The post about stress I did want to write

So, 59% of us believe stress definitely has an effect on our ulcerative colitis and a further 33% think it might have. And 9% thought it was a load of old codswallup. As a fence-sitting ‘maybe’ I’m genuinely surprised at those results. 59% is quite high. If 59%, 33% and 9% were the results of the ‘ask the audience’ lifeline in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, I’d be going with 59%, please Chris. But it’s not Who wants To Be A Millionaire and I’m not sitting opposite Mr Tizwas. I’m still sitting firmly on the fence. In my experience I can’t definitely say stress affects my UC. I’ll admit the first signs of my ulcerative colitis did coincide with a time of worry, upset and general grimness, but in the 2 and half years since I’d be hard pushed to say what makes my UC worse; whether that be stress, diet or naked trampolining. Maybe I haven’t lived with ulcerative colitis long enough yet to detect any trends? Or maybe nothing stressful has happened to me for a while. How do we define stress anyway? I guess it’s different for everyone. Obviously there are some situations that will cause us all stress; no matter how cool-headed we think we are. You know, the biggies, like death, divorce, debt and supporting Manchester City. Then you’ve got your everyday stresses, like work deadlines, commuting, money troubles, family hassles, kids, health, moving house, changing jobs and things like that. Unfortunately the list goes on and on. Now I’m not for one minute pretending to be some sort of Fonz-like character who saunters through life without a care in the world, but I’m no Woody Allen either. Some things bother me, but I don’t lay awake worrying at night, tossing and turning and getting myself all twisted up in my duvet. So I’m really interested in what kind of situations cause the stress that 59% of the voters in the poll think definitely affects their UC? Are we talking big life changing things or smaller things like making a speech or something? I guess what I’m asking is how much or how little stress does it take to make your UC worse?