Chronic illness: Rest as a activity

I manage my day as best I can with pacing. As we all do. The more we do in the day, the harder it is to pace. And the more fatigue I have, the more difficulty I have. Moderating through the day can decrease stress and help with pain, fatigue and cognitive fatigue. And rest is a vital activity in managing my day.

If rest is a difficult thing for you:

“Set a timer for five minutes, during which you practice placing your worries outside of your mind and body. Visualization can help. You might imagine flicking an “off” switch for the part of your mind that carries worries. You can also imagine gathering your concerns and placing them into a box that you’ll put in a storage closet. Don’t worry—you can turn the switch back on and pick up your worry box when your five-minute practice period is over. The idea is to become increasingly comfortable with the practice of detaching so that you can use this skill during your rest times”. Psychology Today

It can be hard to get used to. When society wants to push, push all the time. And tell us it is some sort of prize to be earned. And only when you earn it, is it deserved. This precious thing we call rest.

When we become chronically ill and/or disabled rest is necessary. We can believe it is a weakness because it is so stigmatized. It can be seen as being ‘lazy’. No matter what we do and how we do it or how productive we manage to Be- it is never sufficient because we need Rest.

The art of pacing with chronic illness

Part of being productive for me is resting.

• Rest before you are exhausted. Not a reactive response to exhaustion.
• Rest on the good days and the bad days.
• To manage fatigue, try to notice the pattern of yours and rest at the times of the day when you need it most. I notice I have more energy in the morning for example. Less as the day goes on, so I begin to conserve it.
• Add in specific times for rest that are necessary as any other thing in your day like food or sleep. If there is a time that works best make it your time of rest every day.
• Think of it as a positive act and not a weakness. There is no shame in needing rest. It is a necessary thing.
• It helps with cognitive clarity.
• It helps with energy regulation.
• It helps with pain management.

You don’t need to justify your rest. You don’t need to explain why your energy is low. Your body is already asking for what it needs – and giving it that care is not weakness. Rest is not quitting. Rest is what helps you stay in the game longer. You have the right to pause and take care of yourself. Even when your pace is slow, you are still making progress. Live Minimal

Restful activities

Doing activities and/or hobbies that we can be restful doing. Low effort hobbies like knitting, crocheting, coloring, daydreaming, doing a puzzle, or others. Do an activity you do not need to focus much on like reading a book that doesn’t require much effort or watching Netflix. Or things like having a bath and meditation which are well known to relax us. These all cause less cognitive strain. And can relax us mentally.

Breaking up activities

When doing an activity itself it is beneficial for me to pause in that activity to take a break. Sometimes to switch to an entirely different activity. Put my brain in a different gear. Managing cognitive stress and fatigue.

Periods of rest

Quick little 5-10 minute pauses between activities of doing nothing to rest. Between any and all tasks. It better manages stress and energy. This breaks up our day with just short bursts of rest.

Naps

20-30 minute no guilt nap times to increase energy and manage fatigue levels. It does wonders for managing my day overall. I have at least one sometimes more depending on the day. Sometimes a lot- if it is a bad day.

Buffer after and before appointments

To manage my appointments I leave a good half an hour before and after free of anything. Rest time before, recovery time after.

Social Recovery

I leave the next day available for rest from social events the previous day or evening. When it comes to holidays and social events, I leave days to recover. This makes it so that I do not overextend my limits. I plan and account for this.

Some other strategies that might help

Gentle low impact exercise can be included as well:

Gentle stretches

Just some gentle stretches are a nice break in my routine to ground myself in the physical. This can be very nice periodically if I keep it simple and do not overdo it.

Short walk

A brief short walk, for me early in the morning, is refreshing and gets me out of my headspace. Which can be very refreshing as long as I keep it short and early in the day.

All of these help me maintain the amount of mental and physical energy I start with in the day. As well as pain levels.

We have a limited amount of energy in the day to manage the things we need to do and want to do. Rest enables us to be more productive than we otherwise would be able to be if we exceeded our limits every single day. Energy management is a difficult task to do. We know we have a limited amount of energy- and a lot of things to do. Pacing is always difficult as a result. Resting isn’t easy. We just have a different pace to life.