Judith Proctor's Journal

 I'm pretty much free of the pain from sciatica/bursitis/piriformis now.

The next stage, which is proving harder than anticipated, is to regain all the muscle strength that atrophied away when I was having to lie down nearly all day.

I've made progress, but I tire horribly easily, and I always have muscle aches the next day after any serious exercise.

But, on the positive side, my balance is fully recovered.  I can stand on one leg for a full minute of a Tai Chi exercise and both legs are good for that.

I can swim for 25 mins (even if I am wiped then next day) and my speed is picking up. I can believe that I will be back at my normal swimming speed (which used to be faster than 80% of the other people in the pool) before very long.

I can do 15-20 mins Tai Chi, but 40mins is way beyond me. (I did that class on two separate days - I use Leia Cohen's "Tai Chi 5 minutes per day" which I recommend highly.)

I can go for a 20 min walk, but start flaking out after that. (But as Richard says, it's a vast improvement over struggling to walk across the lounge!)

I'm doing some very light weight lifting with hand weights. (Lighter than the smallest handweights at the gym, which were too tiring)  I have horrible bingo wings.

I'm also working on my mental health, which took quite a bash when things were at their lowest.  Feeling completely useless is not good for one's self-confidence....

I'm starting to settle into a pattern (forcing myself to remember to do it even on days when I don't really want to) of meditating for 10 mins a day.  There's a very good app called 'Insight Timer', though I sometimes meditate without the app when I'm in the flow.

I shall go and do it now while I'm thinking about it...

And I shall try and write more often here to share other things that I've found to help both mental and physical health.  Some are quite trivial, but they nearly all seem to be helping and hopefully may be of use to others.