PILLAR 4. Restorative Movement :
The main factors I learnt from restorative movement/ baseline/ pacing include:
Calming down your nervous system is the number 1 key pillar of healing, followed by finding your energy baseline.
To progress in your M.E/CFS Healing journey, you need to prevent the boom and bust cycle of crashing. (E.g Doing too much physical activity and feeling good for one day then feeling terrible for the next 3 days with P.E.M or Post Exertional Malaise).
1. You need to find your energy baseline during your ME/CFS healing journey. This is for avoiding the boom and bust cycle of crashing/relapsing. The only way to find your baseline is by trial and error. Please read on.
2. Acceptance: You need to Accept where you are right now. (for the time being). Anger or guilt plays no part in M.E/CFS recovery, Patience and forgiveness to yourself and others is the only way! Healing is also bloody tough work so allow yourself to go through it.
3. Break it up. I remember when I had CFS/ME during the early stages I would crash after walking 300 meters, so I changed this up by walking only 100 meters, having a 3 hour rest, then I would walk again for 100 meters.
4. Rest in between exercises. This was something I wasn’t used to doing in the past. Doing things which bring u joy. E.g Visualisation, looking outside a window, listening to a podcast, pets, art work, lego, journal, having gratitude etc..
5. Knowing the difference between general M.E/CFS tired and being totally wiped out.
When I was ‘CFS tired’ with everyday symptoms increasing more than usual (e.g body pain, headaches, brain fog, bad nights sleep, terrible mental health, bad gut health etc..) but i felt more wired than tired I learned it was safe to push 50-75% of my baseline. When I felt absolutely wiped out and felt everyday normal tired or I was sick with a cold or flu, I learned I needed to rest!!!! AND ONLY REST!!
ALSO ITS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT HEALING FROM M.E/CFS ISN'T LINEAR, JUST BECAUSE YOU FEEL OK ONE DAY DOESNT NECESSARILY MEAN YOU WILL FEEL OK THE FOLLOWING DAY.
6. Start small – with something that is safe and effective. It may be adding 1 min of gentle stretching for your arms and legs each day, or even just deep breathing to start off.
⠀⠀
7. 'Less is more'. For me, it was always good to play it safe and not to go over my baseline, so I didn’t relapse. You don’t want to over do the amount of exercise and then you crash and experience setback after setback. I think this is especially important for Type A people who tend to push through.
8. Setbacks are okay as long as you learn from them. Setbacks are sending messages where you're at, and it’s a sign to adjust and adapt accordingly. You need to listen to your body.
IF YOUR IN A M.E/CFS CRASH you need to try and unconditionally LOVE YOUR CRASH, the mental exhaustion is worst than the physical exhaustion!! YOU NEED TO ALSO MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR SYMPTOMS AND STOP FIGHTING THEM!! BY MAKING PEACE WITH YOUR CRASH, THIS WILL ALLOW YOU TO GET OUT OF THE CRASH FASTER!!.
9. - USE THE SPOON THEORY IF YOUR DOING EXTRA ACTIVITIES E.G LIKE DRIVING or YOU HAVE AN LONG APPOINTMENT ON THAT DAY.
10. If you can record in a journal ✍️ how much daily physical activity your doing to make sure that you have structure instead of just going with the flow. Also note the times you go under your baseline because you need to rest.
11. If you feel good, only go over your baseline with small increments. For example if your baseline is a 10min walk, increase say to 11mins walk etc… (and hopefully while you slowly increase exercise there’s no adjustments so you can progress more). Once you have stabilised the 11min walk 2-3 times, you can increase to 12-13 min walk.
12. Also with baseline you need to be flexible and understand that like most things in life your never going to get it 100% right. Be mindful of your baseline but dont become too obsessive about it
13. Your energy will also improve as you begin to calm down your nervous system and slowly move out of flight vs fight or panic mode. By limiting emotional stress this creates Physical Energy.
****NOTE :Most people as well who are bedbound also have sensory symptoms, when overloading on screens or talking to someone for too long on the phone. So its important as well to use the same specifics of restorative movement and establishing a baseline and slowly building up of watching screens be it on the ipad ,T.V, or phone.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STRETCHING / YOGA (ONLY IF YOUR BODY/BASELINE HAS THE ENERGY TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS):
With M.E/CFS many things within the body get much much weaker, or less efficient, i.e. muscles, digestive system, immune system, nervous system, just to name a few. With this, the struggle to do day-to-day tasks can become immense. With M.E/CFS your body is under stress and it is trying to do it’s best to protect you.
A lot of CFS sufferers like myself when I had the illness, suffered immense pain, some of the pain can come from your muscles being tired and sore, because they are unable to heal themselves. This is where stretching/yoga comes in, as the blood flow via stretching takes oxygen to the muscles, and therefore helps the muscles repair its muscular endurance.
Stretching/Yoga loosens the muscles and tendons; with having M.E/CFS and being so fatigued and possibly housebound, we get less flexible and our muscles fatigue easier. By stretching we warm up the sleepy areas of the body, and remind them it’s time to move. It improves concentration when you promote blood flow; it also assists your concentration level as your brain gets some blood flow going, which also helps in decreasing brain fog.
I also recommend cold water swimming or daily going for a dip at the beach/ocean, that’s if you’re lucky enough to live close enough to the beach, as this helps with inflammation, swelling and soreness in the muscles. 12 months of the year in the water like #wimhof as well if you can!!
My Slow Movements during CFS/M.E recovery looked like:
· Stretching on my bed
· Sat down rolling my ankles and wrists
· Simple yoga on the floor
· Walking around my house
Which progressed to my Medium Movements during CFS/M.E recovery:
· A walk outside for 30 mins – 1 hour
· Walking on a Beach
· A dip in the Bay
· A simple Workout Video on YouTube
Which progressed to Big Movements during my CFS/M.E recovery:
· A more intense YouTube workout
· A jog
· High intensity yoga
· Two longer walks in a day
· Light gym work, beach swims, pilates (and slowly increasing length and intensity)
Small steps create BIG results.
How Chris trained for his recovery Marathon using Restorative Movement:
When I started back running in August 2020 my first run was just 50 meters, my second was 100 meters my 3rd was 100 meter run, walk 5 minutes, then run 100 meters, my 4th was 250 meters run etc.
I used the same principles from restorative movement in my running comeback.
One thing I’ve learnt from my CFS/M.E recovery is to read and understand my body and what its telling me.
Even though I felt great at the time, I probably peaked just a little too early by running 12 km after only 6-7 weeks of built-up training (and not running at all for just over 3.5 years during my CFS/ME recovery). As a result, I’ve had a couple of niggly injuries, which pre-CFS/ME I would have just neglected and kept running or pushing through.
However, this time around in late Sept/Oct 2020, I attended to what’s sore and strengthen my body back up by seeing a physio, only going on light smaller runs, getting massages, constantly strengthen the sore spots with stretching, as well as daily walks in the cold bay to help with the swelling and inflammation. After pulling back a little instead of pushing through, I have since made steady progress and in March 2021 I ran my 42KM recovery from CFS/M.E marathon.