Living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may change your holidays, but you can still have enjoyable and meaningful celebrations. Although COPD may make some holiday traditions challenging, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy connecting with friends and family during the holiday season. By communicating your limitations due to COPD, being flexible, and adjusting your expectations, you can help make sure the holidays are happy and memorable.
Communicate Your Needs
Let your loved ones know that connecting with them over the holidays is as important as ever to you, but COPD is making it hard to plan as usual. Chronic coughing and fatigue can make interacting with lots of family more difficult, and oxygen therapy can make it harder to travel far from home. You need to put your health first or risk worsening your condition.
Be Flexible
If it's just not possible to get together in one place this year, consider using a video chat service such as Skype, Zoom, or FaceTime to have a special holiday call on a smartphone or laptop. During a video chat, you can:
Adjust Your Expectations
Even without a chronic illness like COPD, holidays often come with high expectations that lead to disappointment and stress. Letting go of the illusion of a "perfect" holiday can help you keep expectations realistic and focus on what's most important about the holidays. For many people, that means connecting with loved ones, being thankful for what you have, and finding hope for the new year.
Here are some mindful tips from Johns Hopkins Medicine for adjusting holiday expectations:
During the holidays and year-round, the members of MyCOPDTeam are here for each other. Joining MyCOPDTeam means gaining a support group of thousands of others with COPD who understand exactly what you're going through.
Here are some conversations from MyCOPDTeam members about navigating the holiday season with COPD:
Have you found ways to celebrate the holidays despite COPD?
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good to hear your on mend it takes time so keep going when u can
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