Pacing is I’m sure a word that you are used to hearing wherever you go for help related to your condition; at the doctors, hospital, group workshops and even on the internet. ‘You need to learn to pace’, ‘being able to pace is key’, ‘pacing should be something at the forefront of your mind’ are just some of the phrases I was constantly hearing wherever I went. However whilst everybody was preaching at me to do just that, nobody could actually tell me how to do whatever that was; in particular how to pace when you have a million and one things to do.
So what does pacing even mean? Pacing in chronic illness terms is a technique used when managing your energy levels. A technique which allows you to get things done without burning yourself out. It consists of rest periods throughout the day and is a method used to balance activity periods (which can be physical, emotional or mental) alongside relaxation ones. It is important to note here that an activity task is anything that uses your energy – this doesn’t have to just be a physical activity e.g. worrying about an upcoming situation is an activity which maybe isn’t physical but would still be classified as an activity all the same in the form of a mental and/or emotional one. I am sure anyone with conditions similar to mine would agree that actually it is the mental and emotional activities that tire you more than the physical ones – so remember that!
Now for the question on everybody’s lips – how do you actually pace? There are a number of techniques you can use to pace and you may find some work better for you than others depending on your lifestyle. To begin with it may be helpful to identify how much energy you use for a particular activity, whether you believe it is a physical, mental or emotional activity and ask yourself what it is about the activity that you find difficult i.e. do you enjoy the activity? Is it stressful? Once you have figured this out you can use it to include any of the following techniques:
- Keep a diary for a few days to a week whereby you record everything you do during the day. Pick three colours to represent levels of difficulty – low, medium and high and label each of your daily events in whichever colour represents the difficulty i.e. watching television may be a green because it may be low energy whereas talking to someone may be red because it takes up more energy and is therefore high. By keeping this diary you will start to see patterns in your day – maybe you do high energy activities in the morning and can only do low ones for the rest of the day or maybe you don’t spread activities out enough. The diary isn’t to judge yourself it is show yourself your day to day patterns.
- Think about things that give you energy rather than take energy away. Energy increasers can be anything from food and sleep to doing anything you love and spending time with people you love. Use these activities to give you energy; it may not be in the conventional sense but feeling happy can make you feel positive and therefore more energised.
- Prioritise – If you have a number of activities to complete then write them down and work out which need to be done today and what can wait until tomorrow or next week.
- Start and Stop – If you are doing an activity, don’t feel you have to persevere until it is finished. Think about doing it in bursts so you don’t overdo it.
- Pre-decide the amount of time spent on activities – By pre-deciding and planning how much time you will spend on each thing you do will eliminate the chance of spending too long on a particular activity. You can use your diaries from earlier to help you see how much time you spend say reading and calculate an average time that is doable for you and stick to it. This will allow you to do an activity without going overboard.
- Switching up activities – This is probably my favourite option and what I find most useful. As I mentioned before different activities are demanding in different ways – physical, emotional and mental. Therefore a good way of pacing is to change where your energy is being used by swapping between physical, emotional and mental activities as well as adding in some relaxation ones too.
Pacing is hard work there is no doubt about it but it is extremely important not to judge yourself if you find you don’t pace as much as you should. Life is not always straight forward and it is not always practical to spend every single day planning and prioritising what you are and aren’t going to do. The key message here is if you are in a position where you can then try.
Personally I think the significant point to pacing is the understanding that although in modern day life relaxation and rest periods are recommended for keeping healthy for all people, for the chronic illness person it is essential.