Plan prioritise and pace

Pain can affect how you manage the range of activities in your day. We can tend to use pain as a guide: “Oh, my pain has increased…I’d better stop or rest.” Or: “I must get this done before the pain increases again.”

Sound familiar? It’s very common to fall into an unhelpful trap of over-doing or ‘trying to keep up’ patterns, where on days with less pain you find yourself doing catch-up jobs, extra work and spending more time to complete the task or activity.

Sometimes only pain or tiredness stops you. Then you find you have severe pain flare-ups, are exhausted and have to rest for hours or days until pain levels lessen. This pattern is called the ‘Boom and Bust cycle’.

It leads to being stuck in the vicious cycle of pain. It is miserable and your confidence drops. Taking action early to plan in a more balanced approach means less severe pain flare-ups which impact on your health and life.

Learning to find your personal balance of activity and relaxation – such as changing or doing activities in different postures and places - can lead to a better life. Building confidence like this means you can do more of the things you want.

Have a look at the video on this page to see how pacing can help.