Here's another brief report on my self-experimentation
progress, as I attempt to mitigate, as naturally as possible, the
symptoms of my newly-diagnosed Ulcerative Colitis, and ultimately
discover this autoimmune hyperactivity disease's cause and cure.
I've
just completed another correlation analysis of my self-experimentation
data. The latest changes to my regimen (adding a low-dose daily iron
supplement to treat my anemia, and re-starting my aerobic exercise
program) appear to have had no adverse effects on any aspect of my
health. The only significant change in the past week has been a modest
increase in my general sense of anxiety, and an increase in the amount
of sleep I am getting each night. The only variable that would seem to
account for these is Friday's third tapering-off (to 25mg/day) of the
steroid prednisone I will still have to take for another 9 weeks in
decreasing dose (to reduce the risk that my suppressed adrenal cortex
won't kick back in and start doing its autoimmune job again). These
steroids are known to cause severe insomnia, so the fact my sleep
duration has been inversely proportional to prednisone dose is not
surprising.
The increased general sense of anxiety, however, is
disappointing. I was hopeful that my body, in response to the disease,
had permanently altered my metabolism to force me to slow down, become
more resilient, and hence handle stress (the catalyst for UC attacks)
much better. The data, alas, suggest otherwise -- they suggest that the
prednisone was behind the euphoria and the wonderful mellowness that I
have felt for the past month. The NIH hilariously lists one of the main
side-effects of this drug as "inappropriate happiness". "Changes in
personality" are also reportedly common for high-dose steroid users.
My
"personality" seems to be reverting slowly to what it was before I
contracted the disease. I'm smiling less. Annoyances get to me faster
and, worse, they continue to bother me longer. I'm fretting more about
Getting Things Done, and setting more ambitious objectives for each
day. My muscles are tenser and get sore faster. My impatience and
inability to pay attention are returning.
I am not yet willing
to concede that we are who we are and, without the continuous use of
artificial chemicals, we are unable to change our "personalities", our
'constitutions', in any fundamental or enduring way. Just as one
objective of my self-experimentation program has been to find natural
substitutes for the synthetic chemicals I'm now using to treat and
hopefully prevent future flare-ups of UC, another objective is now to
find natural ways to make permanent the changes to my "personality"
that have contributed so positively to my healing and enlightened me
about the folly of my old ways.
So it's time to gear up some of the Phase 2 self-experimentation steps that I'd planned
on to cope with stress and anxiety. Here's a table that shows how far
along I am in each of the 16 elements of my stress management program,
and my intuitive, subjective expectation of how much each element is
likely to contribute to reducing my reactions to stress and general
feelings of anxiety:
| Activity | Progress | Expected
Impact | | self-awareness
and self-control | Substantial | Modest | | meditation | Not Started | Significant | | identifying & removing the chronic stressers from my life | Modest | Modest | | building & using my social support network | Modest | Significant | | consuming less sugar and other stimulants & body-stressers | Substantial | Modest | | anaerobic exercise (toning, stretching, posture, yoga) | Not Started | Significant | | physiotherapy & massage | Not Started | Significant | | improving work habits & physical work environment | Substantial | Significant | | aerobic exercise | Substantial | Very High | | natural 'drugs' (sex etc.) | Substantial | Significant | | social time | Substantial | Very High | | physical contact with friends | Modest | Significant | | generosity activities: volunteering, complimenting etc. | Not Started | Significant | | play & fun | Modest | Significant | | catharsis activities: music, crying etc. | Substantial | Significant | | nature walks and drives | Modest | Significant |
My
'Expected Impact' assessment factors in both how much effect I think
the activity will have on my stress level, and how much control I have
over that effect. So, for example, I expect my self-monitoring,
self-awareness and self-control activities to have only a modest impact
on my stress management because I'm honest enough with myself to know
I'm not very good at doing these things.
The two activities
that I expect will help most -- exercise and social time -- I'm already
far along in. It would be interesting to know, had I not restarted exercising and not started
devoting three times as much time as I used to for social activities,
whether my stress and anxiety levels would now be even higher than they
are. I'm not about to curtail either activity to find out.
The
four activities on the list that I have not yet started -- meditation,
yoga, physiotherapy and generosity activities -- should all have
significant stress-busting effect. They all require more organization
and cost (money and/or time) than the other activities, which is why I
haven't started them yet. They've now risen to the top of my list.
I'm
still nagged with something of a sense of defeatism about all this. I
keep blathering about how we are what we are, and that we only do what
we must, and change when we must. It's ironic that, as soon as the
urgency of the situation has passed, we tend to revert to old habits,
and to our old "personality". The inevitable result is that the
problems recur and become chronic, and, like binge dieters, we
vacillate between action and backsliding, zeal and recidivism, rigour
and procrastination.
If this is human nature, it's not good for
us in today's world. I wish I could turn off my dysfunctional mind and
rely on my body to take charge of my health and well-being. It knows
what's good for me. Anyone have any ideas, or success, in doing that? |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
