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A common question asked in allergy support groups relates to how to move from fearing food allergies to confidently managing them. The honest answer is: It's a learning process. So let's explore that process. Once you've adjusted to life with a food allergy, you'll likely find yourself in the allergy comfort zone. It's a place filled with routine, a sense of comfort, and most likely, limited risk-taking - all of which helps keep your anxiety manageable. Since we feel safe in our comfort zone, it can feel incredibly hard to motivate yourself to leave it. So then, why would you want to leave a place that feels so comfortable just to welcomes more fear? To learn, grow, and develop food allergy confidence! Sure, it's possible to stay in the allergy comfort zone forever and there's no judgement if that's the choice you make. But what happens when we stick within these rigid walls of comfort is that we limit our ability to engage in a number of meaningful life experiences because we experience fear and discomfort even just thinking about them, never mind trying them. Therefore, let's look at the zones we move through in order to develop allergy confidence, and why its beneficial to be willing to step outside of your allergy comfort zone!  THE FEAR ZONE Yes, the fear zone is just outside of the walls of the allergy comfort zone, but reminding yourself that it's just part of the process of developing confidence is useful. Many experience increased anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, and even physical panic sensations while in the fear zone. This is understandable! When we are faced with the unknown, increased risk, and something new, it's common for anxiety and fear to increase. However, we don't have to stay in the fear zone, and we don't have to run right back to our allergy comfort zone either (as much as we may want to). By reminding yourself that fear and anxiety are normal parts of this process, it can help you feel more empowered to keep moving forward to the next zone! THE LEARNING ZONE The learning zone is where we do AND learn! It's where we develop new skills that help us move closer to feeling food allergy confidence. Yes, this means we actually have to practice these new skills - which can make us feel very uncomfortable. But by practicing new skills, you are allowing yourself to experience situations that are useful for developing new insights that will truly make a difference in your mindset about allergy management. This is crucial, because confidence is developed by building competence - or building your ability to do things effectively, such as navigating an anxiety-provoking situation. Just because we're in the learning zone doesn't mean we don't still feel fear - these stages aren't as linear as the image shows. Again, anytime we're facing the unknown, unpredictability, uncertainty, newness, and transition, it's common for increased anxiety, and if there's perceived risk associated, an increase in fear as well. But these feelings of discomfort don't always signify danger - sometimes they signify growth! THE GROWTH ZONE This is the zone we can't wait to get to! The growth zone is where we develop more confidence in our ability to navigate the feared experiences we've wanted to learn how to handle better. As a result, this often leads to decreased anxiety and fear, and essentially brings us to a new and expanded version of our allergy comfort zone! Tips to Help You Move Through The Zones: The following can help you stay committed to moving forward (rather than moving back to the allergy comfort zone) and towards growth and confidence in managing your allergies:
Final Thoughts: When we're brave enough to leave our comfort zone, and push through the fear zone into the learning zone, we allow ourselves to develop the skills that help make things feel less scary. Skills that help us assess allergy risks, logically think through scenarios, and ultimately increase our belief in ourselves. All of this then helps us develop a more empowered attitude about living with food allergies! Want more tips to help you when you're outside of your allergy comfort zone? Check out this FAC content: want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
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 In a recent FAC post, we explored what stress is and how it differs from anxiety, with specific mindfulness-based approaches for managing food allergy-related stress. But there's no one perfect way to manage stress! It's important for everyone to find strategies that work specifically for them - and this takes trial and error to determine. Therefore, in an effort to help you better understand your own stress and decide which stress management tools to put in your toolbox, this post offers a variety of videos with different strategies for you to consider. Additionally, it includes skills to teach your kiddos and share with your teens so they also learn how to cope with stress, too! (While these aren't allergy-specific, they will help with allergy-related stress...and are useful in other areas of life as well). Stress Management Skills for Kids
Stress Management Skills for Teens
Stress Management Skills for Adults
Stress Management For Parents & Families
want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
As we welcome 2023, let's set some mindful intentions for the year. Let's focus on finding practical ways to effectively manage the stress and anxiety we may feel related to living with food allergies and allergic diseases. And The Food Allergy Counselor is here to help you do just that with all of its resources!  Image by 1388843 from Pixabay What Exactly is Stress? According to the American Psychological Association, “Stress is a normal reaction to everyday pressures, but can become unhealthy when it upsets your day-to-day functioning. Stress involves changes affecting nearly every system of the body, influencing how people feel and behave.” Simply put, stress is how we feel and/or react when under pressure or threatened. It’s an emotional and physical response to a thought, feeling or situation, and with it often comes tension and a feeling that we don’t have the ability to manage the stress (or stressor causing the stress). All the way back to the cavemen days, humans have experienced this automatic response to help the body/mind kick into gear to act quickly while seeking out safety/protection. (That's the fight-flight-freeze response). But the typical daily threats we experience today, such as bills and deadlines, don't require such a strong stress response. Therefore, our body's natural "alarm system" sometimes over-functions, leading us to stay stuck in the stress cycle. Physically, stress can show up by causing headaches, digestive issues, high blood pressure, fatigue, problems with sleep, etc. Emotionally, it can give way to irritability, anger, worry, increased anxiety and depression, and even panic. Am I Feeling Stress or Anxiety? It's common to confuse stress and anxiety. After all, both are emotional responses, and they often show up hand-in-hand! But here are the differences to help you determine when you're experiencing stress and when you're experiencing anxiety. Stress:
Anxiety:
 Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay What Can We Do About Stress? The truth is we've all felt stress - we navigate through it each day! Paying the bills, making tough daily decisions, navigating childcare, etc. Some stress we're better at managing, while some feels like a constant struggle to regain balance from. Therefore, it's helpful to recognize the stress triggers you're not navigating well. Becoming aware of them and acknowledging the need for more effective strategies is a great place to start! The key is finding workable ways to manage stress when it does impact your functioning. Therefore, whatever works to help you release the emotional and physical tension should be a tool in your stress management toolkit! This may include physical releases such as movement, walking and exercise. It could include feel-good things such as laughing and connecting with others/friends. Deep breathing, stretching and mindfulness exercises can be useful, too. It’s also helpful to regulate sleeping and eating patterns, as our mind and body are better able to handle stress when rested and fueled. How Can We Manage the Ongoing Stress of Food Allergy? For many, food allergy and allergic diseases likely fit into the category of an ongoing stressor, causing chronic stress. While that may be the case, we can still approach the stress in a way that makes it feel more manageable. Here are some tips for making allergy-related stress more manageable:
Final Thoughts.... Stress is part of life, so learning how to effectively navigate it and manage it well is crucial. Living with food allergy and allergic diseases does add more stress, but even so, we can still find workable ways to deal with it. Start by taking inventory of your biggest stressors, and an honest look at the stress management tools you use (or don't use, but likely should be using). Commit to trying one new approach to managing your stress over the next week, and then reflect on how it impacted your physical and emotional stress levels. You can do this! want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails! And don't forget about ALL of The FAC resources here to support you!
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