Simple pleasures

Tags

CFS, goals and strategy, results

Interesting how enormously satisfying and pleasing it is to do simple things like wash and put away dishes after many weeks of feeling overwhelmed and unable to keep up.

I have been washing dishes for 15 minutes only each day (controlled by timer) and later emptying  the dish drainer, usually 5 minutes.

And lately, when I do this, there is not an overabundance of still undone items waiting on the counter.

Today, as I did this, I noticed that what I was feeling was joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of town weekend event

Tags

CFS, goals and strategy, managing energy, managing relationships, scheduling, travel plans

So I have an important event tomorrow 75 miles away (1.5 hour drive). To prevent relapse wiping out productivity for next week, I am taking these steps:

I’ve made a schedule outlining when and how much I will rest, along with travel times, meals and being at the event. The schedule goes over Saturday and Sunday. I need big swaths of rest. When I return on Sunday, I am myself hosting an event in the evening. A friend has offered to come early and help me get set up for it. I’ll need to go to bed early, for sure!

I am sharing this schedule with the people I will be interacting with in the hopes that my needs won’t wrinkle their plans.

I think I can do this without crashing. We shall yet see if I have given myself enough wiggle room. Cliffhanger!

Methodical pacing keeps me productive

Tags

CFS, goals and strategy, managing energy, pacing, results

Just to mention that mapping out my entire activities for the day, including rests, meals and appointments as to-dos, resulted in the highest billable hours per week than I have been able to do since three months ago. I am starting to catch up to housework as well, and waking up better. Sometimes sleeping better. And no crashes, so I might be resting enough for my activity level.

In sum:

Taking care of my health as if it is an important client facilitates better care of my business clients in addition to my own health.

Continuing self-micro-managing is worth the effort. Every day. Here comes tomorrow…

An amended, better daily plan

Tags

CFS, goals and strategy, pacing, scheduling

Today and yesterday I am adding something new to my daily scheduling. Since last week I way overdid it, even thinking that I was under-scheduling myself, I have had to become more obvious and heavy handed with myself.

So now I am adding a rest after every to-do as it’s own to-do. So after “send email” task I have “rest after email” task. I have estimated times on every task. The rest time is at the very least 50% of the task time, sometimes more for particular physical tasks, like meals where it includes prep, cooking, and eating.

To my surprise this only added 5 min to my “project review and create daily schedule” routine.

It’s day two of this, and so far so good. I suppose I will know by Friday if I am resting enough.

A Better Daily Plan

Tags

CFS, goals and strategy, pacing

I was talking with a friend with fibromyalgia about strategies for planning our time that help prevent fatigue. The crux of our conversation was that it is important to physically add resting time to the schedule as well as active tasks. I could use more practice thinking of resting as important “to-do” and devise a better way to plan my time.

I now have three spreadsheets that I can use to plan my daily schedule and check for do-ability:

Daily Planner:

Time totals of Activities by category

Daily Rest:

Looking at the daily planner, how much rest do I need after/before each item?

Daily Balance:

comparing the totals of each sheet.

• does this seem like a good balance?
• is the total fewer than 8 hours?

I don’t yet have meals in there, and I need to add my morning and evening routines, but for now I am focussing on the “torso” of the day. We’ll figure out the head and feet as we go.

I miss my bicycle– exercise recovery plan

Tags

CFS, exercise recovery, goals and strategy

So my subconscious has taken a break from presenting vivid dreams where I am eating copious amounts of some indulgent dessert item, and returned to the ones where I am riding my bicycle. The one from last night even featured some lactic acid leg burn as I went up a hill!

My Spirit Inanimate Object

Cycling has been so much a part of my life and sense of self. For a number of years my business logo and personal icon featured a bicycle. Someone asked me what it signified once and I thought and replied “freedom and control, like flying”.

Losing my ability to bicycle without major fatigue symptom backlash is something I think about constantly, even while asleep. I know that learning how to manage my daily life pace will help bring me to a higher level of functionality, and that I may return to my active self. I also know that it may be many months before this is achieved. It is easier to train gradually for an athletic event than to re-train your life-impetus and put beloved activities on indefinite hold.

I also miss my sporty friends, but can sometimes find it challenging to handle their bright, shiny, dynamic energy with my much dampened, symptom-laden, wet-blanket-style aura which now surrounds me. However a few at a time are OK, so one on ones and small groups are my social sweet spot.

