Pain-Free Living

Conserving Your Energy

by Pamela B. Harrell, O.T.R., C.H.T.

As the marathon runner nears the finish line, he gathers the last bit of energy he has. He didn’t get to this point in a 26.2-mile race by blowing all his energy early in the first few miles. He got there by training for the race and knowing how to pace himself so that he would have enough energy left to finish.

While most people will not experience the challenge of running a marathon, everyone experiences the challenge of conserving enough energy to get through days and weeks of daily tasks. Arthritis can complicate this challenge by further limiting your store of energy and interfering with your ability to work, carry out routine daily activities, and enjoy leisure time with friends and family. However, there are some simple techniques that you can incorporate into your life to help you use your energy wisely. These energy-conservation techniques can be grouped under the four “P’s”: pacing, planning, prioritizing, and positioning. Learn these, and you’ll be on your way to finishing your own marathon.

Pacing

Pacing is key to helping you sustain your energy level throughout the day. It involves looking at an activity and breaking it down into smaller steps that can be alternated with periods of rest. Think about the steps that you need to go through to complete a particular task, and try to work through them at your own moderate speed, without rushing. (You may even find a step or two you can cut out.) If you rush, you may be able to do the activity in less time, but rushing is stressful, and in the end you will have used more energy than you really needed to. If you allow yourself plenty of time to complete an activity and incorporate periods of rest, you will find that you have more energy in your reserves for later.

To properly pace yourself, you must learn to listen to your body so that you can determine what level of activity works best for you. Too much activity can result in excessive fatigue or pain. Too little can cause loss of muscle strength and deconditioning. You need to learn how much you can do before you get tired, so that you can stop and rest before you reach that point. In this way, you won’t deplete your supply of energy completely but will still have some in reserve. You also need to learn the importance of resting your mind as well as your body. If you are sitting down to relax but your mind is thinking about the next activity you need to be doing or worrying about what you are not doing, you may not be getting the full benefit of your rest period. What you want to do is establish a routine that makes your pattern of activity and rest consistent and automatic so that you always stay within your energy limits.

If you need some help with this, you may want to start keeping a diary or journal. By documenting your energy levels at different times of the day, you will begin to discover when you feel your best and when you feel your energy level declining. Write down what activity you were doing when you began to feel your energy go. This will help you learn your own tolerance for activities, and you may begin to generate ideas for simple changes you can make in your daily routine to help you keep your energy levels up.

An activity like doing laundry is a good example of how you can incorporate the idea of pacing into your life. First, break the activity down into steps—for example, gathering laundry from all parts of the house, separating it into different loads, washing and drying the laundry, folding and hanging the laundry, and putting it away. Using the techniques of pacing, you could gather and separate the laundry and put the first load in, then take a rest break while the first load is washing and drying. Then later you could run another load of laundry and sit to fold the first load (sitting requires less energy than standing). Delegating chores to others can also help you to conserve your energy, so you could ask other members of your family to assist with the laundry, especially with putting it away. Simple changes like these can leave you more energy for other daily tasks.

Planning

Proper pacing, however, cannot be fully effective without planning. It is essential to look ahead a day, a few days, or even a week or two, to develop a strategy for completing your activities. You can start by making a “to-do list” of activities that need to be accomplished in a day so you can plan the best time to do each activity. If you have more energy in the morning, plan to do your more strenuous activities then. If you feel more energized after a nap or rest period, schedule that time to run errands or do work activities that require more physical or mental energy. Be sure to plan rest times in your day to replenish your energy reserves.

If you want to look farther ahead, use a calendar or planner to schedule your activities over a week so that you can spread strenuous activities out instead of doing them all in one day. First, look at all of the activities you need to accomplish in a week and grade each of them on an energy expenditure level of low, medium, or high. Then spread the high-energy activities over the week so you don’t do too many in one day and end up being exhausted for several days after. Doing too many energy-demanding activities in one day may also lead to a flare-up of your arthritis that you take several days to recover from. By recording a list of activities and planning the best time to accomplish them, you can keep track of what you have already done and what you have left to accomplish. This way, you can gain a positive sense of accomplishment when you look back over what you have been able to do. However, remember to be somewhat flexible with your daily routine. A little flexibility can allow you to participate in activities that are enjoyable and that you otherwise might miss out on because of limited energy.

