Pacing

The topic of discussion with my therapist today! I explained that I'd found routine difficult because some days I'm just wiped. She had mentioned pacing in a previous session, so I wanted to find out more about it. She showed me some information on it, and explained that sometimes people tend to do loads of activity one day, and then the next day they have to rest. Then they might go on like that during the week. I had been doing this very thing! Spending a day doing ALL THE THINGS and then needing a rest the next day. I had been thinking that that was the correct way of managing it. If have know I'm going to have a day out, I might spend the day before and the day after doing nothing, so I will have maximum energy for my day out. This is totally wrong though. I should focus on doing small amounts of activity with small amounts of rest. To be honest, there have been times where, if I've known I would be out in the evening, I'd rest during the day to conserve energy, but then I would still feel tired after my evening out. So what I have to do is start small with my physical activities, stop when I feel tired, then mark down how long I lasted before I got tired. So, I might do some vacuuming, stop when I'm tired, and see that 15 minutes passed before I got tired. If I'm out with friends, and I get tired, I'll make a note of how long it took before I got tired. I'll record this over the course of a few days (both good days and bad days), then I'll work out the average time, and subtract a fifth from it. From that I will learn what a manageable amount of activity is for me. How long I can go before I get tired. It's going to take time, but I think it's a good start. I was supposed to have just one more session with the therapist, but now that I'm starting with the pacing thing, she wants to extend it slightly to support me. So now I have two sessions left! I'm thankful for that, mostly because next week I see my consultant, and depending on what happens I might really need to see my therapist!