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Being physically active is important when you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Exercise is useful for all of us, but when you have RA, it can be an vital part of supporting your joints and reducing pain. But for some of us, RA has caused so much damage to our bodies that exercise hurts. So. how do you get your body moving when it seems like no matter what you do, the result is a flare?

You dance. More specifically, you Chair Dance.

I’ve used a wheelchair since I was 16 years old and that means I have always chair danced. I did it at weddings, at bars when going out with friends, at concerts, and in my living room. And every single time, I didn’t care what it looked like, only about the movement and having fun.

Which brings me to exercise. I have also done a fair bit of that in my life, courtesy of life-long physiotherapy, and that was very rarely fun. And then I reached the point when exercise hurt, RA joint damage and the effects of fibromyalgia combining to make deliberate repeated movement of my body impossible. Not just in the moment when I did it, but afterwards and for a while. For me, there was no gain after the pain, just more pain and not the good kind that means that you are getting stronger. This was the pain of injury, the kind that says “stop doing that.” My health and ability to do other things in my life depended on listening my body and I did. I stopped exercising.

I am glad that these days, RA treatment has progressed to the point where people with RA often can exercise, enjoy doing it, can get stronger, just like everyone else. But there are still some of us for whom the movement associated with working out causes injury. If that’s you — permanently or temporarily — you might enjoy Chair Dancing as much as I do.

All you need is a chair and some happy music, the kind that makes you want to move. Come to think of it, you can probably also do this lying down, or of course dancing on your feet. The point is to move, not for it to be done in a particular position. The other point is to move as much as you can comfortably do. On bad days, I tap my feet or bob my head, on better days I move my whole body to the song.

And then I do that for the duration of one song. Which is not to say I never play music at other times in my day or fon’t move along to the music— I do, but not with the same purpose. This one is my exercise and I do it after I’ve been up for a few hours when my body has warmed up and will move comfortably, instead of feeling like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.

I like a lot of things about this. I like moving my body, even on days when it makes me aware how wrecked I am and on the days when I have to stop halfway through the song. I like the feeling of my heart beating faster and the blood pumping in my body — getting cardio exercise when you’re quite disabled from a chronic illness can be difficult and, quite frankly, anything helps. I love singing along, loudly and out of tune. And I love how fun it is. Because let’s be honest, I do enough things because it’s good for me or the RA. If I can make some of it more fun, I will. It increases the chance of me doing it again.

Dancing is fun when you do it on your own, but it feels more like a party when you Chair Dance with other people. This month, I have roped in the members of my private Facebook group, Lene’s Couch, into joining me. Toegther, we pick a collection of songs and I post one every day, and all over the world, we dance together. There’s something a bit extra fun about knowing that you’re not the only person who danced to that song that day. Want to join us? Hop on over to Lene’s Couch on Facebook and don’t forget to answer the questions when you apply. It’s how I keep out bots and spammers.

If joining the group is not the right thing for you right now, then you can absolutely do this on your own, in your home. Once a day, find a song that makes you want to move and then do just that. Dance. Disappear into the music, connect to the part of you that feels like you and the song are becoming one, that you move as gracefully as a professional dancer. Trust me: it is possible to feel that — and I say that with the full knowledge that when I move, the RA damage makes me look a little like a bird, with small and jerky movements. But it doesn’t feel that way when I dance.

Let your body and your soul have some fun. Dance like no one’s watching.