Living with chronic illness can dictate most of your time. Learn how to work with your disease instead of against it. In today’s post, I will cover my cheat sheet for everything that makes life with chronic illness a little bit easier.
Planning
Having autoimmune diseases comes with brain fog and loads of fatigue. Staying organized by consistently planning ahead changed my life. Pre-planning my meals, cleaning tasks, self-care, etc for the week helps me stay on target and fight against extra brain fog and decision fatigue.
For me, I’m at my happiest and healthiest when I’m productive, but with lupus, how I’m feeling and my energy level can fluctuate. I like to have a routine in place that works for however I’m feeling that day. Whether it’s a low-energy or sick day and for when I’m feeling my best and anywhere in between. So my base necessities are always done and on the days when I have more energy, I can beat the decision fatigue and jump right into something I’m not always able to do. This not only saves me physical and mental energy. It allows me to get the most out of the days when I’m feeling better. I have a low, medium, and high-energy morning routine. I made a printable where I listed my base needs upkeep on my low day, and on a medium day I was able to add extra self-care, and on a high day I threw in some face yoga and beauty stuff I don’t always have energy for on a normal day.
With autoimmune diseases, you never know when what, or how long you will be physically able to do any task. That’s why I pre-plan everything. When I am able to be physically active the last thing I want is to be too overwhelmed with no idea where to start. I limit decision fatigue by having a low, medium, and high pre-written plan for each category of stuff I need to get done. On top of that, I meal prep meals for the week so I don’t have to put thought into “what’s for dinner?” Planning saves me energy, money, and sanity. haha!
Coming out of a flare-up is supposed to be a happy moment, but with life moving on while you’re stuck sick in bed. It can feel everything but happiness and sometimes feel overwhelming with built-up chores, work, and just everything in life in general. Causing a moment that should be happy to be extremely stressful. Stress negatively affects the immune system so doing anything we can to prevent stress after a flare-up is important. Click here to read up on stress and how it affects the immune system. Overall understanding your disease will help make life with chronic illness easier.
Cooking
Meal planning and prepping will save you hours of time, energy, money, and stress. I cut my grocery bill in half by simply planning my meals and choosing two days a week to cook. Meal planning does not have to be a huge deal. It could be as simple as making a big batch of rice and some chicken in the crockpot. Like I’ve said before, fatigue kicks in at random times with autoimmune diseases. Already having meals done for the week is how I set myself up for success and work with my disease instead of against it. Especially on a weekday when I’m almost too tired to move. Having healthy meals ready to throw in the microwave keeps me on track while I’m trying to eat gut-healthy foods, and avoid ordering $30 takeout.
Meal prepping also fits into the planning category because before I cook food I budget, choose recipes, make ingredients list, clean my kitchen, set out everything I will need to cook, and set up a space to clean and cut all produce I get. Which is how I avoid wasting food. By pre-planning and preparing, I can’t justify not cooking when I get home from the store. The amount of food waste in my household is almost non-existent now by simply planning ahead a bit. Click here to check out our free meal planning printables.
Grocery shopping
Going grocery shopping can wipe out all of my energy. The last thing I feel like doing after shopping is cooking. To reserve energy that would in my eyes just be wasted shopping I order my groceries online. I’ve tried every grocery delivery service there is and I will go over their pros and cons.
Instacart-
Instacart is easy to use and has good features. My favorite thing about it is you choose alternatives when you place your order and before your order is shopped so if they don’t have what you originally asked for your shopper already knows your second option.
Shipt-
Shipt is by far my favorite. I’ve used them for three years now. You can place an order and have it at your door in 2-3 hours. It’s the original grocery delivery service app. Another notable mention about shipt is they have good deals and opportunities for money off your order. I always make sure to shop on the shipt app to check out their weekly deals.
Walmart plus
Walmart’s grocery delivery services cost $12 a month and you get free shipping on any online order by becoming a plus member. For the first couple of months of becoming a member, I received swag bags with free product samples. I would have honestly kept my membership if they kept sending them. Anyways it’s pretty similar to the other grocery delivery services. Like instacart, you can preemptively choose substitution items. One feature I loved is if they didn’t have your first or second option you would get notified on the app and have 30 mins to choose if you want the substitution they offered. Sometimes on shipt I will get a random substitution even if I mark to text.
Spending extra money a month for grocery deliveries isn’t always doable. Don’t worry there are free options for grocery pickups! Target and Walmart both have drive-up and so do most grocery stores now. Place your grocery order online and pick it up in a few hours right outside the store.
Personal hygiene items
Amazon has an option to auto-ship products based on how far you want them apart. I set up auto-ship for my face wash, soap, toothpaste, and other hygiene products so I never have to worry about running out. Once I learned about auto-ship I just paid attention to how long it took me to go through my hygiene products and then set up amazon auto-ship.
When it comes to self-care activities and upkeep I keep a self-care planner so I can use my energy wisely by planning ahead. I have found breaking down and planning every self-care activity I do (even the steps of fake tanning) has made keeping up with self-care easy and painless. By breaking down the steps of bigger self-care activities like fake tanning and tackling each part on separate days I’m not left fatigued. For example, on Monday I will shave and exfoliate, and the next morning I will tan. Simply breaking it into a two-part activity has actually made it manageable for me to constantly be able to keep up with it.
Okay okay I know all this stuff seems like a no-brainer but it took me a long time to accept that I just couldn’t do everything I wanted when I wanted to. By the time I would finish my shower I was already tired. Trying to push myself to tan just because I was already in the bathroom led to me overexerting myself. Which made me never want to do it. Now maintaining my self-care is a stress-free process!
Pets
Petco and Chewy also have auto-ship options so for my dogs’ food, flea meds, and treats I keep them on auto-ship so I never have to worry about running out. It’s super convenient because you can tailor it to how frequently you need to resupply on your essentials.
Dogstroller-
Investing in a dog stroller was one of the best decisions I have ever made. If you’re like me and have a dog who wants to be held 24/7(she’s elderly and sick okay) you know it’s impossible to keep them happy while being chronically ill and taking care of your own self. Having a dog stroller keeps my pup happy and surprisingly has come in handy for me time after time. I use this stroller even when my dogs are not in it. I’ve found it handy for moving stuff around the house, or even when I’m not feeling the best to have something to hold on to. There is a lock for the wheels so it can become something to hold yourself up with. Which has come in handy from time to time
Dishes
This is going to be a quick section of the post but I felt like these two hacks were notable. First off dawn power wash makes doing the dishes SO EASY and quick. I hardly ever have to give a dish the scrub 2000 anymore. Dawn does all the heavy lifting. My second hack is using a stool while doing dishes. It seems like a no-brainer but honestly saves your energy for fun stuff and for heaven’s sake sit down while doing the dishes! It makes it so much easier I couldn’t believe I had done dishes standing up all this time!
Letting go
Stress and emotions affect autoimmune diseases. Personally, I had family members who didn’t believe I was sick even after being provided all my medical records and test results. Those experiences have taught me a very important lesson. If someone wanted to understand what you go through they would. I made myself sick over people who never intended to understand me or my diseases. I went into numerous flare-ups because at the time I didn’t know how to control my emotions. I didn’t even really know the extent of how emotions and stress impacted my disease. But this lesson goes for anything; people, places, items. Anything that doesn’t add to your life is an easy item to knock off your stress list. Which will ultimately make life with chronic illness easier.
Living with chronic illness isn’t easy. Do yourself a favor and start hacking the system. Let us know what tips and tricks you use!
