Recharging and Getting Back to the Business of Living

My days living with chronic migraines and fibromyalgia are full of lows. Besides all the pain, exhaustion, nausea, brain fog, hypersensitivity to lights/sounds/smells, sleep disturbances, and other physical consequences, I am constantly challenged emotionally and psychologically. Recharging and getting back to the business of living is a real challenge.

Honestly, sometimes it's a matter of waiting until I have a couple of not-so-bad days in a row. Days like that are magically infused with a little extra energy and optimism. This powerful combination always makes me feel recharged and ready to take on the world, which I then have to carefully temper to avoid overdoing it and plunging back into the really bad days. But I don't want my ability to get moving to be completely dependent on the infrequent occurrence of not-so-bad days, so here are 3 things I like to do to create that powerful combination of energy and optimism.

1. Visiting with dear friends is the most reliable method. Even if I leave a visit exhausted and in some pain, I always feel buoyed emotionally and psychologically. They make me feel like me, the me I was before chronic pain. The only challenge is that I live so far away from these dear friends so I rarely get to see them anymore.

2. Taking in great works of art can really be inspiring to me. The best part is that the art can take on many different forms depending on my mood. Whether it's music, paintings, sculptures, poetry, literature, movies or what have you, the whole idea is just to inspire the creativity within myself. Being in a creative state of mind usually helps to get me unstuck from whatever funk I find myself in.

3. Learning to dance with my hubby has been a real surprise recharge method. We've been taking a social ballroom dance class through our local community adult education system. Now 6 weeks in I've seen consistent benefits. I think partly the benefit is that dancing is fun. But I think the larger benefit is that it requires a lot of focus and attention to learn something new and try to coordinate that effort with another person.

How do you recharge and get back to doing?