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.

Release 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.

Coaching with us

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.

Some things you have to stop doing:

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.
Symptom checking
By checking your symptoms, you are making bigger pathways to feel what you don’t want to feel. Better to build new pathways of joy and peace (rest and digest mode)
Prioritise your own road
Stop trying to justify yourself for being tired. You don’t have to please anybody.
Take an honest look at your coping strategies
Your behaviour has made you ill. You will have to change everything, your habits, your self-talks, your thoughts, your urges etc.
Don’t be afraid of your symptoms
Fear causes stress, stress causes more symptoms. By understanding how diversion pain syndrome works, you can communicate with your unconscious mind instead. What is it distracting you from?
Orthorexia
Individuals with orthorexia tend to have an obsessive focus on healthy eating, to an extent that disrupts their daily lives. According to the TMS theory, fatigue works as a distraction to strong and powerful emotions. A strict and cleansing diet might just be another form of distraction and therefore improve your symptoms. This starts a placebo healing that never brings you all the way to being 100% healthy. You will always have to cleanse yourself a little more.
Figuring out the physical cause of a setback
The symptoms are not caused by physical activity, yet they are triggered by it. Soothe yourself: “movement is okay.” “You are safe!”
Stop rushing
Whenever you do things quickly, rushed in a hurry and fast, you are not cultivating the peace you need to cultivate energy. Maybe after a while, you can permit yourself this behaviour every once in a while. But don’t make it a habit (again).
Obsessive searching
Many of us are setting ourselves up for failure if we do not give treatments a fair chance. You might already plan the next treatment while you are still doing another thing. This already means that you don’t believe it is going to work and makes you spend money on so many different things while you remain in the “fight or flight” mode and are unaware of it.