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The holiday season is wonderful and the holiday season is really hard when you have a chronic illness. This year, give yourself the gift of better mental health and fewer flare days by keeping this season simple. Learn how it my new column for HealthCentral:

“Joy to the world, the holidays are almost here! It is the most wonderful time of the year, filled with togetherness, beautiful celebrations, twinkle lights, and lots of wonderful food. For the people responsible for pulling it all together, it is also the most stressful time of the year, which tends to spell doom when you live with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In the effort to make magic for family and friends, you also create the perfect storm of ingredients for a massive post-holiday flare. Add a global pandemic to that and you might be wondering how on earth you’ll get through it all. Fear not, I’m here to help you get perspective and a plan.

Gaining perspective often starts with taking a look at what causes you to lose it in the first place, so let’s review the top challenges to celebrating the holidays with RA. The driving force is the myth of the picture-perfect holiday. It’s an admirable goal, but real life is different, messier, and it or RA inevitably gets in the way. That aspirational holiday leads to making grand plans for decorations and activities, which are quite frankly a check your body can’t cash. But somehow, you keep trying to single-handedly create the kind of holiday that social media influencers have a large team to do, while you try to be all things to everyone, and likely prioritizing everyone’s—anyone’s?—needs above your own. Cue fatigue and flares that you ignore while powering through, thus guaranteeing the aforementioned crash, leaving you on the couch for days, even weeks. That’s never a good thing, but can be extra depressing at this time of year.”

Read the rest of my holiday column on HealthCentral.