Nourish Therapeutic Yoga: Review

I’ve been a member of a wonderful yoga class and community called Nourish Therapeutic Yoga for over 6 months... Continue reading

May 27, 2025

Starting gentle exercise again

If you break your leg, a key part of recovery is undertaking physio to rebuild strength. Crucially, you only do this after your leg has healed, not before... Continue reading

April 18, 2025

Being bored means you're healing

Life with a chronic illness can be so dull... Continue reading

March 14, 2025

Respect the dip

When our energy levels dip or crash, our body is sending a very clear message: stop... Continue reading

February 28, 2025

Try one thing at a time

To solve the unique puzzle of our own recovery, we need to experiment on ourselves and build our own evidence base about what works for us and what doesn’t... Continue reading

February 11, 2025

Solve the puzzle of your own recovery

ME/CFS is a description of symptoms, not causes. Everyone has different underlying reasons why they’re ill and everyone’s recovery will be different... Continue reading

January 28, 2025

Time goes by quickly when you’re ill

How long has it been since you got ill?... Continue reading

January 8, 2025

The gentle softness of winter

Winter can feel challenging in many ways... Continue reading

December 13, 2024

The power of acknowledgement

18 months in to having ME/CFS, I was finally referred to an NHS fatigue practitioner... Continue reading

November 28, 2024

Sharing your experience is a gift

I heard someone talk recently about how challenging things were for them at the moment... Continue reading

November 11, 2024

Getting back on track

Getting off track with our recovery is guaranteed. Crashes and Post Exertion Malaise can flatten us, life events sidetrack us, our mood can affect our motivation and we can get out of the habits that help support recovery... Continue reading

October 7, 2024

Resources for ME/CFS

An ongoing list of useful resources for people with ME/CFS and their carers.... Continue reading

September 26, 2024

Aims for Mindful Fatigue

I thought it was time to define my aims for this blog, to be clear about what this space is and what it isn’t, so you can decide if it’s the right place for you (I hope it is!).... Continue reading

September 3, 2024

Getting back out into the world

Time passes differently when you have limited energy. What might take a day before now takes a week or more, and gradually we get isolated from the world, because it’s not possible or practical to be more engaged.... Continue reading

August 8, 2024

How to do the STOP process

The STOP process is a simple, practical method to work with unhelpful thought patterns that perpetuate our stress... Continue reading

March 28, 2024

Finding your baseline

The aim of pacing is to stay within our energy envelope to give our body a chance to heal.... Continue reading

February 23, 2024

Establishing a points system for pacing

Pacing is essential to manage our symptoms and build reserves, but it’s not always clear how to do it. Here is the method I use, which you can adapt to your own needs.... Continue reading

February 8, 2024

Post Exertion Malaise and the importance of pacing

One of the most essential tools for recovery is pacing... Continue reading

January 1, 2024

The winter flowering cactus

By the window where I often sit is a cactus. It sprawls beside me, inert for most of the year... Continue reading

November 16, 2023

Relaxing into the journey of recovery

If you knew you were going to recover, how would that affect you?... Continue reading

November 6, 2023

Recovery vs living with symptoms

The messages we get from most sources, including the NHS and charities, focus on living with our symptoms, instead of recovery... Continue reading

October 17, 2023

How to cry

When I first started meditating, within a minute I would feel a strong urge to cry. It was like a trapped wave of emotion rushing to the surface as soon as I relaxed my guard... Continue reading

July 27, 2023

Enjoy anticipation

The choice of how we act is one of the things taken away from us by fatigue, and one of the hardest things to deal with... Continue reading

July 14, 2023

My 2 year progress chart

Having covered the process I use to track my energy levels, I’d like to share my actual chart... Continue reading

June 23, 2023

How I track my energy levels

I’ve been tracking my daily energy levels for two years now, since first getting ME/CFS, so this seems a good moment to review and share my progress... Continue reading

June 2, 2023

You're doing really well

When did you last tell yourself that you’re doing really well? Or comfort and praise yourself and acknowledge the progress you’ve made?... Continue reading

May 19, 2023

Remove sources of stress to start recovery

Imagine that your friend calls you and complains that every morning they find it impossible to get dry after their shower. No matter how much they use their towel or hairdryer, they just stay wet... Continue reading

April 24, 2023

A rest state is just a non-stress state

After living with ME/CFS for a while, and having lived with the contributing patterns of stress for much longer, it’s natural to become normalised to a high resting stress level... Continue reading

March 2, 2023

Relax your body in the moment

I’ve been practicing mindful breathing for over a year now, and it’s gradually had a powerful effect on lowering my overall stress levels.... Continue reading

February 17, 2023

Monitor the trend

Before CFS/ME, we all had days when we were just tired, for whatever reason. Tiredness is how our body indicates to us that we need to rest, to maintain our overall balance of health.... Continue reading

November 8, 2022

Real recovery is uneven

We’re used to lining up every day on the metaphorical racetrack and sprinting off to achieve our to-do list; work, kids, shopping, exercise, trips, ’omelette Tuesdays’... Continue reading

September 13, 2022

Stop avoiding your emotions

There are many reasons we avoid feeling our emotions and unintentionally build up our emotional load... Continue reading

Aug 15, 2022

Process your emotions to allow your body to rest

Emotions are an essential part of how we respond to the events in our lives. When something happens, our body signals its reaction to us through emotion... Continue reading

May 6, 2022

Trust your body to feel safe in your mind

When I’d get anxious or panicked, I’d get angry and frustrated at myself. There was no logical reason to be anxious about these situations, I told myself, so my symptoms didn’t make sense... Continue reading

April 28, 2022

Moderate stress keeps your body and brain healthy

If you exercise in a regular balanced way, your body will grow stronger. Your muscles, reactions and overall physical condition will improve... Continue reading

April 23, 2022

Your psychological patterns perpetuate your stress loads

Our psychological patterns influence what stress we take in to our lives, and how we view that stress. They are one of the biggest perpetuators of our stress load, often trapping us in a cycle that we aren’t aware of... Continue reading

April 13, 2022

Identify your stress loads

Chronic fatigue can be caused and perpetuated by carrying multiple stress loads over time. This combination eventually overloads our system and we get stuck in a state of chronic stress... Continue reading

April 12, 2022

Chronic fatigue is caused by chronic stress

Our bodies naturally heal. When you get a cut, you don’t instruct your blood to clot and your skin to grow; it does it for... Continue reading

April 5, 2022

Identify as a healthy person

Your identity is the foundation of your mindset, which in turn drives your actions. It makes some actions easy and automatic, and some actions... Continue reading

March 31, 2022