Why your good days might be making your pain worse
In this article will discuss what we call something call “pacing”. But first, let start with a story:
Meet Sophie.
Sophie has fibromyalgia. On most days, getting off the couch feels like a negotiation. But last Tuesday was different. She woke up and something felt almost normal. The fog was lighter. The ache was there, but quiet enough to ignore. So she did what any reasonable person would do.
She lived.
Two loads of laundry. A longer walk with the dog. A real dinner, not just toast. Called her mom back. Tidied the kitchen. Felt, for a few hours, like herself again.
By Thursday she couldn't get out of bed.
Sound familiar? I here this story so often at the Pain Clinic… You know it well, I’m sure…
That crash, the one that follows the good day like a punishment, isn't bad luck. It isn't your body betraying you. It's completely predictable. And once you understand why it happens, you can stop it. Let me explain you how.
Your nervous system is a smoke alarm, not a damage report
The most important thing to understand about chronic pain, and almost nobody explains it this way, is this :
Pain is not a damage meter. It doesn't go up because something is breaking and down because something is healed. In chronic pain, the nervous system becomes hypersensitive. Think of a smoke alarm so sensitive it goes off when you make toast.
When Sophie had a good day, her alarm had quieted down a little. But her body hadn't actually recovered. The alarm was just temporarily less reactive. And when she spent that whole day doing everything she'd been putting off, she flooded a system that was already on edge.
The crash on Thursday wasn't an injury. It was an overloaded alarm.
This matters because it changes everything about how you approach activity. The goal isn't to avoid setting off the alarm forever. It's to stop overwhelming it, so it can slowly become less sensitive over time.
The “boom-bust” trap
There's a name for what Sophie was doing, and almost everyone with chronic pain does it.
Good day, do everything. Crash. Rest until you feel okay. Repeat.
It's called the boom-bust cycle. And it feels completely logical when you're in it. Of course you do more on good days. You're behind on everything. You finally feel human. Why wouldn't you push through?
Because every boom triggers a bust. And every bust digs you a little deeper.
The swings themselves are the problem. Not the activity, but the inconsistency. A sensitized nervous system doesn't handle feast or famine well. It responds to predictability. Stability. The same manageable input, day after day, that it can actually adapt to.
That's what pacing is.
Pacing is not "do less." it's "do smarter."
Let's be clear about what pacing actually means, because the word gets misunderstood constantly.
Pacing is not rest. It's not giving up. It's not accepting that this is as good as it gets.
Think about how elite athletes train. They don't go all-out every single day. They plan hard days, easy days, rest days, on purpose. Not because they're weak. Because they know that maxing out every day doesn't build capacity. It destroys it.
Chronic pain works on the same logic. You find a level of activity you can sustain consistently, not your best day, not your worst day, your reliable everyday day, and you stick to it. Even on good days. Especially on good days.
Then you build from there. Slowly. On a schedule. Not based on how you feel, but based on a plan.
You stop letting your pain decide what you do. You decide.
The battery that keeps dying
Here's another way to think about it.
You know how phone batteries degrade when you drain them to zero every day? That full-depletion, fast-charge cycle is brutal on the battery. Over time it holds less charge. Runs out faster. Becomes unreliable.
Your nervous system in a boom-bust cycle works exactly like that. Every crash depletes something. Every recovery is incomplete. Over months and years, your capacity shrinks, not because of the pain itself, but because of the pattern.
Pacing keeps your battery between 20 and 80%. Never draining to zero. Never pushing to max. Staying in the zone where things can actually function and slowly rebuild.
Finding your baseline (start lower than your ego wants)
In practice, pacing starts with one question: what's the amount of this activity I can do without feeling worse the next day?
Not the amount you used to do. Not the amount you wish you could do. The amount that works right now, on an average day, without triggering a flare.
Pick one activity that matters to you. Walk. Cook. Sit at your desk. Find the version of it that doesn't cost you the next two days. That's your baseline.
Then, and this is the part that feels wrong, commit to that level even on good days.
The baseline isn't a ceiling. It's a floor. You're not staying there forever. You're starting there, so you can build upward without crashing back down.
Most people set their baseline too high because the real number feels embarrassing. Eight minutes of walking. One task before a break. That's okay. Starting embarrassingly small and actually building is infinitely better than starting ambitious and burning out in week two.
| Activity | Amount that causes a flare | Safe starting baseline |
|---|---|---|
| Walking | 30+ minutes | 8-10 minutes |
| Standing in the kitchen | Cooking a full meal | One task at a time, then sit |
| Desk work / screen time | 2+ hours straight | 25 minutes, then a break |
| Social activity | Full evening out | 45-60 minutes, then leave |
| Housework | Cleaning the whole house | One small task per day |
These are examples only. Your numbers will be different. The principle is always the same: find what works on a bad day, not a good one.
Why stopping early feels like failure (but is not)
Now the part we rarely talk about:
Pacing is psychologically hard. Not complicated, just hard. Because stopping when you feel okay goes against everything we're taught. Push through. Don't quit. Mind over matter.
For a lot of people with chronic pain, especially those who were active before, stopping at eight minutes when you feel like you could do twenty feels like surrender. Like admitting the pain has won.
It hasn't. It's the opposite.
Stopping at eight minutes when you could do twenty is choosing tomorrow over today. It's the most disciplined thing you can do. The people who make real progress with pacing aren't the ones who push through. They're the ones who learn to stop on purpose.
That shift takes time. It's okay if it feels wrong at first. It usually does.
The mistakes almost everyone makes
A few things that derail pacing, because they're worth naming.
Increasing too fast. You have two good weeks and bump your activity by 50%. Your nervous system doesn't care that you felt ready. Stick to small increases, around 5 to 10 percent, on a schedule, not based on how you feel.
Pacing only during flares. Pacing isn't a flare management strategy. It's a daily practice. Using it only when things are bad and abandoning it when things are good is the boom-bust cycle with a different name.
Confusing pacing with avoiding everything. If you're reducing activity because you're scared, not because of a plan, that's not pacing. That's avoidance. Pacing moves toward things. Slowly, carefully, but toward them. If your world is shrinking, something needs to shift.
What progress actually looks like
Progress with pacing doesn't look like pain disappearing. It looks like Tuesday not ruining Thursday.
It looks like getting through a week without a major crash. Then two weeks. Then noticing that your baseline, that embarrassingly small starting point, has quietly doubled without you forcing it.
Sophie's first week, her baseline was eight minutes of walking. One load of laundry. A short phone call.
She didn't crash on Thursday.
The week after that, same thing. Six weeks in, she was doing twice as much as when she started, not because she pushed, but because she stopped blowing up her progress every time she felt okay.
The goal isn't a life without pain. It's a life with fewer crashes, more predictable weeks, and the confidence to actually plan things again.
Conclusion
Your good days aren't the problem. What you do with them is.
Pacing isn't about shrinking your life. It's about building a stable foundation, solid enough that your life can actually start expanding again.
That's it. That's the whole idea.
