Healthy Ways to Cope with Stress

Angie, age 69, was diagnosed with breast cancer, has trouble sleeping, and feels anxious.

Keith, age 71, has diabetes, is overweight, and drinks alcohol daily.

These two older adults share illness-related stress. Let’s answer questions about stress and healthy ways you can cope with it.

What is Stress-Induced Sickness?

People with serious medical problems can suffer from stress-induced anxiety and depression. Also, people with high levels of stress can suffer from many types of sicknesses , including:

How Does Stress Affect Your Health?

When you face danger, your body’s natural reaction is “fight or flight.” Running away from diseases like cancer and diabetes by misusing alcohol or drugs is not healthy. Getting yourself “stress-out” raises your cortisol (stress hormone) levels and can disrupt your body’s normal processes. For example, stress can lead to the following:

Healthy Ways to Cope with Stress

Being diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease like cancer and diabetes is stressful. However, your chances of survival and quality of life may be higher than you think. For example, localized breast cancer with no spread has a very high survival rate. Also, people with diabetes have a better quality of life than people with most other serious chronic diseases. You can prevent diabetes-related complications by managing your condition .

Here are some healthy ways to cope with stress:

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