Finding Balance through Energy Cycling
If you’ve been living with chronic illness, you may have spent years trying to manage your energy; carefully pacing, counting spoons, and rationing out activity to avoid the dreaded crash. But what if there’s another way?
Energy Cycling is not about limiting activity; it’s about creating a repeatable rhythm of activity and rest that retrains your system to use energy more effectively. Instead of constantly measuring what you can and can’t do, this approach invites you to create a rhythm of movement and restoration, allowing your mindbody system to regain trust in energy use. This approach helps retrain your system to use energy without fear, and to rebuild capacity over time.
Leaving Restrictive Energy Management
For years, many people with chronic illness have been told that the only way to avoid crashing is to measure and limit activity. But this can create a fear-based cycle, reinforcing the idea that energy is fragile rather than something that can be rebuilt. Instead of avoiding activity out of caution, energy cycling encourages a flow between movement and restoration, helping your system feel safe enough to use energy without depleting it. This is a mindset shift rooted in behaviour change. Even small adjustments in how you use energy can signal safety to your system.
By shifting from rigid control to intuitive rhythm, you start to trust your capacity again. This doesn’t mean pushing through or ignoring limits; it means learning to engage with the attitude to energy differently so your mindbody system no longer stays in a state of fear. This shift allows you to rebuild resilience, breaking free from the push-crash cycle and moving towards a life that feels more open, steady, and sustainable.
A simple Beginning Exercise
One thing you can do today
See if you can begin alternating mental effort with sensory reset, such as listening to music, feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin, or lying down on grass for a few moments. Or if you are bedbound, try looking at a plant or flower in your room or out the window at the sky.
This exercise is a way to start creating change. It may be a small step, but every step matters. Energy isn’t just about fatigue levels; it’s about what has been suppressed, and moving towards awareness and connection.
As you create changes, it will shift your mindset and you will begin to experience energy differently. It will become easier to adapt your daily rhythm, learning to work with your energy and cycle it rather than feeling trapped by a lack of it.
Working with Energy & Next Steps
There is no need to push or force change. Your path unfolds as you build your own recovery rhythm, just as energy ebbs and flows. The key is learning to work with your energy.
If reading longer articles is within your window of tolerance, you might enjoy exploring this concept in more depth:
👉 Read the full article on Energy Cycling here → 🔗 Longer Research Article on Energy Cycling
Explore more mindbody tools and somatic practices in the Resources section of this website.
With warmth and care,
Amari 💗
