Rest

I'm not very good at resting.  If I'm not doing something I feel guilty about not doing all the things I feel like I should be doing.  No wonder I'm tired all the time.

For more than a year I've been suffering with lower back pain.  I've tried physical therapy (months and months of it) and gone through all the anti-inflammatory meds the doc had to offer (I avoided all meds for a very long time). Only one actually worked and it only worked for about 6 weeks.  The pain only got worse. Finally, after exhausting my options, I consented to getting epidural steroid injections.  Crying at my desk because of the pain wasn't working for me. "Your body is telling you something,"  I heard.

Let me just say that I HATE needles.  I thought I was going to throw up or cry or both the other morning before going to get it done.  I was told I had to rest for several days (normal activities were allowed but no teaching classes and nothing strenuous).  I was honestly a little excited.  I followed doctor orders and rested for 2 days.  After the 2nd day I couldn't sleep last night.  I'm not used to doing nothing.  Even though I couldn't keep my eyes open the rest of me just wasn't tired. I felt like rubbish this morning.  I had to get up and out!

It's really nice out today so I took the dogs for extra long walks and then cleaned up the yard. It was so good to be out and not laying around on the couch!  I'm not noticing any improvement in the pain since getting the injections but they said it could take up to a week.  Or, it might not work at all.  I don't know what I'll do in that case. 

For now, though, I think I'm done resting.  I'm not going to go crazy doing stuff but it seems there's a limit to how much nothing I can do.  The most relaxing vacation I ever took involved running or yoga every morning followed by bike riding along the coast.  That's my kind of resting :)

How do you like to rest?