Staying afloat when chronic health conditions weigh you down

Most people in their careers have come across colleagues like Jen Unwin. They are not the loud talking grandstanders who broadcast their workplace victories to any who will listen. Instead, they quietly and competently perform their jobs and see their talents as nothing unusual.

Dr. Jen Unwin is a clinical psychologist who practices in the UK and specializes in treating people with chronic health conditions. Soft-spoken and unassuming, she is well-suited to her work. Her interview style is to raise questions with her patients in a way that is not threatening yet plants ideas that arise in her patients as if they were their own.

Jen Unwin and her general-practitioner husband, David, presented at the Low Carb Denver conference last March. Just released this last week is a video featuring her produced by the “low-carb cardiologist,” Dr. Bret Scher. Just so you know, this video does not proselytize about low-carb eating, but is about mental and emotional wellness.

I watched this video and found that it gets to the kernel of truth that anyone who must confront when living with a chronic health condition, like diabetes. And that truth answers the question, “how do we sustain motivation to treat an illness that we must live with, all day, every day?”

We see our doctor every 90 days, yet this topic seldom arises. We’re faced with the hard clinical data of A1c’s, time in range, and average glucose and often left with the idea that we must “just try harder,” if we want to improve. There’s little, if anything, done to replenish the motivational gas tank that might even make health improvements possible.

Enjoy this video. It inspired me!

Please comment if you find any resonance in the topics Jen Unwin and Bret Scher discuss.

2 Likes

Thanks @terry4, hope to check it out later.

Thanks Terry. I found her very impressive and helpful; I found him less so. The daily struggle of someone with a chronic condition is so much broader than finding a silver bullet and I thought Dr. Scher was really focused on the silver bullet of low carb.

Sometimes the way to get closer to feeling better and more complete may be something as simple as inviting someone to dinner for company even if that meal isn’t ideal.

Maurie

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I appreciate the comment, Maurie. I agree that the simple tonic of social interaction over any type of meal is good for us all. I eat so few meals with others that when I do enjoy company over a meal, I often totally lose sight of things like taking my meal insulin on time!