This post was originally posted on Blogger September 19, 2024.
This post was originally posted on Blogger August 3, 2024.
When I first came across Spoon Theory years ago, it resonated strongly and its concept demonstrated what I was experiencing and feeling. Simply put, Spoon Theory is a metaphor and visual representation describing the amount of physical or mental energy that a chronically ill person has available for daily activities and tasks, and how it can become limited.
The term was first used in a 2003 blog post by blogger and writer Christine Miserandino. In her post, Miserandino describes her experience with chronic illness, using a handful of spoons as a metaphor for units of energy available to perform everyday tasks and actions. It began when Miserandino was out for dinner with a friend, and the friend asked her, “What does it feel like to be sick?”. Miserandino grabbed spoons from tables, and gave her friend 12 and asked her to describe her average day. As her friend listed activities, Miserandino took away spoons. The spoons represent how much energy each activity required, she explained. The more spoons used, the more the friend had to ration those she had left. By 7:00pm, her friend was out of spoons. Her friend noted she did not get to do everything she would have done if she had unlimited spoons.
When I came across Spoon Theory, it described perfectly what it’s like to live with a chronic illness like chronic pain that causes extreme fatigue. I found it helped me explain to others my limits and boundaries around what I can do each day.
Everything you do requires energy, from brushing your teeth and showering, to having a deep conversation. Spoon Theory uses spoons to show how much energy tasks require. Getting dressed, taking medication, or watching TV, may use 1 spoon. Running errands, working or visiting a relative or friend may take 4 or more.
According to Spoon Theory, people without a disability or chronic illness wake with enough spoons in the day to manage their tasks and commitments. They can tend to their body, home, work or school, and social plans, without worrying that they’ll run out of energy, or spoons. But a person with a chronic illness or disability, like chronic pain, wakes with a limited number of spoons. Symptoms like pain, brain fog, headaches and pain, and mental illness, use up and run out of spoons throughout the day. They may even borrow spoons from tomorrow if they try to use more spoons than they have. Or they may pay for the overuse by having even worse symptoms and fewer spoons the next day. Do that enough and you can have, what I call, a “crash”. When my body and mind cannot continue, I literally crash. I shut down and need my eyes closed and quiet to recover.
In order to prevent this from happening, Spoonies commonly use a practice called “pacing”, where you space out activities and tasks and rest between them. Ideally, pacing keeps you from using too much energy at one time. It also helps you save energy for tasks that are of a higher priority. There are a multitude of ways to practice pacing, and for me I’ve created a system for doing tasks and chores around the house. I set my timer, and work for 5 minutes if it’s something standing, 10 minutes if it’s something I can do sitting down, and a 20-25 minute rest. When I don’t follow this routine, I pay for it, and usually end up having a crash. When I crash badly, it can take me weeks to recover from, so it’s really important that I adhere to the routine I created. It seems silly to have rules like that, but if I don’t, I overdo it and I crash. When I stick to it, and spread things out over the day, or multiple days, I do much better. To help with pacing, I sometimes do less of an activity, but still enough to enjoy it, or only going for a set period of time, and I break larger projects into smaller tasks and spread them out over a few days. If I don’t, I pay for it, which also means my family and friends pay for it too, as I miss out on being able to be present for them. For example, it can take me all morning to sweep and vacuum, or to fold a load of laundry. The motions of sweeping/vacuuming and folding laundry send my back into tight spasms and leave me with my legs on fire burning from the inside out. I can stand for about 5 minutes before the pain starts to increase, so that’s what I set my timer for. If I’m sitting folding laundry, I’ll work for 10 minutes.
To self pace using Spoon Theory, we first have to calculate the number of spoons you have on an average day. The number the founder of spoon theory originated with is 12. 12 spoons per day. Some tasks use more than 1 spoon, and the most common rating system uses the following:
1 spoon: Getting out of bed, getting dressed, taking medications.
2 spoons: Bathing, reading, watching tv, studying.
3 spoons: Preparing and eating a meal, doing household chores, socializing.
4 spoons: Exercising, going to medical appointments, shopping, working.
Also Spoon Theory takes into account that specific relationships and experiences are important to you, even with limited spoons, and that some relationships and experiences replenish your spoons or are more neutral than others.
The Spoon Theory is also really helpful in explaining to the people in your life what it’s like to navigate your day when you have a disability or chronic pain.
Spoon Theory originated as a communication tool for those with chronic illness, such as chronic pain, that limits energy. Some people have also adopted Spoon Theory to explain how mental health issues can limit your capacity for day to day activities. Chronic illness/chronic pain often cause mental health issues, and Spoon Theory applies to that too. Below are some examples of how spoon theory can be applied to mental health issues and people who are neurodiverse:
Stress: Completing a task under stressful circumstances may require more spoons than the same task in a calm and supportive environment.
Depression: Someone with severe depression may wake feeling so weighed down that they don’t have enough spoons to shower or eat.
Anxiety: A racing heart rate or difficulty breathing may quickly exhaust someone’s body and leave them with few spoons.
Autism or ADHD: Navigating the sensory overload of a grocery store or busy school or work setting may require most of a person’s spoons for that day.
Chronic fatigue is very common for people living with chronic pain. It’s exhausting being in pain 24/7, and your body struggles to keep up. Completely, full-body-and-mind-extreme-fatigue. The kind you have when you fall asleep in your food. When I was first diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and I was learning how to manage, I would fall asleep very easily. A common one was I would fall asleep holding a cereal bowl. My hands would relax and I’d let go of the bowl and my milk and cereal would be everywhere, and I’d be fighting to stay awake long enough to clean it up. I once fell asleep and had a bad fall on my way to the washroom one evening. I’d fall asleep reading to the kids in the middle of the day, or while having conversations with visitors. I still feel that level of exhaustion, but have learned to manage it better, so there is less falling asleep out of the blue.
Spoon Theory has become important to many chronically ill people because it explains it in simple terms. Up until that point, no one else had explained the trials of chronic illness so effectively. It’s been accepted across the world as this amazing tool to describe what life with chronic illness, and in my case chronic pain, is really like. A Spoonie usually has fewer spoons to spend than things that need to be done.
Outside of the medications and doctor appointments, our day to day lives can be limited and dictated by what our chronic illness does to our bodies and minds. The guilt associated with having chronic pain is a heavy burden I carry. One of the things I like about the Spoon Theory is that it can help with the separation between what I want to do and what my chronic pain dictates. If my body decides that I can’t keep plans, it’s not me being flaky, or not wanting to do something. I simply don’t have the physical and emotional energy to do it.
Most people with chronic pain or illness experience good and bad days, as their pain intensity varies depending on the day. On a good day I do my best not to overdo it, but I often do, as I am constantly in catch up mode. A day of hard work often is followed by several days of crashing and feeling extra fatigued and in more pain. I’ve had CRPS for over 16 years and I’m still learning how to pace myself so that I don’t overdo it. I have my system, but it’s so rare nowadays that I have a good day, that when I do, I want to get lots done.
In conclusion, Spoon Theory offers a valuable framework for understanding the challenges faced by individuals with chronic illnesses. By providing a tangible representation of limited energy resources, the theory helps individuals and their loved ones better comprehend the impact of chronic conditions on daily life. Through pacing techniques and mindful energy management, individuals can navigate the complexities of living with chronic illness and strive for a more fulfilling quality of life.
To download your free copy of The Spoon Theory, click here: https://cdn.totalcomputersusa.com/butyoudontlooksick.com/uploads/2010/02/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf