Sophie Howard, Crohn's Warrior, talks about travel, stress, and community (E37)

In today’s episode, Sophie Howard shares her journey with Crohn’s Disease. After being diagnosed at the age of 11, she learned to navigate the ups and downs of Crohn’s as a child and fought off countless infections over the years. Now, 14 years later, she chooses to look at the accomplishments in her life and hasn’t let Crohn’s hold her back.

Although food is not a trigger for Sophie, stress is. She’s learned the importance of sleep, stress management, and how to balance fitness and recovery. As an avid traveler, Sophie shares her tips for reducing stress while traveling, including why she packs as light as possible and why she increases her vitamins before a trip.

She’s also learned to appreciate simple things in life, like walking outdoors to enjoy the fresh air and taking long, hot baths on a regular basis. She makes priority lists every morning to help her focus on what she wants to get done first and what can wait until later, if needed.

After feeling very alone as a child with Crohn’s Disease, growing up in a small town where she didn’t know anyone else with IBD, Sohpie embraced the support and connection that being an active part of the IBD community online offers. She felt immediately connected with fellow IBD patients from all around the world who shared the same disease. She’s now speaking up and sharing her voice in the community. She describes it as a place “where everybody is talking about their experiences daily...and we’re all pushing each other to be better and we’re all pushing each other to widen the conversation and to make sure we are educating everybody who doesn’t know about IBD...and what it’s like to live with it.”

She blogs about her travels at www.crohnswithme.com and shares her journey on Instagram (@crohnswithme). She hopes to show that life can be good and that it’s about making simple adventures as fun and as easy on yourself as possible.