Waiting for symptoms disappear
Recovery is hard work. This will be the greatest challenge of your life. Doing nothing is not going to help you.
What treatments work for ME/CFS?
One treatment form on its own is often not enough to recover, combining them however is the key to recover fast. I was surprised in my own recovery how fast symptoms can appear or disappear. When you are on the right path, results will become very obvious. In short, I recommend the following steps:
- Presence
- Connecting with the (emotional) between the neck and the bladder.
- Ignore symptoms in other body parts, let it be.
- Stop stressful coping mechanisms
- Learn to feel boundaries and emotions
- Pace yourself
- Don’t fight yourself or life.
- Express yourself
- Release emotions
- Implement new habits and change
Most individual treatments should focus on stopping the stress response of the nervous system as I recommend in the healing approach page: neuroplasticity, calming down the nervous system and dealing with the trigger (Emotional healing and awareness, personality and coping mechanisms.) Other treatments like diet, supplements, frequency therapy and detoxing are about treating the secondary symptoms.
You will also need to realise that by doing nothing and resting while you are waiting for your symptoms to disappear, is only making things worse. Stick with one or two things and stop the ‘fight or flight’ urges to involve yourself in tons of different treatments and keep searching for new ones.
Alignment recovery program
Practical & step by step
My personal program. I decided to make this to make it easier to start implementing health tips in a practical step by step program. You can access the program via a donation.
Coaching with me
Practical talks
I can help you with implementing new healthy habits in your routine. I work with lots of self-awareness exercises. Each session focuses on reducing (unconscious) stress in your life. I also like to give you some practical tips.
Mindfulness
Calm down your nervous system
Being more present and in touch with your body will calm down your nervous system.
Thinking less will improve your symptoms. Be present as much as you can.
Joy and community
Take action towards your bodymind’s desired state
Emotional healing alone is not enough, take steps towards a desired state of your bodymind. This could be connection, love, joy, laughing, belonging, peace, etc.
Cultivate peace
to harvest energy
Can you allow yourself to fully rest and stay in that peace? How long does it take for a feeling to come up to do things? Maybe achieving something? For who? Where is that feeling and what happens when you ignore the action and feel the sensation? From the state of peace you will get to have more energy. Can you allow it? If you are peaceful, you are less likely to involve yourself in stressful situations.
Take responsibility
Change yourself and learn
There is no magic pill, I am sorry. You are forced to change your way of being. Are you willing to make changes? If not, please don’t expect any result.
Affirmations
Get into a different mindset
When we are releasing lots of negative energy it is easy to remain stuck in the fight or flight mode. Like neuroplasticity this works great in raising your vibration. I have been astonished by the power of affirmations in my life. Look into Louise Hay and Abraham Hicks online.
Raising your vibrations
Don‘t focus too much on what you don’t want
To change our reality we have to change our thinking and way of being. Joe Dispenza has written books on healing via powerful meditations and visualisations that work with raising your vibrations and letting go of your past. You can download his series here and in the self-study section.
Align the heart and the brain by focussing on the heart, slow your breathing down and feel gratitude and love. In the gamma state, you can imagine as if your health is already here. If the leap is too big, make a step in between.
Neuroplasticity
Rewiring the brain
You can change the brain and the programs it uses. You can literally reprogram it. This is a crucial part in any recovery program. It works with beliefs, habits, NLP and hypnosis. This is a new and promising science. Read more about it here.
Some programs based on Neuroplasticity are: Dynamic Neural Retraining System and the Lightning process
Stop searching for happiness
Because the absence of desire is what you are looking for
We have been conditioned to become happy to be loved. Every parent wanted a happy child and we were keen to give them their desire. But whatever we tried, we never really became happy ourselves. True happiness is so ordinary that it is easily overlooked. Our true role models in life shouldn‘t be models, film stars and millionaires, but ordinary people that didn’t need all those things. Watch the YouTube movie for a beautiful summary about happiness.
Journalling
Invest some time in expressing your true self
Within the TMS and DPS (bodymind) movement there are a lot of exercises to give a voice to your unconscious, like dancing, writing etc. Often when we feel bad, we have the inability to release a certain (negative) emotion and protect a boundary. By expressing yourself, you can learn to release the emotion and get in touch with your feelings and boundaries. Often the symptoms improve very fast.
Self study
Read about these topics to get the picture.
To reverse your symptoms you will need to invest time in reading about new tools to apply in your life. I have selected books about pacing, neuroplasticity, stress, emotions, TMS, DPS, mindfulness, meditation etc.
Boundaries
Do you know when to say no?
If you engage in coping mechanisms you will be chronically involved in things you don’t want to do. Can you say no? Do you know what you really want to do? How can you discover that your bodymind has a will on its own? Click the link for an article on how to discover your boundaries. Maybe the tons of therapies and actions you involve yourself with are also too much.