Sitting around being sad does not serve me well, so I am using my resources and recently acquired knowledge to amend my not-working-so-well exercise schedule and make my “exercise recovery plan”:

1. Weekly early morning run/walk appointment with a friend changed to weekly afternoon gentle “water running” for no more than 30 minutes. If I feel physically challenged during this, my internal rule is to slow down, float in place or get out of  the pool.
2. I have marked on my calendar the yoga and tai chi classes at the gym that I could attend as an optional basis. Only if I feel up to it. I have a backup “5 min yoga” routine that I can do if I do not feel up to going to a whole class, which fits in nicely with a 5-10 min meditation.
3. I have a handy rating scale from http://www.cfidsselfhelp.org which I use to check in with myself to see how I am doing. I have noted the point at which a higher intensity of exercise is allowed. Currently I have a ways to go, so I must be patient with myself and mentally be OK with feeling the way I do.
4. When I do walking errands or move about the house, I notice if I am moving hurriedly and encourage myself to slow down to “walking meditation” speed. I am much more productive if I move methodically rather than rushing about.
5. When I am not so fatigued and brain-fogged as I have been this week, I have the option of riding my bicycle around my neighborhood. The rules are that I must stay within the flat grid that immediately surrounds my house and ride in a gear that is neither too resistant nor too floppy. “Baby bear gear”. I ride up and down the grid. I can make two passes. If I find my breathing and/or heart rate elevating beyond “calm” I return to home base, even if I don’t want to.

This last one will be challenging for me as I tend to prefer a big gear and a big effort on the bike. I don’t have to try until I am ready for the challenge.

Finishing the Santa Cruz Triathlon 2011

The voice from inside the pillow

Tags

CFS, count blessings, fatigue symptoms, manage stress

Fatigue and brain fog have been clobbering me for the past few days. It’s that feeling where my body mostly is alright, but my head feels like a pillow is clamped around it. A pillow of pressure that slows the process of thoughts and ideas. The pillow has angry cartoon eyebrows and malicious intent.

Apparently one way to relieve stress, i.e. counteract the thwarting pillow, is to change your worries and frustrations into positive self-talk. So it’s time for me to count blessings:

1. “I can smell again, said the Pelican” ; in other words, my cold is gone!
2. The burning sensations on my feet and palms have calmed down, thus easier to sleep and less distracted throughout the day. (ears are still plugged and warm-ish, but still an improvement).
3. Even though I slept until noon today, I was actually sleeping, and so got some actual rest.
4. Even though I slept until noon today, I was able to slowly and methodically go about my business and got the most important items done from my list.
5. I was able to catch my “bad thoughts” and turn them around to more calm and helpful ones. BTW this is a huge step for me, to be able to do this.
6. I have been good about not eating sugar, my lost weight has stayed off. Apparently though my unconscious wants to eat it very much, because I have been dreaming about eating desserts and soda. Last night I enjoyed strawberry ice cream and choclate cake courtesy of my unconscious mind. MMMmmmmmm.

In sum: Bleah. But, OK.

Be not the Squirrel

Tags

CFS, managing energy, not-to-do, pacing

As much as I enjoy observing the squirrels around (and on) my house, I must remember to refrain from being the human embodiment of squirrel energy.

I should be more like a pond turtle, cruising slowly in a cool, clear pond. It calmly gets to where it’s going, it’s not worried about where the nuts are.

Starting my NOT TO DO list

Tags

CFS, goals and strategy, not-to-do

Having read this article: http://www.cfidsselfhelp.org/library/making-a-not-to-do-list

I see that I can benefit from listing some things NOT to do. I am a beginner at this, much easier to list out plans and commitments, isn’t it! But we all start somewhere. I start here.

Things I shall not do:

1. Push myself
2. Add items to my schedule without removing an equal number first
3. Feel bad about having a short daily to-do
4. Schedule travel without scheduling rest and preparation days before and after
5. Assume that others will have negative thoughts about me
6. Eat sugar, even if it is looking at me funny

OK that is enough to start with. Resting now.

Theory on sugar revisited

Tags

CFS, diet and nutrition, fatigue symptoms

Yes. Well, I did go ahead and had a bowl of non-dairy ice cream on the 31st day of my 30 day no-sugar challenge. For science.

Results:

• Immediately my stomach felt bloated and heavy.
• Within ten minutes I received a small headache. It went away in the evening, but still.
• This morning I was slow, woozy, got up way late, and had a bit of brain fog which is currently decreasing, but still present.

Conclusion:

I will continue my exclusion of processed sugar. My body prefers to be without it.

Epilogue test:

This afternoon I consumed a dessert with much the same ingredients as the frozen dessert, but no processed sugar added. So far no differences in general body experience, so I am reasonably certain that I am right about this. Also eating fruit does not affect me negatively, so plenty of sweet items for me to consume.