When adapting to symptoms gets in the way of pacing and self management.

Human beings usually adapt pretty quickly to change. Absorbing it into a new normal - often without noticing it.

I'm sure it's a useful survival skill, but when it comes to pacing to manage chronic illness or disability, this ability to normalise a new situation is a complicating factor, and can make managing a condition harder. It means that when something aggravates my symptoms for a few days, I adjust to the higher level of symptoms, making that my 'normal' - and as a result my pacing and self-management strategies automatically shift so that I'm maintaining the higher level of symptoms - not working to get back to the lower symptom level!

Here's an example from my week:

(Note: I have symptomatic hypermobility, PoTS, and some kind of neurodivergence):

I recently had a prolonged busy patch - for just over a month my weekly rest days were all interrupted with little tasks that were suddenly needed and couldn't be delayed. Not enough to exhaust me in a single task, but steadily a bit more than usual.

I kept soldiering on. Pacing to that higher level of symptoms.

Then:

On Saturday morning I had a physically challenging morning doing something I loved (Bonfire in the back garden of the new house, with my 7y/o niece) - which left me happy but exhausted. And I didn't seem to have recharged much through the afternoon and a quiet Sunday. On Monday I realised I needed some proper recharge time if I was going to recover from Saturday - and went to bed after lunch. Ensuring I spent a lot of time in genuine rest (e.g. long periods of no phone scrolling - mostly sky watching, and familiar audiobooks when I felt like it).

By Monday evening, I felt worse. This is something that often happens when I've slipped into 'push through it' mode without realising it. I'm too busy pushing to notice the symptoms - and when I stop pushing, they make themselves known as I start to relax.

So Tuesday I rested more. Only moving for bathroom and kitchen breaks. Dozing whenever I felt like it (a lot). By Tuesday evening, I could feel I was improving. My clarity of thought was returning, and my default position was no longer 'overwhelmed'.

I actually felt better than I had for days - and the penny dropped:

I had been long-term overdoing - and adjusting my normal to include the increased symptoms. Essentially meaning I was constantly aggravating my symptoms more than I was relieving them - creating a downward spiral. So even though I was working hard to pace, and thought I was pacing well, I hadn't registered the higher symptoms and responded to them.

So I took Wednesday off too. More careful rest. And by evening I felt SO much better. Like I'd come back to life again.

And now I've completely renewed my pacing/condition management strategies to ensure I don't get straight back into the long term overdoing it:

• 30 mins max at the laptop in one sitting.

• Physiotherapy must be done each day - preferably in multiple short sessions.

• Rest breaks whenever I feel I need to 'push through' or 'can't concentrate'.

• Rest breaks horizontal, with feet up wherever possible.