Things to consider when symptoms increase (Long Covid, CFS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Mind Body)

hello welcome back to my channel my name's Lucy and I share videos on the topic of long covered chronic fatigue syndrome and Mind Body approaches that can be used to help with those conditions so today I wanted to talk about what to do during a crash or when a crash has just happened someone requested this video and I think it's a really good topic to talk about because it's a really difficult experience to go through and so at that time it's important to consider how you're responding to it and to I suppose have as much support as you can with information about what's the best way to approach such a difficult situation so I'm not a medical professional this isn't medical or mental health advice I'm just sharing my own experience with having those conditions and what helped me and specifically coming from the perspective of a mind-body approach so this might be slightly different to other advice that people would give on crashes where they might be talking about drinking a lot of water and other day-to-day lifestyle changes and I think drinking a lot of water is always a good idea but I'm gonna be mostly talking about mindset around the challenge of a crash and other kind of things that might be helpful to consider so if there's some things that I'm saying that you find less helpful and you already have good ways of coping in this situation then by all means do what's already helpful so having a crash is a really difficult experience both physically emotionally and mentally when I have had crashes in the past I felt as though my body was crumbling from within as though my body was really shutting down that my functioning was kind of just going so I couldn't think properly I was sensitive to light I I couldn't stand up I couldn't look at writing or process any information easily so your functioning is quite limited and it's quite challenging to manage in a situation like that because without a lot of energy and with such severe symptoms it can be a really dark place and it can be incredibly scary because if you've just been doing things that are for other people like you know parenting your children or going to work or doing your day-to-day routine of responsibilities and then all of a sudden you're not able to do those then it's quite scary and it's quite a dramatic change in your life and even if you have already been unwell for a long time it still can be so difficult to experience that setback when maybe it's happened so many times before or you you feel like you just can't get a break from being unwell and I think it can be really hard for other people to understand as well because I don't think they can understand the desperation and the helplessness that you can feel when you've already been on well for a while and then this setback setback happens so it's understandable that we call this a crash because it feels very scary it feels very dramatic at the time and really difficult to deal with but the word Crush itself when used another context like say a car crash there is a an idea that that could be fatal that could be very dangerous the people could be seriously debilitated for life or could die so I think the word crash itself could potentially have associations that generate fear or that even if you're not sort of consciously aware of it that might subconsciously be telling ourselves that this is a really dangerous situation and whilst it is a really really difficult situation and and incredibly scary the language that we use is important in terms of the messages that we're giving to our brain and our body and one of the biggest challenges with having a crash is that feeling of not being safe so the word crash it might be helpful to just reflect on whether that word is going to be helpful and even if you are a physically really debilitated and really unwell whether there's a different way to to name it like the okay my symptoms have increased or something has has triggered a reaction in my nervous system the other thing that we can have is associations with previous crashes so if you have crashed 50 times before or you've had some significant crashes in the past that were really scary and that were really difficult then it's natural that we might start to think about how that could happen again and how if last time it took us three months to recover then maybe this time it's going to take three months to recover or if last time we were two unwell to be able to eat or to digest food then we start to think well then this time I might be too unwell to digest food and eat and whatever it might be so it can be helpful to just consider what what messages you might be sending yourself even just by calling it a crash and I'm not trying to in any way um dismiss how severe it is and how difficult it is it's more thinking about from a mind-body perspective if we are giving ourselves messages the things are unsafe or that our symptoms are unsafe that's something we want to avoid as much as possible and to reframe things so that we don't get stuck with severe symptoms for a long time so another thing can be that we might use that word when symptoms start to get worse but they haven't got dramatically worse we're not bed bound we're feeling a bit worse and we call it a crash and again this could just be because we're used to using that language but sometimes there are adjustment phases where if you've started to do new activity recently or you've changed your routine you might have more symptoms and those symptoms are not necessarily a sign that you've done something wrong or that something bad out of your control has happened if you're calling every increase in symptoms or crash that is also something to just think about if that giving yourself an idea that things are worse than they are or that that when symptoms come they're more dangerous or they're they're more likely to stay or that there's something wrong with that because parts of improving will involve ups and downs and the associations that we have with symptoms is really important if you want to build more positive associations with symptoms in the terms of not liking symptoms but seeing them as not dangerous and seeing them as as okay and a message that maybe there's an emotion or there's something going on that you need to pay attention to your general reaction is going to be much better than if you are giving yourself the message that this is a crash I've something bad has happened I've done too much or I something is not going well with my recovery or I'm not doing the right thing or whatever the story might be we do tend to generate a story or ask questions about why this crash or this increase in symptoms has happened I think one of the important things is just to start becoming aware of what our feelings are at the time of increased symptoms what our story is about why that's happened what our thoughts are and how they might be affecting us when people have had a really serious increase in symptoms where it's very challenging very scary very debilitating I think it's hard to believe that someone could experience that without any fear and certainly from my experience any time in the past that I had a dramatic increase in symptoms there was a huge amount of fear because I at the time was thinking about the worst thing that could happen you know what if I become even more debilitated what if I can't get better from this place how long am I going to feel like this no one is able to help me because it can feel very helpless when you've maybe already seen doctors and they've done what they can but you're still having this experience of increased or intense symptoms so fear and other strong emotions are one of the things to become aware of during a crash and it's very normal to feel fearful the reason I said I can't imagine anyone would not feel fear during an experience of having intense increased symptoms and not being able to stand up we're not being able to eat or not being able to function normally I think anyone in the world who experiences something I thought would be fearful because it's essentially your body is is not functioning and it's shutting down and it's very intimidating at the time it can feel like there's no understanding of what exactly is happening and it can feel as though something really dangerous is happening to our body so to begin with in noticing emotions it's okay to feel those emotions or to have those emotions and validate that for yourself but what can be helpful is to think of it as one part of you or maybe more than one part but not the whole of you that's experiencing those feelings and validate that feeling and normalize that it is okay to feel frustrated to feel angry to feel sad to feel disappointed to feel anxious to feel panicked in a situation like this that it's really a very difficult situation and it's really hard and you can allow yourself to feel those feelings we don't want to sort of sweep feelings under the carpet and it can if you're a very severely fatigued it can be difficult to feel feelings in that situation so it could be a case of just naming what you feel and allowing that this is how you feel that it's really frustrating you could say you know I'm frustrated I'm angry I'm sad I feel a sense of loss I feel frustrated whatever is coming up for you at least acknowledging it and then conversely you could also acknowledge that there might be parts of you that don't feel that or that have a different perspective or they can see a bigger picture that this has happened in the in the past and you've got better before so that's possible again or that this is really challenging but you trust that your body is okay and some people will have that and for other people that will be more challenging to tap into a side that of you that believes that or a part of you that believes that and this doesn't mean stewing in those feelings all day every day and allowing it to overwhelm you but it's just to admit that it's okay to feel these feelings in this situation and that it is difficult so another thing to notice is this story that you're telling yourself around why this has happened and our brains love to come up with a problem-solving Quest as to why this happened was it that you ate something that you shouldn't have eaten was it that you did too much was it that you did something that was overly stimulating was it that you shouldn't have done two things two days in a row so your brain is going to want an answer as to why this has happened and sometimes it can be really challenging if you don't know and you're trying to come up with an answer and you can't figure it out and this becomes a preoccupation or something that you worry about or you think about constantly trying to solve this problem that seems challenging to solve so notice if you're telling yourself that this crash was caused by doing too much one of the issues with this rationale is that we then become more fearful of activity and we start to feel as though the world is not safe because we can't even go for a five minute walk or do something like wash our hair like I remember having an increase in symptoms that felt quite intense after washing my hair at one point and because my reasoning for this for this crash or this increase in symptoms was that I would wash my hair and therefore that's too much energy I'm not able to wash my hair that message