Blog

Photo description: a girl dances with a rainbow-coloured umbrella on a black and white backgriound. Credit: Dan Park

Living with rheumatoid arthritis is a dance on roses — there are plenty of thorns. In my new Made with RA column, I flip it. Can I find 10 reasons to be grateful for RA in my new Made with RA column?

“I like to say that living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a dance on roses — there are plenty of thorns. When you’re hurting and exhausted, it can be really difficult to see anything but those spiky bits that make life so hard. But did you know that nurturing a sense of optimism can improve your experience of pain and chronic illness? After a lifetime of struggling with this condition, I’ve discovered that focusing on what I have and what I can do makes me a much happier person than when I was very aware of what I didn’t have and couldn’t do. So let’s take a tongue-in-cheek look at some ways you can strip some of the thorns off the roses by looking at them from a different perspective.

You Can Nap 100% Guilt-free

Naps are blissful, naps are restorative, and when you live with RA, naps can be an essential part of self-care. People with RA have a higher need for sleep than the general population, sometimes as much as 10 hours in a 24-hour period. Your doctor may even recommend that you rest. However, they generally don’t recommend how to deal with the judgement of other people, who tend to feel that naps are an indulgence.

Some clever rebranding can help others understand that, for you, a nap is a necessity. I call my daily nap a “mandatory rest period” and tell people that without this rest, my fatigue and pain levels will go out of control. Guess what? Because I respect my need for a nap, so do other people (mostly).”

Read the rest of this Made with RA column on finding the roses among the thorns on HealthCentral.