Boom and Bust Energy Cycles

This post is about 'Boom and Bust' cycles of energy, and how people (especially those with noticiable constraints on their energy levels) can push themselves so hard when they do have energy, that they simply crash into a new low.  I'm using energy levels as a catch-all term here.  This could be times of greater or lesser pain, depression, or whatever constraint you live with that affects your ability to live well.  This is something that I believe Siobhan learnt at a pain workshop at the Buddhist Centre in Glasgow, though I don't think it was particularly a Buddhist topic.  I do not claim to speak authoritatively about anything at all here, I'm only relaying how the information has seeped into my head.

I am actually hoping to write a whole collections of posts around the theme of 'the wisdom of Siobhan'.  Some pieces will take more research than others.  And I'm going to dip in and out of topics, I'll write about things as they come to me.  This topic touches upon health issues, and I've got plenty to write about that too, but the main discussion of that will have to wait.  

Siobhan certainly taught me lots about how to live.  Clearly, since she was highly educated in psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, she knew plenty about how people work and how they can help themselves to live better.  But she lived that experience herself, working hard towards personal change.  Having a life-changing illness, and having to live within new constraints, means that you need that introspection to set new goals and find out how to live your best life.  And living with poor mobility, low energy and a degree of pain can exaggerate problems that exist for everyone to a certain degree, but that most people can push through and avoid the difficultly of the personal change that goes along with dealing with it.  Watching it first-hand made me realise that, although these effects were smaller for me, noticing cycles in my own energy levels helped me to at least acknowledge and accept that how I was feeling as a natural thing.

I suppose the first thing to notice is that energy levels do naturally vary in peaks and troughs.  There are things that we can do to affect these things to an extent (diet, exercise, all the good things that are hard to do) but in the background, there are external factors that we just can't control.  Sometimes we wake up naturally feeling very rested on a few hours sleep, sometimes we can get a full night's sleep and feel exhausted in the morning.

And if you are used to being tired or in pain, and you wake feeling amazing, a common reaction is to launch into a flurry of activity.  The relief of feeling good is so great, that you want to see friends, go out and work productively.  But the cost of that productivity is not immediately felt, but it will come soon.  And the more you take advantage of your available energy, the harder it will hit.  

Perhaps the less thought about side of things is the tendency to do less when you wake up with no energy.  But this is certainly a thing, and that malaise can become reinforcing, increasing the time it takes for your energy levels to recover.

The obvious dilemma, then, is how to act when you notice yourself in this pattern of behaviour.  And I think the sad answer is that you need to experiment.  I'm sure a textbook answer would be that you lower your activity levels so that you can provide a constant energy level: pushing through and doing something in low energy settings, and not using all of your energy when you feel you could do more.  But to really know what a bit less or a bit more consists of is obviously a bit of an art.  

Often the first step in doing these things would be to keep a diary of what you're doing.  Then form some kind of estimate of the amount of energy expended, stick it into some kind of spreadsheet.  Keep a nice chart of energy over time, and balance it all out.  This is the kind of thing I would have offered to help Siobhan with, but the obvious problem with this is the sheer amount of energy it takes to maintain.  And Siobhan would just hate that kind of thing too, although I was always trying to solve problems, she just really wanted me to be her husband (not a big surprise I guess).  So you end up back to square one, just waving your hands and saying something like 'I did too much today'.

I've read in some of the autism books that some people estimate their own energy expenditure in spoons.  Imagining they have, say, five spoons of energy a day.  Meeting a friend might take one spoon, going to the train takes four.  And that's it for the day.  I couldn't be disciplined enough to really think in those terms, so well done to those that do manage to do that for themselves.

Probably of the same, or greater, importance is keeping sight of the longer term cycles.  It's easier to settle into a low activity plateau, but this encourages the kind of sedentary habits that lead to more problems in the longer term.  Siobhan found this with walking - it was difficult to find time when she had enough energy to get outside for just a small walk.  But, not walking created a negative feedback loop, where it was even harder to get outside to walk.  Gradually trying to increase energy levels over time by doing all of the right things: diet, exercise, good sleep, socialising.  

I guess that for most people, rather than some major way to change your life, this is just something to be aware of, and recognise in yourself when it's happening.  If you're feeling low energy, at least try to do something.  If you're feeling energetic, leave something for tomorrow.  See if you can feel the effect.

And right now I'm certainly very aware of this lesson, though not because I'm doing all of the right things.  I am pushing myself incredibly hard to socialise, to work, to parent, to learn.  And frequently I'm just running into a wall.  I am fully aware that I'm doing this, but I am mainly telling myself that this is a short term thing.  That my baseline of what I need to do is already really high.  That I'm also needing to keep busy, so I'm filling every second with something.  Until, of course, I can't any more.  But that's a problem for future Pete.

Love, Pete x