"BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!"

​As a person with chronic Lyme disease, you know there’s no easier task in the world than not finding the motivation to not do anything at all. With a health condition that leaves you physically and mentally in pieces, an abandonment of your once closest relationships, and an idle future of aspirations, you have every justifiable reason to do so.

​But you don’t, because you’ve realized that you’re much stronger than you ever thought possible, and with this, envision and tirelessly work towards a future in which you’re completely healed from chronic Lyme.

​One of the best ways to help reach that future is with a confirmation that what you’re doing now is working, and you know something is working when you simply feel good. When you feel good enough, you may end up having a good day, and the more good days you have, the more you’ll be convinced that you are in fact getting better.

​When we talk about a good day, we can all reasonably define it as when you feel so good, you just can’t deny that what you had was in fact a good day. But a day is not good because we define it as such. It’s rather the accumulated weight of enough good to tip the scale and allow us to define and call the day as it is, a good one.

​To help further tip that scale, here are 5 ways you can help yourself feel almost immediately better, even if it’s just a little bit better, and only for a short period of time.

5. ​Get Showered, Dressed, and Put that Watch on Your Wrist

​Getting showered (if you can do it without feeling worse), dressed, and all dolled up to present yourself as nothing less than your very best are normally the activities of a person without chronic Lyme. However, just because you have chronic Lyme disease, doesn’t mean you can’t do -- at least this -- what a person who doesn’t have chronic Lyme disease does.

​Where the mind goes, the body will follow, but for you, as someone with chronic Lyme, we’re going to appropriately reverse it to where the body goes, the mind will follow. It’s the mind that convinces you to stay in bed and not get dressed, but if your body ignores this and becomes what your mind has been waiting for, your mind will certainly follow and become less of a person who thinks with chronic Lyme, and more of a person who thinks without it.

4. Bring on the Change

​Being sick in the same environment for a long period of time can, over time, make it feel like the environment itself is making or keeping you sick, which is conducive for remaining sick. Everything within the environment has become a part of what you’ve defined as being sick -- whether you acknowledge this or not -- even though the environment itself may not actually be making you sick.

​Change is so good for the mind, and when you change what’s in your environment, or better yet, the environment itself, it no longer feels like the environment is making you sick. With something new and unfamiliar, you not only get a new opportunity to truly gauge how sick you are, but the chance to let an environment that’s not making you sick, make you better.

3. Eat a Big, Healthy, and Calorie and Nutrient-dense Meal

​Chronic Lyme disease carries what seems like an endless list of bizarre and unprecedented symptoms. In fact, there are so many symptoms, it’s probably easier to just identify what isn’t a symptom of chronic Lyme, with two of those being not eating enough food and getting enough nutrition.

​In experiencing every symptom known to man for what seems like forever, you’ll likely reach a point where any new symptom you experience is automatically attributed to chronic Lyme. While chronic Lyme does have almost every symptom in the book, feeling tired and not well can be found in another.

​Try the metaphorical book “calories and nutrition”, and once you do, you’ll realize how much energy the human body needs to just maintain a temperature of 98.6 degree Fahrenheit when nothing else around it is, let alone heal from chronic Lyme.

​You’re feeling off, as you normally do, but you could potentially be feeling relatively better if your body just had the energy and nutrition to do so. Go and make yourself a big, healthy, and calorie and nutrient-dense meal, and take note of how you feel in the following hours.

2. ​Open a Window, Close Your Eyes, and Breathe

​Just go to a window, open it, close your eyes, and slowly breathe, acknowledging the flavor of the breeze. Nothing else needs to be said.

​Okay, maybe something else needs to be said. The good that comes from this may be incredibly small in weight and short-lived, but scent -- being the strongest sense tied to memory -- the scent of a breeze can take you back, and immediately remind you how felt when you first encountered this scent, likely before chronic Lyme. A smelly time machine, if you will.

1. ​Distract Yourself

​One of the best ways to feel good when you have chronic Lyme disease is to not be reminded that you are not only not feeling good, but that you have chronic Lyme disease. You can achieve this simply with a distraction, and the beauty of a distraction is that you can control what it is, when it is, and how long you choose to be distracted by it.

​You know what we’re talking about! Go play Mario Kart Wii with your significant partner for an hour, or go make that big, healthy, and calorie and nutrient dense meal we recommended earlier. While being distracted, you may be reminded that you are not well or that you have chronic Lyme, but it’ll be short-lived, as your attention and focus will be needed to deflect the oncoming red turtle shell. The more you distract, the less you’ll be distracted by.