Boom and Bust Cycles
ACT for ADHDLet's talk about Boom and Bust cycles. These terms originally come from economics. When the economy is booming it's easy for investors to borrow lots of money and then they invest that money in industry and industry flourishes and the economy booms even more and it's a kind of big positive cycle. But sooner or later, that boom cycle always ends. Too much money has been borrowed, there's been over-investment, money can't be repaid, and you get a bust basically a recession or even a depression. So this idea of boom and bust cycles has now become quite well-known in neurodivergent communities.
Many ADHDers struggle with this because if you're having a good day, you wake up with lots of energy then you just want to do as much as possible and so it's like a boom day. And the danger on those days is that you over-invest your energy. You go out there, you start tackling all those tasks, facing those challenges, your energy starts to run out a bit but you keep going, you keep pushing yourself and by the end of that day you crash and burn And the next day, you're in full on bust mode. You're actually worse off, more exhausted, more drained than you were before.
So how do we actually do that? How can we mindfully keep track of our energy levels and wisely invest them so that we don't kinda crash and burn? Well, we do so with a concept called pacing. What is pacing? Well, pacing basically means just mindfully keeping track of your energy reserves and investing them wisely. So when we apply this concept to fatigue and energy levels, the basic idea is that we want to stay within our energy envelope for the day.
So we can think about perceived energy, how much energy I perceive myself as having for the rest of the day, and we can talk about invested energy, What I actually invest my energy in doing. Pacing is not about increasing your activity, and it's not about decreasing your activity. It's about mindfully moderating your activity while practicing energy conservation. That temptation on the good days is so strong. It so easily pulls people into this vicious cycle.
So it's important to communicate to clients that yes, it is hard initially to kinda practice pacing. It's gonna be so tempting on those boom days to really get out there and work hard. But the long-term payoffs are huge. Over time you'll find that your energy levels increase and your fatigue decreases if you really stick to this practice.