Balancing Life with Fibromyalgia

This article on WebMD is especially appropriate for this time of year. Christmas is two weeks away and if you are like me, you’ve spent the last three or more weeks trying to balance all the responsibilities of life. You’ve still got to do all the normal day to day things, working, taking care of your home, your family, shopping, etc, except that now thanks to the holidays you’ve got more shopping to do, you’ve got parties to attend, decorations to put up and who knows what else you have to do.

Back at Thanksgiving I posted about how we’d decided to pare down our Thanksgiving plans to go to just one family, rather than (as we’d done previously) visiting both of our families. Now it’s time for Christmas and time for us to figure out how to handle all the usual Christmas obligations. This weekend alone we have a ton of plans (it is my birthday after all) including dinner out, a friends holiday party, and a holiday show. All that in just two days. What does that mean for me? It means that on the third day, I won’t be doing ANYTHING! I have to plan that ahead, schedule it in, and you should too.

So as you make your holiday plans, remember to schedule down time. Got plans for a holiday party? Plan to take the next day off. This year it’s a good thing Christmas falls on a Saturday, so we can take Sunday as a day of rest (and really mean it). Oh, and don’t forget to get some help with that holiday baking, as well as with taking down the Christmas decorations (or putting them up, if you haven’t already). Don’t be afraid to ask for help (from wherever you can get it) and if you can’t get help, don’t be afraid to just say “No” even if it’s to yourself. All that stuff you think you NEED to do… doesn’t really have to be done (and it certainly doesn’t have to be done all in one day).