I really over-did it yesterday. I pushed myself so hard that I was forced to take a Pain killer by the afternoon, which ultimately means that the rest of my week is poked. It takes me about a week to recover from one or two (or three at most) hard days in a row, in the lab. How am I ever going to keep on track this way?

And no, I can't do something non-physical, like write, on "recovery days", because my brain gets poked too. The only thing I am capable of doing is arbitrary anal retentive stuff, like tidying and organising, or ideally some kind of repetetive task (I find the repetetiveness soothing) or stuff that doesn't require any thinking on my part. Like reading fiction, or watching TV, or whining for a back rub. Or sleeping.