Withdrawal management is the care for an individual who is experiencing withdrawal symptoms because of reducing or quitting the use of drugs of other substances whether prescription or otherwise.

We touched on general withdrawal symptoms on Friday.

Not everyone requires treatment for withdrawal. For withdrawal that you can manage on your own, it is important to take advantage of activities that will distract you from your symptoms. Most importantly however keep reminding yourself why you are quitting.

Withdrawal management is essential to your success and safety. If symptoms become too great or concerning, reach out for assistance to ensure your success.
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Withdrawal management is the care needed when experiencing withdrawal symptoms as a result of reducing or quitting the use of drugs (prescription or otherwise) or other substances.

Withdrawal symptoms can vary subject to the dependency. General symptoms can include aches and pains, headaches, hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, cravings, lack of appetite, elevated blood pressure and heart rate, mood swings, insomnia, fatigue, depression, anxiety, irritability and more.

Withdrawal management is the care needed for those experiencing withdrawal symptoms because of reducing or quitting the use of drugs whether prescription or otherwise. This also applied to alcohol.

Withdrawal symptoms can last as little as hours up to weeks depending on the dependency.

We will go a little deeper over the next couple of posts on dependency and withdrawal.

We have focused on fatigue over the past few posts.

Do what you can to figure out what is causing your fatigue and take steps to help yourself.

Eat healthy, exercise, eliminate caffeine and alcohol, establish good sleeping habits and eliminate stress where you can.  If fatigue continues for an extended period or gets worse consult your doctor.
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Make yourself a priority or your body will!

As discussed earlier, there are numerous reasons we may experience fatigue. Overscheduling, stress, lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, body aches and pain, illness, depression or other mental health issues, etc.

We focused on nutritional eating last Friday, exercise and sleep on Monday and stress on Wednesday. Today we will focus on illness and pain.

Body pain can certainly interrupt a good night’s sleep and cause fatigue. Sleep is essential to feel refreshed and energetic. If the body pain is from the first practice of the year at the beginner of a new baseball season, then you know it will pass. Warmups and stretching will go a long way.

If your body pain is chronic, please see you family doctor. A few physio treatments may have you sleeping well, and you can bid fatigue fair well.
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Many illness and physical conditions can cause fatigue. If you have eliminated all possible reasons for your fatigue but your fatigue continues, again consult your family physician.

As discussed in an earlier post, there are numerous reasons why we may experience fatigue. Overscheduling, stress, lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, body aches and pain, illness, depression or other mental health issues, etc.

We focused on nutritional eating on Friday and touched on exercise and sleep on Monday. Today we will focus on stress.

There are many reasons why we may be experiencing stress. Some reasons are completely out of our control but there are other causes that we can manage or eliminate. It is impossible to go into depth with every reason we may be experiencing stress but we will look at a couple of obvious ones.

Marriage issues and stress can be connected to finances, communication, child rearing, etc. How can you deal with stress related to your marriage? Can you cut costs, make time to talk with your partner, ask for help with chore, go out on date nights to reconnect, etc?

Our jobs can certainly be stressful. Are you doing the job of two people? Are you getting close to retirement and the job is too demanding? Have you discussed the issues with management? Can you retire? Have you looked for another job that would be less stressful?

If stress can be eliminated, are we taking the steps necessary to eliminate it?
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What is one thing you can do today to eliminate some stress in your life?

As discussed on Friday, there are numerous reasons we may experience fatigue. Overscheduling, stress, lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, body aches and pain, illness, depression or other mental health issues, etc.

We focused on nutritional eating on Friday. Today let’s go a step further with self care. Proper rest and exercise are very important as well. When we are busy, we tend to skip exercise but that is when we need it the most. Make exercise a part of your daily schedule. Prioritize taking a walk. Exercise will assist in providing energy to get us through the busy days, in getting a good night’s sleep, in helping us to destress and in boosting our mood.

The thought of exercise when you are fatigued seems overwhelming but push yourself. You will be thankful you did!

There are numerous reasons we may experience fatigue occasionally. Overscheduling, stress, lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, body aches and pain, illness, depression or other mental health issues, and the list goes on.

To correct fatigue, we must first figure out the cause or causes.

Life can be very hectic and in today’s lifestyle, we tend to take on more than we should. Self care gets dropped to the bottom of our priority list and unfortunately, this is at a cost.
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You cannot feed a family from an empty cupboard. Take care of your body so that you can do what is important to you. Eating junk food on the run will not provide your body with the nutrients it requires to keep up a fast pace. Healthy nutrients provide energy. Do you eat nutritious foods?

According to the Oxford dictionary, “fatigue” can be defined as “extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness” with synonyms of tiredness, weariness, exhaustion, overtiredness, drowsiness, lethargy, sluggishness, etc.

We all experience fatigue at times. To deal with fatigue, we must understand why we are experiencing it.
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We will take a closer look at fatigue over the next few posts.

​We have looked at a couple of ways to help create a positive body image. As mentioned in an earlier post, we can appreciate our body for what it can do for us and learn not to compare ourselves to others, particularly in the media

It is important to think healthy not skinny. It is a misconception that skinny is healthy.

Wear clothing that you feel good when you wear them.

