PDA fae

Category: exercise

  • Gamification

    I use this a lot to help me get tasks done. It involves turning activities of daily living into a game – scoring points, getting rewards (if that works for you), growing a character, going on quests.

    I find the best rewards for me are ones that aren’t part of the real world. For example, I use Finchcare, which is a little app with a finch, where the rewards allow you to dress up your finch, or decorate their little home. It’s not pushy – it does ask you to set a streak, but this feature is pretty ignorable. It doesn’t nag you to complete tasks, you can turn notifications off, it just celebrates what you do get done. I have tasks that are just there to be avoided, if I’m honest. If you’re interested, and would like to start with a micropet, my friend code is F9AQBHSE5D.

    The other main form of gamification I use is Habitica. In this one, you have a little pixel character, that again you can earn ways to dress them up. You can also set real life rewards, if that happens to work for you. There’s also quests to go on, to defeat monsters. This really helped me for a long time to carry out cleaning, and such tasks. I might use it again to encourage myself in my studies. I do tend to set fewer dailies, because these give damage when not completed, which can become demanding.

    I find the novelty of a little game a good way to work around perceived demands. It especially helps when there’s little to no consequence to skipping a task, but a boon to completing it.

  • Exercise update

    A couple of times now, I’ve had a little tiny urge to try out some gentle yoga. Acted on it tonight, which feels like a little bit of progress.

    Unfortunately, I learnt that my 30 something year old. spinal fused body finds kneeling, laying, and adopting various positions on the floor rather painful, which is utterly motivation killing. It’s a shame, because gentle, slow yoga feels like the ideal not-overly demanding exercise that’d work for me at the moment. I’m not even sure what I could do to make it less painful, I already have an extra thick mat for padding.

    Maybe something like tai chi would be ideal, again nice and slow, but mostly standing. I ought to find time to get back into swimming as well, haven’t been in a long time and I have plenty of free time. Not that ‘ought to’ is the right approach as a PDAer.

  • Brain says no.

    The current thing my PDA seems to be preventing is exercise. Nothing seems to be helping. Knowing all the good reasons to do so, which is something that usually helps, is just adding to the ‘have to’.

    I don’t know if something like role play might help. It feels like it’d be good if I could find an equivalent to ‘tidy just one thing’, like something very small and simple. I’m not sure what that would be though when it comes to physical activity.

    It really doesn’t help that exercise is just not something that’s very intrinsically motivating to me. I don’t find it particularly enjoyable for the process of it, it’d be all about the results. So it becomes a ‘want to want’ and PDA doesn’t vibe with ‘want to wants’.

    If I weighed less, walking would be easier and thus more motivating. I definitely enjoyed my regular mile or longer walks when I was manic. Unfortunately, with the weight gain from medications, standing and long walks are now painful on my fused spine. So something like brief exercise routines would be easier in that respect but not in terms of intrinsic motivation.

    I wish I had a good answer to the internal ‘No!’ to the idea of exercise, but I really don’t.