Mobility, exercise and pacing.

I have been thinking about what type of exercise is best for me given my mobility issues. So far I have narrowed the list down to Yoga and Tai Chi. Both would be difficult and some movements would be well beyond my ability, but I think that both would be beneficial. I've popped in a link to the NHS website about these forms of exercise. You know as well as I do that there are a million and one websites out there and different websites will suit different people

Past experience has taught me that I have a tendency to not listen to my body and try to do too much. I compete with myself and push myself to the point where my health ends up suffering. What I want to do this time is to try a little common sense and get my husband involved as I guarantee that he will stop me going too far.

As, more often than not, I am too ill to manage to get out of bed, let alone the flat, I am going to have to make some adjustments. I think the best way of doing this is going to be by using pacing. Most of my friends who are living with chronic health conditions will know at least a little about pacing. For those who don't, this is how it was explained to me:

• Open up a spreadsheet (or paper record) for each 'activity' that you do, such as walking, standing, sitting, lying down, showering etc. 
• Aim to keep records for at least a week, longer if possible. Make sure that you have included both your best and your worst days; this is important in establishing a true & correct baseline. You should record how long you can do each activity for, making sure that you stop before it becomes uncomfortable. 
• Once you have your record, you should add each individual task's times up then divide by the number of times you performed that task in order to get an average. 
• When you have the average, you will need to halve that figure. That is your guideline. 

Once you have the average, you've got your guideline. That is what you should aim to stick to, at least for the first week. The point of pacing is to try and help you manage a long-term condition and to improve your current abilities. Once you have your guidelines and tested them out to make sure that they work even on your worst days, then you can start to build them up. It is up to you how you choose to do that, whether it's a minute at a time or ten minutes. What I would say is don't try to build up too quickly and make sure that you include rest and relaxation into your day. That's something I have done in the past and regretted it.

This is a really basic description and before you try pacing, I would suggest talking to your medical practitioner team, whether that is your GP, your consultant or your physio. Pacing really can make a positive difference if you do it correctly. From my point of view the most important thing is making sure you include sufficient rest and relaxation. The reason I think it is particularly important is because I have failed to do that on more than one occasion and ended up making myself worse than when I started. That is a very real risk with M.E. as well as fibromyalgia, Lupus, CRPS and a number of other chronic health conditions.

So my first task over the next fortnight is to establish my baselines and find a decent Yoga or Tai Chi game for the Wii or XBox or a DVD. In the past my baselines have been as low as a minute. It doesn't matter where I start out, it's the fact that I do that counts.