Ten Keys to Successful Coping
4:
Nurture Yourself with Pre-Emptive Rest
By Bruce
Campbell
I believe that daily scheduled rests, taken no matter
how good I felt, were perhaps the single most helpful strategy I used in
my recovery. I was amazed at what a difference short morning and
afternoon rests made to stabilizing my life, increasing my stamina and
reducing my symptom level.
Resting everyday according to a fixed schedule, not
just when I felt sick or tired, was one part of a shift from living in
response to symptoms to living a planned life. Before I discovered
scheduled rest, I often experienced the cycle of push and crash,
swinging from too much activity to periods of rest and back. I would be
more active than my body could tolerate, experience intense symptoms and
then use rest to recover. Resting worked. It was an effective strategy
for recovering from periods of doing too much.
When I first heard of the idea of scheduled rest, I
resisted it. It was hard to accept the idea that I would lie down
voluntarily, because I thought of rest as a victory for the illness. It
was also hard to accept idea that I should rest regardless of how good I
felt. But I decided to try lying down briefly every afternoon. And I was
surprised to find that even 15 minutes seemed to help, reducing my
symptoms and making my life more stable. After a while I added a morning
rest as well. Over time, I came to believe that these 15-minute periods
of recharging my batteries were the most important thing I did to aid my
recovery. I think they became even more effective after I started doing
a relaxation practice technique at the same time.
So, through
experimenting I found that rest could be used for more than recovering
from doing too much. It could be employed as a preventive measure as
well. In the terms suggested by one of the students in our class, I
learned the difference between recuperative resting and pre-emptive
resting.
Rest
= Lying Down, Eyes Closed
Before discussing
how you might use planned periods of rest, let me explain what I mean by
the term “rest.” In our program, rest means lying down with your
eyes closed in a quiet place. We do not consider such things as watching
TV or reading to be rest. We view them as activities. They may require
less energy than housework, errands, or paid work, but they are
activities nonetheless. To get the full benefit of rest, you should lie down in a
quiet place with your eyes closed.
Here’s what one
student said about rest after taking the course:
“Watching TV, talking on the phone, or talking with my
family...I learned that these things could actually be quite tiring,
even if I was lying down. Resting
with eyes closed is completely different, and I found very helpful. Before the course, I only thought I was resting; now I
know that rest means lying down with my eyes closed (without television
or the telephone).”
Scheduled
Rests
Pre-emptive rest
means resting according to a planned schedule rather than in reaction to
symptoms. This type of rest is done as part of a regular routine, a time
you set aside to nurture yourself. You will gain
maximum benefit if you are consistent, making rest a part of your daily
routine regardless of how you feel. It can be tempting to skip the rest
when you are feeling good. At such times, it may be helpful to remind
yourself that by resting now you are avoiding symptoms in the future.
Scheduled rests have
been one of the most frequently used strategies among people who have
taken our course. Most
people take one or two rest breaks a day of 15 minutes to half an hour.
They report having more energy with lower symptom levels, and an
increased sense of control.
Resting
the Mind
When you begin using
pre-emptive rests, you may discover that your mind is pre-occupied with
worries. Lying down may not
feel restful if your mind is full of anxiety. A solution is to use a
relaxation technique or meditation practice during your rest. (For some specific procedures, see the article on stress
management.) Most people who have done this have found that combining
mental with physical relaxation deepens the restorative power of rest.
Frequent
Short Rests
You may want to
experiment to see what works best in your unique situation. A woman in
one of our classes found she tired very easily. It was as if her
batteries ran down very quickly and needed frequent recharging. So she
decided to take several daily pre-emptive rests, rather than one or two.
She was able to reduce her total rest time dramatically by this
strategy.
At the beginning of
the course, she was sleeping nine hours at night and resting six hours
during the day in two naps of three hours each.
She decided to break up her day into one- and two-hour blocks,
and to take a 10 to 15 minute rest during each block.
By doing so, she reduced her total rest time by an hour and a
half over a period of two months, and after six months had cut her rest
time down to three hours a day. By
resting in small blocks, she added three hours of activity to her day.
We call this
woman’s approach being your own CFIDS or fibromyalgia scientist. By
that I mean that we can learn much by having an experimental attitude
toward our illness. We can study our illness to generate ideas or
hypotheses about what might help. Then we try a new strategy and observe
the results.
Scheduled rests are
a useful part of pacing, a strategy of gaining
control over chronic illness by living according to a plan rather than
in response to symptoms.
