Do You Have a Pacing Issue?
People with chronic pain may have trouble maintaining a healthy level of activity. One common challenge is the experience of "overdoing it". On good days, you may do more than your body is used to. This can cause an increase in pain, fatigue, or other symptoms, often requiring more rest or recovery time. During such a flare-up, you may get behind in work or other responsibilities, lose sight of personal goals, and socialize less than you would like. When your symptoms decrease, you may pack your day with activities, chores, work, and time with friends or family. However, you may do too much again and you may experience a new flare-up, resulting in another slow day. You may develop a pattern of doing too much, having a flare-up, needing to rest, doing too much, having a flare-up, needing to rest, and so on. This common pattern is called a pacing issue.
If you have a pacing issue you will tend to be less and less active over time. This can lead to a number of additional problems.
- As you become less active, your body will become weaker. A weaker body means that you may feel more tired and less able to participate in life. Weaker muscles are more prone to flare-ups. Weak and tight muscles hurt more than strong and stretched muscles.
- You may become less involved in life and in the pleasures that life has to offer. As you lose confidence in your ability to be active, you may find that you tend to pursue only the most basic, easy goals. You may be missing opportunities for growth, change, and personal satisfaction.
- As your activity level decreases, you might feel less in control and more discouraged and sad.
Fortunately, there is something you can do to reverse this common pattern.
Create a Pacing Plan
A Pacing Plan will help you to gradually increase how long you can do an activity. This method helps prevent overdoing it and lowers the chance of pain flare-ups. The aim is to keep a doable level of activity without causing more pain or fatigue.
To start, you you will select the activity you would like to increase and then indicate your current "baseline". Your baseline is how long you can currently do the activity comfortably without causing a flare-up.
To keep you safe, in your first week your plan will start you at 10% less than your baseline. So, if your baseline is 10 minutes, you will do 9-minute sessions your first week. Each week, your plan will increase the duration of each session by approximately 10%. After 9 or 10 weeks, you will roughly double your baseline.
The Activity Pacing Tool will allow you to slowly and safely increase the duration of any activity.
You can use this tool for any activity that you want to do longer without experiencing a flare-up. Some examples are:
Sitting (e.g., at the computer, at a movie)
Standing (e.g., giving a presentation, waiting in a line)
Walking or other forms of exercise
Social activities
Doing Chores