is if you think about it quite scary because I'm essentially telling myself that I'm not able to wash my hair it's dangerous to wash my hair doing something that takes that much energy and that much movement of my arms is not safe because it will give me this migraine and this fatigue and all of the rest of the symptoms that have come along with it and if it's not safe to wash my hair then it's not safe to do much else really because washing your hair is not a a really big experience compared to other things that people who are well do so even if this increase in symptoms has come after doing an activity it can be helpful to consider if there was emotions you weren't aware of or if there was some type of stress or something that made you feel unsafe about that activity that could have caused this increase in symptoms and it's not always easy to fully pinpoint what it was and sometimes it's more under the radar and it's not conscious we there may have been an emotion and we weren't fully aware of it and we did an activity and part of us felt unsafe or there was some underlying anxiety and we crashed and it came it felt like a surprise in any case in the future you want to be able to do more activity again so you don't want a negative association with activity you don't want to be telling yourself activity is not safe to do and the activity causes symptoms so I've spoken a bit in other videos about how you can build up evidence for the times that you've had more symptoms and you haven't increased activity or when you have built increased activity and not got more symptoms as a result so that can sometimes help us to just realize this okay it's not the activity I will be able to build up to do more activity and you don't necessarily need to do that really quickly you want to do it in a way that feels safe but when you crash thinking about that story as to why your explanation around why you've crashed can be helpful in terms of getting back on track and increasing activity in the future so another thing to pay attention to is the thoughts that you're having and it's completely normal to have really negative or difficult thoughts when you have had this increase in symptoms so when for me for example I had thoughts like when is this going to end will this last forever what if this symptom gets worse and those are scary thoughts to have because there's a lot of uncertainty and having really uncomfortable symptoms and being just basically dysfunctional where you can't do normal day-to-day things it's really unpleasant and it's hard to live a fulfilled life in that way so it's it's understandable that we would have these thoughts we have these thoughts because a part of us is trying to protect us it's trying to predict how long will we be unwell for is there something worse that could happen that we can try and avoid and even though these thoughts might be there to try and help us in some way they can also make us feel a lot worse and feel a lot more scared and frightened and concerned so keeping an eye on what thoughts you're having and how what impact they might be having on you both mentally and physically can be really helpful at this time so I have another video on negative thinking and that goes through a few different ways of managing thoughts one way of of dealing with it is to acknowledge that these thoughts are there and that anyone in this situation would have those thoughts but also are these thoughts in line with a mind-body approach that will help me get out of this situation and if they're not it's thinking about what you can do to help you start to think in a different way about the symptoms that have increased or gotten much worse and essentially how to feel safe in your body even though that's a big task when you feel so when you feel so many symptoms and they are scary symptoms so we want to start building up this feeling of safety and feeling that you are okay even though this has happened and that this happening does not mean that you're not going to get better or that these symptoms are going to last forever or that they're going to get worse so the more you can do this the easier it'll be to manage those symptoms [Music] and how you feel in the situation so you could potentially write a list if you're able to do that write a list of the things that make you feel safe and okay and a list of the things that maybe don't make you feel safe and okay so if for instance you have a tendency to start googling your symptoms that could go on the list of things that don't make you feel okay or make you feel like something bad is going to happen or that you are not safe and you want to stop doing all of those things that might make you feel less safe it could also be speaking to a family member in a panicked way about your symptoms of course if you have concerns about your symptoms and there's new symptoms you could get them checked out medically especially if if this is new to you and you haven't had many medical checks before for some people they've been through it so many times that they know those symptoms are the ones that have already been checked and nothing has come back from tests so if that's you when you experience these symptoms or this crash you start to panic to a family member or a friend who then feeds back anxiety to you or starts panicking also that could also be a behavior that is feeding into the cycle of fear examples of things that might help you feel safe would be for instance listening to a comedy podcast or a comedy show it could be listening to some YouTube videos on the Mind Body Connection or a podcast like the curable podcast around the evidence of mind-body symptoms sometimes this can be really reassuring at the time when we feel