Pace, Yourself!
The latest in our Suffer No More series in which I dispense balanced and immediately implementable lifestyle advice to help you survive the modern world. Behind the paywall the rest of it.
Hello, mortals. I expect you’re feeling ill-prepared for life, and who can blame you, it’s March - the final month of hibernation! If you were an animal right now (which you are!) you’d be pleasantly ensconced in your warm, dry burrow, with the entrance sealed, in an health-giving state of fast, and with one of those helpful, straw-and-dung bungs that stops you pooing up yourself. Your heart rate would be low, and your movements minimal, but you would just be aware of the world around you waking up. You’d smell, through the soil, the occasional warm day, and the snowdrops and daffodils springing, and you would be gently and gradually coming to terms with the idea that, in a few weeks, you, too, could wake up and emerge - because that’s how it’s meant to be in March. But instead it’s all still going on and it hasn’t let up since Christmas. Your heart rate is very high, your movements are maximal. You’re still having to poo and eat, literally every day! And also get on trains, go to your job, raise your family - function, in spite of the fact that everything - especially the weather - is telling you, on a primal level, not to function!
So I expect what you need now is one of those newsletters where I, in the guise of a lifestyle guru, give you some of my many tips and tricks for survival!
For new subscribers unfamiliar with this occasional series and it’s unpleasantly glib tone, you might want to check out the first two instalments of Suffer No More…
and
If making a sad noise and partially burying yourself alive don’t help you beat the March blues then come straight back here because have I got something life-changing to share with you! Like many of my tips I took it from the natural world (specifically from unhappy tigers), and I’ve got one word for you, baby!
PACE!
Now, let me be very clear, up front. NOT in the sense of taking on small and measured amounts of work, and then allowing time, in between, for rest - that would be genuinely good advice, but also impractical for you in this, your period of stress (also tigers don’t do that, so if you’d been paying attention you’d know that couldn’t possibly be what I meant). No, I mean pace in the sense of walk and walk and walk and walk, compulsively, and quite disturbingly, around an enclosed space!
No. 2. - The Tiger. Our sad guide to the world of stress reduction.
The Science
There is probably some actual, very robust, science around movement and stress, and therefore why pacing works, but I don’t know it and I won’t be looking it up. Instead here are my reckons. Obviously and fundamentally you are burning off nervous energy, lets take that as read, but also…
You are tricking your brain into thinking you left your stress at your desk, and are now rapidly walking away from it. But then you’re also turning on your heel to stride forcefully back towards it! Ha! Take that, stress! Who’s in control now?!
Oh - oh - what’s this? I’m walking away again. Yes, you may well relax! Because this time I might just leave the room and - NO! No, back I come, perhaps now I’m going to deal with you!
And so on.
In this manner, you intimidate and unsettled your own tension - belittling, and in a very real way, reducing it!
Done correctly (see below) when you pace you will look like a harried, Edwardian man, which is how everyone, of any gender, and any gender identity, secretly longs to look - no exceptions! This self-actualisation reduces your stress, and also reminds you that an actual Edwardian man would’ve had bigger things to worry about - like oncoming wars (please don’t point out here that you too are worried about those) - your problems will seem manageable in comparison with the problems of history’s best pacers.
Is It As Simple As Physical Movement?
The short answer is no - and I’m afraid that this is a question asked by idiots who haven’t even come close to understanding the power of pacing, or its mode, or vibe.
It’s also a question asked by people who have internalised the advice of the NHS, which I, personally, never do.
If you go on the NHS webpage for stress reduction (which again, I personally never do, having pioneered my own more effective methods detailed in this series of newsletters) you’ll see that they recommend ‘exercise’ pretty immediately after ‘talking to your friends’ (NOT recommended by this newsletter, all friends increase stress! You should get rid of some of yours, frankly.) The NHS love a bit of friendship and they love a bit of exercise - the extroverted jocks! There’s not a condition listed on their website for which they don’t, at least subtextually, imply you might cure it by going for a run (it’s actually, if you can wrap your head around this, frequently their answer to my own condition, the literal diagnostic hallmark of which is that I may be permanently worsened by going for a run!) So I think we can safely assume they aren’t our people (the doctors writing those guidelines haven’t tasted an inch of the stress that we have, readers!).
Instead, look again to nature, and our crimes against it. Our caged tigers are very stressed - and what do they do? They aren’t doing pull ups on the bars or going for a jog - they are pacing. It’s as simple as that. You can ‘enjoy movement’ and go for a happy, little walk like an NHS simp if you want to - but it wont work. The fact is you aren’t a free tiger! You’re a caged one. You won’t get anywhere near replicating the power of pacing.
So Whats the Difference?
I’m glad you asked. The differences are two-fold, and marked…
Vibe - walking is basically nice, I miss it. And proper exercise can be nice, eventually. If exercise isn’t nice while you’re doing it, then at least it’s nice to have done it. The faces of people on a lovely walk through the countryside, or an early morning park run - are relaxed and happy, or else strong and determined! Your face while pacing should look miserable, and weak. Thin. Drawn. Pacing should feel at all times like you’re doing it under duress, and be at all times a physical expression of impatience, deep anxiety, or fury.
The way you look when pacing (fraught and off-putting) has the added benefit of dissuading everyone around you (coworkers, family) from interacting with you because a) you’re busy pacing and b) it seems as if even a slight additional load might cause you to shatter. I wouldn’t want to add anything to the plate of those caged tigers, would you?
Location - you cannot pace outside! Unless the thing that’s causing you stress is itself outside. I will accept you can pace outside in nature if, for example, you are a forestry commission worker, worried about how you are going to cut down a large swathe of that nature. Similarly, if you are a zoo keeper worried about the mental health of your tigers, you could pace up and down in time with them next to their cages. But in the normal run of things - no. You can’t open your door, walk outside, and pace, no matter how repetitive your looped, twelve-foot-long, route. That’s just a walk. Pacing is an indoors only technique.
How To Get Started…
Hopefully by now I’ve explained the fundamental philosophy of pacing, and gone some way to convincing you of its merits. You probably want to give it a go, I expect! Well - tough! Like all my stress reduction techniques I urge caution! I would be a pretty poor lifestyle guru if I let you simply dash at it (notes on speed below) untutored. And I’d be an extremely poor lifestyle guru (pariahed by the other gurus) if I didn’t put the juicy, life-changing, instructional bit behind a massive paywall! That’s the guru game, I’m afraid!
I cannot be held responsible if as a free member of this newsletter you try pacing without access to my instructions, and injure yourself - in fact I suggest you sit perfectly still until I’m back in your inbox on Good Friday. Or alternatively redeem your free post (if that’s still an option) or else upgrade to paid below for comprehensive tips and pointers on how to pace like a pro. I know what I’d do if I were in your position…
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