Prioritizing

Learning to prioritize your activities can greatly help you conserve limited energy stores. This can be one of the most challenging principles to master. Prioritizing requires you to really look at your work activities, household activities, and leisure and recreational activities and determine which ones are the most necessary to do (as well as which are the most pleasurable for you). When assessing your activities in terms of their importance, ask yourself questions such as the following:

• What are my main priorities in life? My job, my household activities, or my family and friends?
• Where is it most important for me to expend my energy?
• How can I get a better balance of work and leisure in my life?
• How can I build more rest and relaxation times into my day to help me restore my energy level?
• Can I simplify my daily tasks so that I have more energy left at the end of the day to do things I enjoy?
• Are there any activities that I don’t really have to do or that someone else can help me with?

Prioritize the most important activities and delegate to others those that are not absolutely necessary. Delegating can be a difficult trait to learn, especially if you have the attitude that you must do everything all by yourself. Try to approach delegating in a positive way by realizing that you are helping to conserve your energy. You may also be helping the people you delegate to by teaching them to accept more responsibility within your household or work environment. By developing a network of family, friends, and neighbors to help complete tasks such as carpooling children to activities, you may be helping other people learn to conserve their energy as well.

Positioning

Examining your body positioning or body mechanics may give you other ideas of how to conserve energy. By analyzing how you position yourself as you go about your day, you can identify ways to do your daily tasks with less energy, thereby protecting your joints from excess strain. There are also devices you can learn to use to reduce your energy expenditure. The following are some examples of ­energy-conserving techniques you can incorporate into your daily routine:

• Sit rather than stand. Sitting requires less energy from your body than standing and reduces stress on joints in your legs. Sitting to get dressed or using a shower stool while showering may help to reduce the amount of energy required for these activities.
• When you must stand to do daily tasks, prop one foot on a step stool or the inside of a lower cabinet to reduce stress and fatigue in your back.
• Use good posture when sitting and standing. Good posture involves keeping your ears in line with your shoulders and your shoulders in line with your hips. Don’t let your head lean too far forward, as this position is very fatiguing for your neck, back, and shoulders.
• Organize the areas where you work so that everything you need is within easy reach. This way you can avoid unnecessary reaching, bending, and stooping. You may need to duplicate items around the house to eliminate multiple trips between bathrooms, bedrooms, and the kitchen. Or organize what you need beforehand and use a cart, lightweight organizer basket, or storage bin to carry items.
• Make work surfaces the proper height to facilitate good posture and reduce the fatigue that results from poor posture. When you’re standing, your work surface should be just at elbow height. When you’re sitting, it should be just below elbow height.
• Use assistive devices to simplify daily activities. Reachers, long-handled sponges and dusters, and jar openers are just a few examples of devices that can help you conserve energy.
• Remember to breathe during activities. Proper breathing can help you maintain energy levels and bring about relaxation.

  There are people who can help you implement these and other changes. Occupational therapists are professionals trained to help people carry out tasks of daily living. For people with arthritis, they can recommend techniques and devices to protect the joints from excess strain. They can also help people alter their work and home environments to make them easier to manage. If you think you may need this sort of help, ask your doctor for a recommendation to an occupational therapist in your area.

  Taking stock

  When you take time to think about how you are approaching your day and realize how much you have to do (and want to do), it can be overwhelming. But when you learn to accept the fact that you have some difficult but manageable challenges ahead of you, you can begin to make changes in your daily routine that will lead you on the path to energy conservation. Keep reminding yourself that you are making worthwhile changes that will ultimately improve your quality of life. By breaking down activities into smaller steps, prioritizing what’s most important to you, and having a plan of attack, you can begin to feel more in control of your limited energy resources. Like the runner training for the big race, you can do a little bit every day to help pace yourself and stay strong in the marathon of life.

  Last Reviewed June 27, 2012

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  Pamela Harrell is the Assistant Manager at the Vanderbilt Orthopaedic Institute’s clinic in Franklin, Tennessee.

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  Statements and opinions expressed on this Web site are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the publishers or advertisers. The information provided on this Web site should not be construed as medical instruction. Consult appropriate health-care professionals before taking action based on this information.