PILLAR 3. Good sleep routine:

Sleep is one of the 4 main pillars in M.E/CFS recovery (along with mindset, nutrition and restorative movement).

Sleep is a vital part in aiding M.E/CFS recovery. Without sufficient sleep, it is very hard to progress your recovery.

Sleep is essential for the body to recharge its batteries, rest, digest and repair.

Quality sleep is vital as it helps to build and to grow muscle tissue, increase appetite, increase energy levels, decrease brain fog, decrease mood swings, decrease irritability, and will improve your overall quality of life.

Whilst dealing with M.E/CFS, sleep is usually disturbed. During the first year or so when unwell with M.E/CFS people normally sleep for 12-15 hours a day, this however can be reversed after 2-3 years with the illness. Like many people with M.E/CFS, At one stage during the illness I suffered from Insomnia (a common M.E/CFS symptom of being wired and tired). I was in a wound up – stressed out hyper-vigilant state with a million things on my mind.

To address this, I set up a structured sleep routine and sticking to it over a long period of time.

Before bed, I did deep breathing and muscle relaxation, as well as writing down worries and letting them go in my journal. Relaxing music, turning off my phone and screens 1 hour before bed, also helped overcome this.

If Insomnia with CFS/ME gets really bad for you as it did for me at one stage, you might need to use sleeping tablets for a period of time. It’s better to get some sleep than no sleep!

Some other things I used to help my sleep included:

1. If I was really tired during the day with M.E/CFS I would only nap for 15 minutes during the early afternoon, sleeping for longer would disrupt my night-time sleep.

2. Sleep between 10pm – 7am

3. The white noise machine generates soothing white noise and masks unwanted sounds to create a sense of calm and relaxation. The white noise works by masking other noises such as traffic, noisy neighbours or people so that your brain doesn’t focus on them and is able to relax and go to sleep.

4. Likewise, quality ear plugs from ‘Alpine hearing protection’ work in tandem with the white noise machine, blocking any outside noise.

5. Blue blocker glasses: Which help block out blue light which is artificially found in devices such as your smart phone, computer screen or even light bulbs. The glasses filter down blue light and eliminate its glare which reduces digital eyestrain, headaches and stress levels, helps you sleep better, as well as keeping your mind and eyes feeling refreshed.

6. Sleeping Masks: to block out any interfering distracting light when you go to sleep.

7. Meditate going to sleep focusing on something simple like the blue sky, don’t go to sleep focusing on thoughts about what happened during the day or what’s happening tomorrow.

8. Using Magnesium, Melatonin, Valerine Forte as a sleeping aid supplement or use medication.

9. Your Sleep will also improve as you begin to calm down your nervous system and slowly move out of flight vs fight or panic mode.