Make an effort to focus on all of the positive aspects of your body and watch for negative self talk. For example, you may complain that your calves are fat because knee-high boots are too tight. Rather remind yourself that your legs are strong with developed calf muscles.

We can change our negative self talk and accentuate the positive.

Appreciate your attributes and remember your body does not define you!

What can we do to help create a positive body image?

There are a number of things we can practice. .

As mentioned in an earlier post we can appreciate our body for what it can do for us.

We should not compare our body to others. You would never frown upon an apple because it does not look like an orange.  We waste countless time comparing ourselves to others.  We are each unique.  We bring with us our own unique abilities and attributes.

Reminder yourself that the media does not depict “normal” body images.
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Comparison creates resentment and disappointment. Recognition of our own uniqueness and abilities creates appreciation and self-esteem.

What can we do to help create a positive body image?

There are a number of things we can practice.

Our body is not who we are. It is a vessel…a vehicle to assist us in living a physical life. Our genetic information forms our physical body and how it functions. Our physical appearance does not control our intelligence, why then should it influence our emotions or self-worth?
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Appreciate your body for what it can do for you!

​Media has distorted our concepts of a “normal” appearance.

So many of us have unrealistic ideals of what we should look like. As a woman, do we have to have blonde hair, with a tiny nose, well spaced eyes, large breast, tiny waste, long legs, smooth complexion, tanned skin, and have long lashes?

As a man, are we abnormal if we do not have thick hair, a wide chest, six pack, bulked legs and arms standing just over 6 foot?

What can we do to become more realistic and shake the distorted concepts we are bombarded with by the media and peer pressure?

​What is a negative body image?

​If we are overly focused with perceived flaws or obsessed over our weight, proportions, shape and other detailed of our appearance, we may want to review our personal body image. A negative body image can lead to obsessing over our appearance and trying to alter our looks to hide how we look. A negative body image can affect our self-esteem and more. If associated to weight, it can affect our eating habits and create an eating disorder.

Each of us have our own ideas on how we would like our body to look. Generally speaking, there could always be something we would like to change about our appearance; but if we are not stressed or anxious about our appearance, we likely have a good body image. We can accept who we are and how we look.
Our physical appearance does not reflect who we are!

Our body image is a direct result of our perception or opinion (thoughts and feelings) of our physical self. These opinions and/or perceptions may be founded or unfounded.
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We will look at body image over the next week.

Unfortunately too many people believe that being vulnerable is a weakness. It takes strength to be vulnerable, to feel, to experience, to live, to love, to learn!
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We can build strength and courage through our experience, through pain, through failures, through lessons, through acknowledgement and recognition, through doing!

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” – Sigmund Freud

​Resentment and anger can rule your world.

I believe it was Buddha that said “Anger Is Like Grasping a Hot Coal To Strike Another; You Are the One Who Is Burned”.
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Do not hold anger and resentment. Let go and forgive for your sake!

​Sometimes our feelings of hurt can come from harsh words or actions from loved ones.

Do their words have merit?

Are they speaking from their own place of hurt?

Did we say or do something that triggered their words or actions?

We may unknowingly have hurt this individual through our own words, actions or lack of action. Reflect to understand why this individual spoke or acted as they did. Maybe we need to recognize that we should ask for forgiveness from our own actions or words.

​To move towards forgiveness, it is important to understand why we feel hurt.

If forgiveness is required because of physical abuse, for example, the cause of the hurt is obvious.

If, however, the hurt is emotional, for example, it may take some inner searching to understand our feelings.

Do our feelings of hurt stem from being belittled?

We then must ask ourselves did the person try to belittle us or did the feelings of belittlement stem from our own self-esteem or self-worth?
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If in this example our feelings of belittlement stem from our own self-worth, we must learn to forgive ourselves. Our hurt does not stem from someone else but comes from our own feelings of worth.

​Forgiveness can be very challenging.

Forgiveness may not be deserved by the person who harmed or offended you but you deserve the ability to separate yourself from the incident and move beyond it which cannot be done without forgiveness.
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You deserve it!

​For some of us, we feel in order to forgive we have to rebuild our relationship with the offender but this is not true. We can forgive and move on without bringing the one who wronged or harmed us forward with us.
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Carrying anger and resentment with us allows the offence to stay with us. In this case, we are not moving on and allowing the hurt to continue.

​Merriam-Webster's definition of forgiveness is “to cease to feel resentment against (an offender)”.

Forgiveness can mean something different to each of us.

What does it mean to you?

Let's continue this focus on Wednesday.

​There are many reasons why we may feel lonely from loss of a loved one, moving to a new city, unfulfilling relationships, depression, etc. Loneliness is an indicator that something needs to change. Every individual is unique and therefore every solution will be unique.
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Take time to examine your feelings and why you are experiencing them. Then, make the necessary changes that will help you to combat the loneliness. If you are struggling to understand, reach out to talk to someone who can help.

​There are many things we can do to combat loneliness. Last post we looked at joining groups or classes to meet people with like interests.

Helping those less fortunate is a very fulfilling way to combat loneliness, whether it is volunteering at a foodbank, a senior’s home, local hospital or coaching an adult or children’s sport league.

Volunteering your time will also provide a sense of accomplishment and belonging.
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There is always someone who could benefit from your assistance.