Pacing without giving up: energy management for ME/CFS, long Covid and MS fatigue

If you live with ME/CFS, long Covid, or the fatigue that comes with MS, you have almost certainly been told to “pace yourself”. And you have almost certainly felt the sting in it — as if pacing means accepting a smaller life. I want to offer a different frame: pacing is not surrender. It is strategy.

The enemy is boom-and-bust. A good day arrives, you do everything you’ve been unable to do, and you pay for it for three days. Repeat that cycle for months and your baseline drops. Pacing breaks the cycle by spending energy deliberately — a little less than you think you can — so that tomorrow isn’t a write-off.

Start with one honest week. Note what you did and how you felt afterwards, without judgement. Patterns appear quickly: the shower that costs more than you thought, the phone call that restores you, the 3pm cliff. From there, find your baseline — the amount of activity you can sustain most days without a crash — and build from it slowly.

Plan rest before you need it. Most of us rest only after we’ve crashed, which is like refuelling only when the car has already stopped. Scheduled rest, built in as a right rather than a reward, is the single change my clients report as most transformative. Break tasks into pieces, alternate physical, mental and emotional activity, and treat energy as a budget: what am I choosing to spend this on today?

The hard part isn’t the technique — it’s the mindset. Guilt, the pull to prove you’re still capable, and the grief of a smaller radius all push you back towards boom-and-bust. This is where coaching earns its place: not telling you how to pace, but helping you untangle the beliefs that keep you from doing it.

For medical guidance on pacing, the ME Association and your specialist team are the right sources. For the mindset and the life around it, I’m here — and a free discovery call is a low-energy way to find out whether we’re a good fit.