Cindy Stralsoff, who lives in San Francisco, was diagnosed with generalized myasthenia gravis (MG) at 67. She explains how stress impacts her MG and the importance of remaining calm.

Calmness. Be calm.

I was just reading through a lot of people’s comments about what causes their symptoms, and I find it — it’s interesting. 99% of people say it’s stress. Stress is what is the killer for symptoms. If you have stress, your symptoms are going to go crazy.

Sometimes there’s no controlling that and there’s no foretelling that that stress might happen. What I like to do is keep myself in sort of a small world, except for other people with myasthenia, so I don’t run into problems that can be stressful because I know what that will do.

So, I keep myself clear, calm — focused on something that’s distracting and interesting. And that’s how I get through my day without too much worry.