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Coping with worry
Fears and worrying are common problems for people with COPD. These may be caused by your "suffocation alarm" or result from all the changes brought on by your condition. Below is a list of some of the ways you may be experiencing worry:
- I have trouble getting to sleep because I'm worrying.
- I can be sitting quietly and suddenly become short of breath.
- I am almost always worrying about when I will have an episode of difficult breathing.
- I seem to be more and more frightened about leaving the house.
- I'm frightened of getting onto elevators, airplanes, or bridges and will go out of my way to avoid them.
- I walk around feeling as if something bad is going to happen.
It is also common for people who are feeling overwhelmed by their COPD to want to "take a break" from being sick. At these times, you may do some of the following:
- Overextend yourself and pay for it with worse symptoms over the next day or so
- Use as little medication and oxygen as possible, even when the doctor wants you to use more
- Keep your COPD from other people, even when it might be important to let them know
- Drink more alcohol than you should because it helps you forget about the COPD
It is unrealistic to hope that you'll be able to rid yourself of worry altogether. But you can work toward an "ideal level of worry." In this ideal state, you accept that you have a chronic and challenging illness and know that there are things you can do to help (and hurt) your experience with the illness.
Over the long term, you most likely will go through periods when you worry too much and other periods when you should give your illness more consideration. These fluctuations are entirely normal. Your goal should be to find the "just right" amount of worry that will help you keep your life and illness in balance.
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