ORGANIZATIONAL TIPS!

 This doesn't have much to do with chronic illness, but I want to share my organizational tips with you today. However, these methods help me to have everything prepared in case I'm having a bad pain day or I'm just plain tired (which is a lot of the time). Let's get started:

1. GET A TO DO LIST: This will literally save your life. I don't know how I got anything done before I had one. 
2. SET OUT EVERYTHING THE NIGHT BEFORE: I try to get my outfits set out and my backpack packed up the night before in case I need to take it slow in the morning.
3. USE A PLANNER: This will be your best friend if you're busy like me. Especially if you're a student, it's the best have all your assignments and activities in one place. 
4. PLAN OUT TIME IN THE DAY TO DO SELF CARE: For me, this means setting aside time to do all the activities from my pelvic floor physical therapy because I know they always help me feel better. It can be different for every person though!
5. CREATE FOLDERS IN YOUR EMAIL: This is something I didn't think I needed to do for the longest time, but once I did, it made finding old emails soooo much easier.
6. CREATE FOLDERS IN YOUR FILES: Similarly, this is so helpful and I have folders for literally the smallest things. When you're constantly turning in assignments, it's so helpful. 
7. ORGANIZE YOUR DESK: Having an organized workplace really does make you more productive and efficient.
8. HAVE A CLEAN ROOM: I know this sounds weird, but especially if you're working in the same place as you sleep, I find it so important to my productivity to have a clean room and made bed. If I don't, it just stresses me out and I'm not as focused on my work. 

I hope you found these tips helpful because they are really have gotten me through college!

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Back to School!

Some of you may have noticed that I took a month off from posting and that’s because the beginning of school has been crazy. The day I moved into school, I barely had any time to unpack because I had to go right to rehearsal for the choir I’m in and that pretty much lasted the rest of the day and the rest of the weekend. Does anyone else get super stressed when all their stuff is in boxes or not in its correct place? Well, I do and that’s what I was feeling like for several days before I had the chance to finally finish unpacking and decorating. Then it was time for classes to start. The good news is that I love all my classes! All my classes are within my major and minor, so I’m never bored and always learning something new. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I LOVE learning, it’s probably one of my favorite things which is why I love college so much; I get to learn about topics I’m actually interested in, unlike most of my classes high school. 

I mentioned in my previous post that I took on a lot this semester and I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage everything. Well, it’s been going pretty well so far! It was kind of a pain getting my schedule all worked out so I could be at every club meeting or rehearsal, but thankfully, I did it and this week everything was finalized. Last weekend, I had the honor of singing the National Anthem at the home opener football game at my college and it went so well! I’ve been singing the National Anthem at events ever since middle school, but I’ve never sung it for my college before, so I was a little nervous. But the President of my college said it was amazing (go me!!). 

I was able to get a single room this semester because of my medical accommodations and needing the privacy to do my pelvic floor physical therapy tasks, and that has been working out very well. While I miss having a roommate, I know I made the best decision for my health and that my body is definitely going to thank me for that this semester. With that said, I haven’t had any big flare-ups yet which I’m very happy about. Stress is one of my biggest triggers, so when I feel like I’m about to get overly stressed, I try to take a minute and relax so I don’t cause any other issues for myself. 

I was finally getting into the swing of things this week, then I got a cold. I was actually pretty scared at first that it was COVID, but I was tested and it's not thankfully. It's so weird how "normal" sickness hasn't really been a thing since the pandemic started because of masks and physical distancing, but as the world opens back up, I guess so does our susceptibility to other illnesses. Like this cold, you are always going to have things that interrupt your plans, but try to find the good in everything. Luckily this cold hit me over the weekend, so I'm going to rest up so I won't have to miss any classes next week.

If you are going back to school right now, I know it can be a very stressful time. My biggest piece of advice is to learn your triggers so you can try to avoid setting them off. Obviously, it’s not going to be perfect, but at least you are trying to do what’s best for your body. Remember, you can do this and endo is not the end!  

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My Health Goals for 2021

 Happy New Year everyone!! 2020 was a hard year for everyone around the world but now is a chance to start fresh and create some goals for the coming year. The second half of 2020 for me was focusing a lot on my health. In the context of this post, health means my chronic illnesses, my pelvic floor dysfunction, and eating an anti-inflammatory diet. I plan on making 2021 a year about focusing on my health, listening to my body, and hopefully minimizing my pain. So, for my first blog post of the year, I wanted to share some health goals I have for myself!

1. Continue going to pelvic floor physical therapy regularly 
2. Do all the stretches, exercises, and techniques my PT gives me every day
3. Try harder to eat an anti-inflammatory diet (it was so hard around the holidays!)
4. Talk to my college's dietitian about foods I should eat while at school that won't work up my dairy, sugar, and gluten sensitivities 
5. Get out for walks more
6. Drink 64 oz or more of water every day
7. Continue taking the supplements that are helping my urinary tract health
8. Get plenty of sleep every night
9. Make sure I don't overly stress myself out since that works up my endo pain
10. Continue writing and posting a blog post every other week
11. Bonus: Try my best to achieve all these goals, but not be too hard on myself if I miss a day!

If you want to focus on improving your health like me this year, then I recommend making a list like this and sticking to it. I chose goals that I think are attainable for me because I have already been doing them, so make sure you are making goals that are attainable to you, and don't be too hard on yourself. I make a to-do list every day because it keeps me motivated to check things off my list and so I know I've completed everything I wanted to for the day, so I recommend that too. I hope you have had a great start to the new year and I'm wishing you all happiness, safety, and health in the year to come!