by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 11/28/19

Here at RawlsMD, we know that the holiday season can be physically and emotionally difficult when you’re in the midst of chronic health struggles.

At the same time, it’s so important for recovery to stay positive and find joy in even the littlest things. When you take the time to reflect on the small victories, you may be surprised to see just how far you’ve actually come.

That’s why this season, we’re launching our #HowICelebrate social media campaign. Our goal: To help everyone in our community focus on the little wins in life, and to share ideas for enjoying the holidays wherever you are on your health journey.

By spreading encouragement and inspiration, we can lift each other up during what might be a difficult time.

We hope you’ll follow our #HowICelebrate campaign on Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter. We’ll be posting videos, recipes, energy-saving tips, and more every day through the end of the year.

If you’re inspired, please share your own #HowICelebrate moments on your social media accounts. Anything that gives your spirits a lift could do the same for others! And be sure to tag us and use the hashtag #HowICelebrate so that we can all follow along.

In the meantime, please check out my #HowICelebrate video, below.

Video Transcript

Hello, everybody. Dr. Rawls here, wishing you a happy Thanksgiving and holiday season.

This is a great time of year, one of my favorites. Even when I was struggling with chronic illness, the fall holiday season was especially good. But it can be stressful. Especially if you’re struggling with a chronic illness, that just compounds the whole thing.

There are some things that you can do to get around it. One of the big things that we did as a family was making a pledge to tone down the gifts and really making it more about fellowship.

Also, allowing plenty of time to sleep. Sleep is just really important. I always protected my sleep time, even when I was traveling. And I was one of the first ones to go to bed, and tried to get situations where it was really quiet that I could sleep.

Food. It’s all about healthy food. Sure, there are sweets and different kinds of things. But even those kinds of things, we tried to tone back and really focus on the good food and make it about the fellowship as much as the food.

The last thing is getting outside, which is what I’m doing right now. I’m on my morning walk, and holidays offer more opportunities for downtime, and that’s really important. So, no matter what the weather, I always bundle up and get outside, especially to natural places. That made more difference in my total recovery than anything else I did.

So happy holidays, take care, and be well.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.
You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.