be sugary, processed and inflammatory, confusing your body into not knowing which protein is good or not anymore… what is natural and what is not, what needs to be accepted and what needs to be destroyed… And so your MS attacks once more, making your immune system destroy myelin.

A confused body makes chronic illnesses worse. We eat food to fuel our actions and grow a healthy body. We should not eat food just because it’s more available and because we got used to it.

The lifestyle you led up to this point made your body feel bad. Why continue doing the same things, hoping you’ll get different results? That’s insane!

I personally cut out all white flours (wheat, rye, oats, etc), all dairy, all refined sugars, all packaged foods (processed, canned). It’s not easy, I know, but your body will thank you for it. Trust me!

Rest & Let Your Body Recover

The fifth but not the least important is SLEEP! Leting your body rest is vital to your wellbeing. During the time you are sleeping, you heal. Information accumulated throughout the day is fixated in your long term memory, hormones are balanced, organs get toxins flushed out and most of all YOUR BRAIN TAKES A REST!

Taking care of your brain is essential in MS. Sleeping is for relaxing it as cross-word puzzles  and reading are for exercising it. From my experience, I recommend 7-9 hours of sleep per night. I know our lives can be busy and things need to get done. But without rest and keeping your energy levels up high the next day, we won’t be able to do much and will probably find ourselves in a viscious circle of fatigue and frustration.

I found that the better and longer I sleep, the more focused and energetic I am throughout the day. Feeling tired midday? NAP or rest for 5-10 minutes with your eyes closed (maybe during your lunch hour at work).

Wrapping Things Up!

Do whatever things are necessary in order to get back control over your life. In order to get the joy of living back. Your Ego is going to continue telling you that you need to survive, I’m not telling you that is gonna go away, but it’s going to do that less and less each day.

You are going to grow strong and feel more and more empowered by your new lifestyle. Your body will be healthier with each good and nutritious meal, with every workout, with every good rest it takes.

Untill the next post, keep making SMart Choices for your lifestyle with MS!

Yours truly,

Alexandra

P.S. Please let me know if you did any of these changes and how did they work for you and your condition. Share your answers on Facebook, Twitter (hashtag: #SMartMS) or write me an email at smartchoice.lifestylewithms@gmail.com. Thank you for reading!