Posted 7/9/2016 4:17 AM (GMT 0)
This week I believe I have confirmed as a fact that my UC is extremely closely correlated with stress/anxiety. For a while I've noticed a few things:
* My symptoms are never as bad on weekends
* Despite trying to eat 'the right foods' when at work, my colon doesn't seem to have anywhere near the same high standards when I eat food when out and about
The second just didn't equate, and I thought it was just a coincidence. After all, why should the location I eat food in make any difference?? More on that shortly.
This week, I spent two days on training. It was also catered, and for weeks leading up to it, I had been dreading how I would cope with the logistics of needing to rush to the toilet the standard 30-45 minutes after eating lunch whilst in training.
The training was about 7 hours by road, so I was supposed to fly. Only, bad weather forced the cancellation of a lot of flights, including mine, and there was no way I could have made it unless I drove the previous night. Trying to organise a rental car at last minute when there were hardly any left in town, and not being sure what would become of my training if I didn't make it the very next day was quite stressful, and I could feel my colon starting to act up. However, once I was on the road I spent the next 7 hours thinking mindfully to calm it down. I was, however, expecting it to play up big time for the next day at least. Except it didn't.
The training I was on was extremely enjoyable, valuable, rewarding, and diverted my attention away from work. No matter what I ate, I simply never had any symptoms (except one first-thing BM after a rough night's sleep). I only had one daytime BM in the two days I was there. Even that one was me forcing myself to go after lunch, to reduce the chances of needing to go when in training. On the rare occasion I needed to pass wind, it was always dry with no mucus to speak of. And if anything, my symptoms improved every day I was away.
Yet while I'm at work, I can have between 2-4 BMs, and can almost never pass wind without a reasonable chance of mucus. Given the fact that I had some bad symptoms for about a week after a really stressful day at work a few weeks back, the fact that I've often found I'm much better on weekends, and the fact that I have long noticed my gut is less selective about what I can eat when I'm not at work, I have come to the conclusion that I must be dealing with more anxiety at work than I first thought, and that is undoubtedly contributing to the severity of my symptoms.
I'm curious if others have noticed a similar correlation.