The feeling when you physically notice your cold improving, you can breathe through both nostrils, and you don’t feel fatigued and sore anymore is an amazing feeling.
Ever since covid I get the influenza and covid vaccinations every season.
Totally unrelated I'm sure, but ever since I've been doing that (and washing my hands first thing when coming home) I haven't been sick at all. No runny or clogged nose, no coughing or itching throat. No fevers, no throwing up, just pure, healthy bliss.
I guess the joke is on me, I've had a sinus infection or something for like a month so my nose is always either running, or clogged. Sometimes both at the same time!
I'm just now getting over a cold that gave me the worst laryngitis of my life. It felt like I got punched in the throat some days. So I'm super grateful today to have most of my voice back. Swelling and inflammation is reduced. Even my cough which I thought would become bronchitis is fading. So grateful to be feeling well again after a week of this.
Every night before I go to bed I do a mental health exercise where I list 3 things I was thankful for that day. It's a habit that is supposed to make you appreciate the good things and help get past the bad.
On unremarkable or bad days the list is that I wasn't in constant/chronic pain, that I got to eat and drink all that I needed, and that the day is over and I'm in bed and statistically very safe. It may not seem like much on bad days, but if you've ever been missing one or more of those 3 things then you know it's a HUGE set of problems to appreciate not having.
This is a very very good habit to have. It does wonders for mental health including reducing existential dread and depression. It's not a silver bullet but it helps tremendously.
I try to remember whenever something bad is happening to me like a cold, or getting laid off, I'm grateful to not be a victim of genocide or taken as POW in Russia. Hell, not having to be drafted in the military like Americans did in Vietnam.
Being grateful in the face of suffering is its own CBT
One of the best feelings I ever felt was laying in bed the night after a car accident earlier in the day. It was enough of an accident that I was glad to reflect on it not being any worse, but it also wasn't bad enough to injure anyone.
When I climbed into bed that night, I was seriously doing that thing dogs do when you take them outside and they flop and wallow around on the grass with their feet flailing carelessly in the air. That bed felt so damn good that night, and I try often to remind myself that it's the same comfy and safe bed now that it was that day.
Everytime I get sick I think about this. “I am going to appreciate my life so much more when I’m not sick.” I appreciate not being sick for about five minutes before it just goes back to being whatever.
we don't think about the things that are going fine, only current problems. the marketing/advertising industry exploits this human tendency to the utmost, not only for your actual current problems, but problems (actual or not) you didn't even know you had until they told you that you need to buy their solution for it