WHEN is your RLS most likely to attack?
Can you AVOID that situation or activity?
We can't avoid sleeping, but we MIGHT be able to avoid things like watching television in the evening, going to movie theaters at night, or being a passenger in a car.
It won't be necessary to avoid these activities forever, but at least until you catch up on your sleep, and become much more effective in your responses to RLS.
I highly recommend you fill your "Reduce Situations" folder
with observations and information you gather about situations which tend to make your RLS symptoms appear. This might include everything from driving in a car, to movies, to television, or to computer work. By avoiding or eliminating some of these situations, you will be reducing the size of your RLS "beast" and helping it achieve "bully size".REVISIT THIS FOLDER!!!! Situations which never bothered you before, might suddenly become a problem. Do not rule anything out, permanently. Do NOT assume things stay the same. Revisit this folder often, and question, again, whether you can avoid a situation which is aggravating your RLS.
Evenutally, you can refer to this folder for situations you decide to focus on. You might decide to start working on how to be a better passenger in a car, or how to get through a movie, in spite of RLS.
At the beginning of your rebellious approach to surviving with RLS, I truly think it is important to avoid RLS provoking situations, as a way of giving our bodies a chance to heal themselves. For a long time, after first dealing with my RLS aggressively, I felt as though my nerves and muscles were exhausted. And for months, they seemed extremely susceptible to the suggestion of squirming. So, for a long time, I avoided situations which made it worse.
If I had to be in a car, I tried to be the driver.
If I was dying to go to the movies, I went in the afternoon, when the place wasn't crowded and when it was earlier in the day than when my RLS tended to appear.
Watching television in the evening has NOT been a high priority for me, even though it is something I would love to do. I do it, when my legs behave. But if they don't, I just go do something else. Only recently, have I started focusing on "how to sit still during an RLS attack while watching television". Maybe someday, I'll master it, but the last few years, it was better to just eliminate, or reduce, the situations which aggravated my RLS.
