If you prefer, you can listen to the module content by clicking on the audio file here.
Kia ora! Thank you for taking part in iACT4IBD.
We know that being diagnosed with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be distressing.
As a chronic health condition, IBD significantly affects your life. The abdominal pain, fatigue, or diarrhoea, and that feeling of urgency is distressing and burdensome. On top of this, it’s not uncommon if you’ve experienced discrimination, body image issues, or social isolation because of your IBD.
It’s understandable that these experiences might leave you feeling frustrated, powerless, or distressed.
Living with IBD is not easy and the condition can intensify a range of unpleasant emotions that elevate your levels of stress, anxiety, and low mood.
Stress can have a negative impact on your mood, and research has found that psychological factors may influence how your gut functions.
Specifically, psychological stress increases inflammation and affects how your immune system works. Increased inflammation can perpetuate a maladaptive cycle that reduces the way your immune system functions and leaves you feeling in worse physical and emotional health.
Medication is commonly used to improve gut functioning and treat IBD activity.
However, another way that can potentially help reduce inflammation and improve your wellbeing is to reduce your stress and improve the way you consider your chronic illness.
There has been a lot of research looking into different ways to reduce stress and improve wellbeing for people with chronic health conditions.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been found to help reduce stress, improve mood, and reduce bodily inflammation in people living with a range of chronic health conditions—including IBD, cancer, diabetes, chronic pain, and other autoimmune diseases.
Acceptance and
Committment
Therapy
ACT has demonstrated promise for helping people living with IBD improve their wellbeing and quality of life.
Research has found that ACT programmes have helped people living with IBD reduce up to 49% of their stress levels, which appeared to positively impact on their general wellbeing and improve their quality of life.
ACT aims to maximise people’s potential to live a rich and meaningful life by accepting the sometimes painful and distressing experiences that are present when living with a chronic health condition.
Rather than being consumed by painful experiences, ACT focuses on becoming more open and accepting of these inevitable experiences.
ACT teaches people skills and strategies that help them build a meaningful life while living with a chronic health condition.
The aim is to increase your ability to take mindful, values-oriented actions that match your personal values, despite any unpleasant symptoms, feelings, or thoughts related to your IBD experiences.
This programme focuses on six core skills that can help you reduce stress and live a values-oriented and meaningful life alongside having IBD.
These skills are:
In each daily module, you’ll learn more about one of these skills, their benefits, and how to use these skills in your life. Each module consists of exercises that will guide you in practising the core skills that you’re learning.
Recognising feelings
In today’s video below, we discuss how you can recognise your feelings and classify your feelings based on their intensity. Give it a go, and we’ll continue this conversation in tomorrow’s module.
Click this button once you’ve finished this module and let us know what you think.
Important reminder: Completing all 7 modules in this programme is the best way for you to learn all of the key skills that are integral to helping you improve your wellbeing whilst living with IBD.
Different things work for different people—so just aim to complete all of the modules so you can get a feel for all the 7 core skills. Then keep using the skills that you found worked the best!