Living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may change your holidays, but you can still have enjoyable and meaningful celebrations. Although RA may make some holiday traditions challenging, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy connecting with friends and family during the holiday season. By communicating your limitations due to RA, being flexible, and adjusting your expectations, you can help make sure the holidays are happy and memorable.
Communicate Your Needs
Let your loved ones know that connecting with them over the holidays is as important as ever to you, but RA is making it hard to plan because of symptoms like joint pain and insomnia. Stress can make things worse, so you need to put your health first.
Be Flexible
Instead of saying "no," say "yes" to something else. If a family tradition no longer works for you since you developed rheumatoid arthritis, it may be time to suggest an update.
If it's just not possible to get together in one place this year, consider using a video chat service such as Skype, Zoom, or FaceTime to have a special holiday call on a smartphone or laptop. During a video chat, you can:
Adjust Your Expectations
Even without a chronic illness like RA, holidays often come with high expectations that lead to disappointment and stress. Letting go of the illusion of a "perfect" holiday can help you keep expectations realistic and focus on what's most important about the holidays. For many people, that means connecting with loved ones, being thankful for what you have, and finding hope for the new year.
Here are some mindful tips from Johns Hopkins Medicine for adjusting holiday expectations:
During the holidays and year-round, the members of myRAteam are here for each other. Joining myRAteam means gaining a support group of thousands of others with rheumatoid arthritis who understand exactly what you're going through.
Have you found ways to celebrate the holidays despite RA?
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I am finding it easier to "stress less" now that I have decided I am worth putting first. The others around me will have to learn to adjust. One thing that helped was using your suggestion of… read more
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