scared and when our symptoms are at their worst it could be helpful to think about how you've overcome either this challenge or different challenges in the past if you've had a crash like this before and you did get better thinking about what attributes you used to to get out of it how did you build up your confidence how did you build up your optimism and your hopefulness to manage that situation how did you manage having Acceptance in that situation and can you draw on those previous experiences to to manage in this situation it could be doing a a meditation that helps you manage either a specific emotion or that focuses specifically on positive feelings so there are meditations called meta meditations and they focus on different positive feelings in the body it might involve imagining someone you really really care about and how does that feel in your body so maybe a niece or a nephew or your child or a pet and you would really focus on that kind of fuzzy warm feeling that you get when you think of that person or that animal and this can be helpful to start to think that not everything in my body is feeling uncomfortable and dangerous this can be more challenging for some people than others so if if going if paying attention to your body doesn't feel good then maybe don't do this one but the purpose of this is to try and notice things that feel more okay in your body or more comfortable or safe so another thing that you can do is look at all of the evidence that you have that this mind-body approach applies to you and you want to build up that evidence as much as possible and think about it as much as possible when you have this increase in symptoms so that you do feel safer that this does apply to you that your symptoms do not mean that something dangerous is going to happen to you despite how difficult they are to experience and that you will be able to move forward and that you won't get stuck in this place that you do have an explanation for why the symptoms are there even if it's hard to fully understand that to be able to trust in this approach the better that we react to an onset of increased symptoms the quicker that you're going to recover and manage it well and sometimes that also involves thinking ahead so thinking ahead to what will I do if I am overcome with doubt with fear with debilitating symptoms what are my go-to coping strategies that will help me feel safer in my body that will help me manage all of those difficult thoughts or difficult emotions that come up are there any things that I could write down in advance to help me feel better in that situation so if you know that the thoughts that you normally get when you get a crush are thoughts of of hopelessness of helplessness or thoughts that I'm never going to get better this is going to last forever or what if this symptom is really dangerous what could you write down that you could look at the next time you have an increase in symptoms that will help reassure you that that you are okay this even though it's difficult and it's understandable that you're feeling this way and that you're having these difficult thoughts that you will be able to overcome it and you will be able to get out the other side what are the things you need to remember because I think when our cognitive capacity is reduced it's harder to respond well to these situations and when our energy is reduced it's hard it's harder to manage those difficult emotions and those difficult thoughts so it can be helpful to plan and think ahead so that you have a strategy that you could use if you do get increased increases of symptoms and also trying to just remember that it's okay to have an increase in symptoms and it doesn't take away from the progress that you've had before I think often it feels like we're going backwards and then all of the progress that we made is lost but actually the learning that you have experienced through the previous progress that you've made is really valuable and this is another opportunity to use this approach it's another opportunity to try and feel safe and to manage the Fear And the emotions that are coming up in in a helpful or healthy way without having those take over and become really overwhelming and cause a sort of a downward spiral in terms of our mood or in terms of anxiety so those are just a few ideas on what you could reflect on in terms of having increased symptoms or having a crush and and for anyone who is in a crash right now just know that this is not going to last forever that you will get out of it and that no matter how how difficult it feels right now that there is a way forward and there are different things that you can you can do to help even if it feels like they're very small and just noticing how different parts of you feel like is there a part of you that feels really impatient and really like that they just want to all of this to be gone right now because sometimes I can bring extra attention and extra pressure and extra anxiety at least noticing it and being with that feeling or noticing that that's one part of you and that's that that part is trying to cope using that approach it can just give us a bit of perspective on it and realize that's okay and it's understandable if you like this video please like And subscribe if you'd like to join the Facebook group there's a link in the description thank you for watching and I will see you in the next video

Channel: Mind Body Integrate

Views: 1,408

Keywords: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, ME, ME/CFS, Long Covid, chronic pain, Dr. John Sarno, internal family systems, TMS, Lucy Feighery, Mind body integrate

Id: GooGyrb4UXc

Length: 29min 46sec (1786 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2023