Protecting Your Spoons: How to Take Care of Your Energy When You Live With Chronic Pain
When you live with chronic pain, your spoons are precious.
Some days you wake up with ten spoons — a full tank, a rare and beautiful thing.
Other days, you open your eyes and feel it instantly: You’re working with five today.
That unpredictability is the hardest part. The goal isn’t to magically wake up with ten spoons every day — that’s not how chronic pain works. The goal is to protect the spoons you do have, and importantly, to prevent long-term spoon loss.
Because losing spoons over time — going from a ten-spoon maximum to a six-spoon maximum — is something we can influence. And one of the most powerful ways we protect our spoon collection is through movement.
The Heart of Spoon Protection: Keep Moving
When it comes to managing chronic pain, movement isn’t just helpful —
it is foundational.
There’s a wonderful saying:
“Motion is lotion, and rest is rust.”
Movement keeps your body flexible, supports blood flow, reduces inflammation, lifts mood, and helps regulate the pain pathways that tend to get over-sensitised in chronic pain.
But here’s where the spoon theory becomes essential:
Movement uses spoons.
Let’s say your usual exercise routine costs you 3 spoons.
On a 10-spoon day? Great — you’ve got room.
On a 4-spoon day? You simply cannot burn 3 spoons on exercise without paying for it.
This is where many people get stuck:
They push through anyway → flare, crash, then lose spoons tomorrow.
Or they skip exercise entirely → body stiffens, pain worsens, and slowly… spoons shrink long-term.
There is a middle path.
The Spoon-Saver Strategy: Always Keep One Spoon for Movement
Instead of an all-or-nothing approach, ask yourself:
“What would movement look like today if it only cost one spoon?”
On different days, that might mean:
swapping a 30-minute walk for 5 minutes of gentle stretching
doing chair yoga instead of pilates
walking outside for 3 minutes instead of doing your full loop
doing range-of-motion movements in bed on a flare day
choosing a short, slow, kind form of movement when fatigue is high
By keeping one spoon for movement — regardless of how many total spoons you have — you protect your:
mobility
strength
core stability
emotional wellbeing
pain processing system
And if you are lucky (and consistent), you may even…
Grow more spoons over time.
This is how people with chronic pain build capacity.
Not by pushing.
Not by resting indefinitely.
But by moving gently, consistently, compassionately — even on tough days.
Why This Protects Your Spoon Collection Long-Term
Think of your spoon collection as something living — like a plant.
Movement is the water.
Rest is the soil.
Pacing is the sunlight.
You need all three.
But without water, nothing grows.
Consistently using one spoon for movement prevents:
deconditioning
muscle loss
increased pain sensitivity
lower energy reserves
“boom-bust” cycles that drain your spoons over time
You protect your maximum spoon capacity — and sometimes even increase it.
A Gentle Reminder
Protecting your spoons is not about perfection.
It’s about being in relationship with your body, not in battle with it.
It’s about asking every day:
“What do I realistically have capacity for today?”
“How can I move in a way that supports me instead of punishing me?”
“What would the 1-spoon version of movement look like?”
This isn’t weakness — it’s skill.
It’s pacing.
It’s self-respect.
It’s building a life worth living even with chronic pain.
Final Thoughts
Your spoons are limited — yes.
But they are not fixed.
When you move mindfully, compassionately, consistently, you are doing one of the most powerful things you can do to protect your future self.
Take care of your spoons.
They are your energy, your capacity, your life force.
And they deserve to be guarded like the treasure they are.
By Dr Michelle Beukes-King
If you’re living with chronic pain and wanting practical tools to cope, connect, and rebuild your life, my online ACT for Chronic Pain group may be a good fit for you.
You’ll learn evidence-based skills in a supportive community — all from the comfort of home.
