Watch Out For The Colitis Flare

Beautiful snow filled NYC trees

Last week was a stressful week for me and in my case that means my stomach gets off balance, which could potentially throw me into a colitis flare up. Yep, it sucks and it’s totally happening right now… Yuck!

Here’s what I’m NOT doing –

– Sitting around feeling sorry for myself

– Racking my brain trying to figure out exactly what threw me off

– Getting depressed

– Eating crap because I feel like crap

Here are the top 5 most important things that I AM doing for myself during this time:

1) Exercise. Get to the gym! if that’s not possible because you’re snowbound then do 100 jumping jacks right now to sweat and get your blood flowing. The worst thing you can do is sit or lie down all day.

– If you can get to the gym use that large ball in the stretching area to roll and stretch out your body – it also gives you an inversion, which is gentle, feels great and again gets the blood flowing. OR use the body foam roller and roll your whole body out. I’ll post pictures of both of these exercises in a future post – stay tuned.

2) Go to the steam room and sweat it out. I like steam especially in the winter  time since it’s so dry out. The steam brings moisture and helps open the pores – this is also another way to help you sweat.

3) Try a soft food cleanse. What does that mean? Any food that’s safe for a baby to eat is good for you to eat, ie: steamed or boiled golden beets, potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, yam, carrot, etc. Eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for one whole day. This will help your system take a break and allows the body to heal.

*** While in a flare up watch everything that you put into your mouth. You should be eating cooked foods that are warming and easy to digest. Foods that are slow cooked are usually a great option, ie: soups and stews in a crock-pot that don’t have many spices – keep it plain and simple for now.

4) Take it easy and relax. If you can get yourself to a restorative yoga class try it. If you’re in NYC here’s a restorative yoga class that I absolutely LOVE! Her name is Laura Wooton and it’s Tuesday’s at 8:15pm at Pure Yoga West. Get there.

5) Practice breathing exercises such as alternate nostril breathing, shown in this clip below:

Click the photo to watch the video

BONUS) DE-STRESS! I’m not yelling here… I’m just trying to explain the urgency of this disease and if you don’t de-stress, let go, breathe, practice yoga, meditate, eat properly then there will be many negative consequences. Take care of yourself. When you feel it coming, (we all know the signs) then boost up your de-stressing techniques. Try this voice recording that I created below:

Click the photo to listen to voice recording

I know you know how to take care of yourself – but when you’re in a flare, or period of stress, the body feels it in a bad way. You MUST balance it out. Try acupuncture, meditation, qi gong – anything to take you out of your stressed state. The whole idea here is to break the pattern – if you can do that, then you’re golden.

Listen to your body – it absolutely, 100% knows what you need – just open your ears and listen carefully.

Just because I’m feeling crappy this week doesn’t mean I get to complain about it. Instead I’m taking action and being proactive – that’s what you should be doing too!

Rock on!