Depending on where you are in your journey with endometriosis, there may be a lot of stressors. Symptoms and health administration can often come at the cost of having time to do or be present for things that are important to you. This impacts on your quality of life and creates more stress. The more stress, the more disruption.   

Lots of my clients with endometriosis worry about the harmful effects of stress on endometriosis. The first thing you should know is that feeling stressed in a moment is not harmful. Our body is well suited to readjusting and rebalancing. This is important so that you don’t worry you’re doing damage if you feel distressing emotions. In fact, it can be helpful to give some space to those feelings. Journaling them out or expressing them can help channel and process stress in a way that doesn’t linger as heavily.   

To manage stress and preserve a good quality of life  there are two things to prioritise: 

• Nourishment (rest, food, water). You may not be able to have fresh cooked meals three times a day. What is feasible for you? Maybe you start with ensuring you eat regularly to balance your blood sugar. Or your focus may be on creating more space for rest before your body feels like it is shutting down.   

• Pleasure. What small things can create little bits of pleasure each day. Stroking a pet, the first warm drink of the day, fresh bed sheets, reading a book. There is no minimum duration for these pleasures. Just the intentional awareness when turning towards them.   

Incorporating both of these things into your day-to-day may feel hard when there is a lot going on. That may be because already your brain has created quite high expectations to get big pleasure and big nourishment with rigid consistency. Rather than expecting yourself to be laughing and joking with loved ones and going for massages or having three chef-standard nutritious meals every day, look at your life and what is accessible.  

If you think about how pleasure and nourishment feature in your day, what does it look like currently? Where would you like to make changes and enhance it?  

General references: 

1. Della Corte, L., Di Filippo, C., Gabrielli, O., Reppuccia, S., La Rosa, V. L., Ragusa, R., ... & Giampaolino, P. (2020). The burden of endometriosis on women’s lifespan: a narrative overview on quality of life and psychosocial wellbeing. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(13), 4683. 

2. Kalfas, M., Chisari, C., & Windgassen, S. (2022). Psychosocial factors associated with pain and health‐related quality of life in Endometriosis: A systematic review. European Journal of Pain, 26(9), 1827-1848.