Stop improving anything
Because you can’t and it drains you
Whether it is yourself, others or the world. The task to improve anything is impossible. It stresses you, it drains you, but you can’t help it. I made a video about this last year, but nobody can say it better than Alan Watts. If you get it, you will get it and you will stop!
The energy you waste on improving yourself is self-hatred and drains you.
Sooth the inner child
Give it space, attention, time and rewards.
Whenever you feel tired, calm your nervous system down and talk to your inner-child. It’s okay to be angry and afraid. I am here for you. You are safe now!
Intuition
Relearn to connect with your gut feeling
Just like animals you have the ability to develop a strong connection with your intuition. Without reasoning, strategies and protocols you know deep down what is good for you in the moment. Can you start to rebuild a connection with this gift? Sometimes your intuition will lead you to pain. Pain can’t be seen as something bad. Often the reason might reveal itself later.
Breathing
Slow deep breaths to the lower belly
By focussing on your breath and breathing deeply and slowly, you can calm down your nervous system. Make sure you are exhaling slower than you are inhaling. After a while you might notice a click when your nervous system changes to the ‘rest and digest’ state.
Tuning in
Talk to your body
What is your fatigue hiding for you, stop focusing on your symptoms and focus on what it is that you are not supposed to find out. What negative emotion is there? Where is it located, how can you describe it? What does it feel like? How old is this? What does it need? Can you give that to this part of yourself (via imagination)?
Improve sleep
Getting a rhythm again
You will notice that getting your rhythm right, will give you more energy for low intensity exercise, like walking. This will make you sleep better in return. Sleep will help the immune system and stress recovery. Look up the article in the link about "sleep hygiene" online for more tips. If this doesn’t work, asking your doctor for sleep medication might be a good kickstarter.
Do things (everything) for yourself
Make yourself the center of your universe
Whatever you choose to do with your time and energy, see who you are doing it for. You will have to learn to do the things for yourself rather than others. What was behind the need to please others? You have a unique set of skills to use for your own benefits.
Go offline
Rest properly
So many people with ME/CFS are on their phone while they are supposed to rest. When the body gives you symptoms, the nervous system is overstimulated. When you are in the "fight of flight mode", you’ll feel restless and in need for more stimulants. Being online makes you feel agitated. Since 2012 the amount of burn-outs has doubled, I got my first smartphone in 2012. Not so smart after all.
Pacing to physical goals
Gradually building yourself up
Your inner child sees activity as dangerous. Know that physical activity is not dangerous and what is going on with you. Set small goals and become active again. But always ask yourself, for who am I doing the things that I do? Is it to gain anything via others? If so, please stop. Find joy and take baby steps.
Nature
Grounding and being outside
Choose to be in nature as often as possible. Nature calms us down and connects us. The ocean with salt water is healing and gives us joy. Being barefoot in nature has scientifically been proven to reduce inflammation.
Walking
Low intensity exercise
When you have gained back some strength and ability, you should consider going for walks. Walking is a great way to build strength and relax at the same time.
Athletes do a light cool down the day after a match day to help remove lactic acid. Since we suffer from lactic acid as well.......
Self-love
The art of listening to and respecting who you are
Self-love is an ongoing process, it involves tuning into the body and listening to your ‘bodymind’. Also stop pressuring and pushing yourself to be better or somewhere else. It is accepting who you are, and your ability to live in the present moment. It is finding your boundaries and acting upon it.
Travelling
Get out of your daily rhythm
Change your environment, relax somewhere else. You can be tired everywhere. Travel slowly and stay with friends if they have a calm place. This will help you to rewire your brain and you might feel better very fast.
Healy frequencies
Support your body with frequencies
I have experienced great results with this device. Find someone in your neighbourhood who has this device and use it initially for infections. It will help your body switch to the right vibration. Be careful to start slowly as you might be too weak for a full blown detox. Originally this device is meant to treat chronic pain, but I have experienced great results for many health issues. Other programs are great for calming the nervous system or to release emotional trauma.
Nutrients
Avoiding deficiencies
Although this isn’t the final solution. It is always helpful to avoid deficiencies because of a malfunctioning digestion system. Think of: probiotics, raw organic salads, (non-artificial) vitamins, (trace) minerals, vitamin D, omega 3,6,9,(walnuts, fish oil,flax seeds, seaweed, hemp seed, chia) And a balanced diet with occasionally some high quality animal products.
Purpose
Something nice to do
Find something nice to do, preferably outside. Something that you can do at your own pace and brings you (honest) joy.
During difficult times, we need a purpose to keep going.
Cold shower
Improving the lymphatic system
Although uncomfortable at first, a cold shower does have health benefits. Just like Wim Hof, the iceman kept saying, a cold shower improves the lymphatic system and gets you out of the analytical (stress) mind. Start slowly with ending your hot shower with the cold.