Annie at http://a-b-martin.blogspot.com/ is hosting the next round of the blog carnival at http://www.chronicbabe.com/. The question is "what are your favorite/most useful coping mechanisms for pain, depression, and all those silly side effects that come with having chronic illness?" Here are mine (I have problems with severe pain):
Breathe: Lie down in bed on my back with a couple of pillows under my knees, breathe deeply and slowly, making sure to really let the air out on each exhale. It helps to dissolve the thoughts of panic that only make things worse.
Visualize: Reflect on good times I've had in the past. I try to to really savor them, to bring them back to life in my imagination.
Walk: I take a long walk to take my mind off things, and hopefully to exhaust myself enough to fall asleep when I get home.
Reach out: It's easy to feel isolated so I find that it's very important to put some work in to reaching out to people - both online and friends in real life. For me this kind of reaching out does constitute work. It's easy to become embittered, and even somewhat resentful, of the people out there who are doing just fine. I believe it's very important to reject thoughts like that. I try to do something to maintain contact, even if it's just a short e-mail to a friend to say hi, or a short phone call to stay in touch.
