Do you ever feel sadness or even bitterness about all the things you cannot do at this time?

Then this week’s CFS Recovery project video blog is for you. Learn how to let go of sadness and frustration about the life you can no longer lead (for now).

P.S.

To help you get your life back and reach your optimum level of health as quickly as possible, I’ve designed a new coaching program that comes with a wise investment guarantee. Have a look if you think that you might benefit from 1-to-1 support but were concerned about making the investment in your health and happiness!

Discover how I regained my ability to exercise, even though I never thought it possible.

Please note that the type of exercise I describe in this article was not GET, which can easily harm your health if you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). I always stayed within my safe exercise limits, which meant that I avoided triggering post-exertional malaise.

While exercising without triggering post-exertional malaise is a crucial element of managing ME/CFS well, exercising the wrong way can be harmful. Read this article for inspiration only and the free e-course lesson to learn how to find the level of exercise that’s appropriate and safe for your unique situation.

For many, post-exertional malaise is one of the most debilitating symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It surely was for me: when I was at my worst, even short walks exacerbated my symptoms for days to come.

When shortly after starting to practice the amygdala retraining techniques my brainfog, mood, and mental stamina improved, my ability to exercise still lagged behind.

It made sense to me: Sure, calming down my nervous system through the Amygdala Retraining Program could make me feel better, but how could it possibly help my body heal on a physical level?

The first Breakthrough

To make my exercise breakthrough possible in 2010, a great deal of coaxing from my wife, Erin, was needed. I was hesitant to give exercise another try, as I had failed at it many times during the previous three years since I had gotten ill. [Read more…]

were published as guest posts on Health Rising, the website of my favorite Chronic Fatigue Syndrome journalist Cort Johnson. I’m sharing them with you below in the hope that you will benefit from reading them:

How to Infuse Joy into Your Daily Routines When You Have ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia (inspired a lively discussion—over 50 comments)

7 Ways to Stop the Internet from Aggravating Your Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and FM Symptoms (went viral—over 200 facebook likes)

As always, I welcome you to share your thoughts and questions in the comments section underneath each article.

p.s. Last month, Ashok Gupta, creator of the Advanced ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia Recovery Program invited me to become the official U.S. coach for his program. I was very pleased; I admire Ashok’s high-quality work and love his way of giving people risk-free access to his programs. Ashok is also the guy who helped me originally get better.

Prior to my official initiation as a coach, I had already received supervision from one of their most experienced practitioners and have participated in their intervision calls since October last year. I’m happy to be an official coach now and look forward to supporting you in getting the most out of the Gupta Amygdala Retraining Programme. [Read more…]

Become a master in regaining your health and happiness.

When you and I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, we had to face the hard truth that the actions, thoughts, and beliefs that, prior to our illness, allowed us to feel happy and healthy were no longer working.

In order to regain our optimum health and happiness we needed to—and may still need to—adapt to our changed bodies. We have to relearn how to take good care or our “new” bodies and live happily in them.

The best way to do this is to learn from an experienced mentor.

There are lots of ways—many of them free—to learn from an experienced mentor. In this lesson I will share with you my experience on how to make that learning journey as easy, swift, and enjoyable as possible. [Read more…]

Different people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia respond to different treatments, and therefore the best strategy for you to discover the treatments that will help you get better is conducting experiments.

I’ve created step-by-step instructions on how to skillfully conduct an experiment, each step complemented with a real-life example from an experiment I’m currently conducting on improving my sleep.

Have a look. I’m confident that you’ll be glad you did.
http://cfsrecoveryproject.com/conduct-experiments-to-improve-your-health

If you master the the art of conducting experiments, you’ll have a rock-solid foundation for improving your health and happiness step-by-step, experiment-by-experiment.

Let me list just a few of the many CFS-related challenges that I’ve overcome by conducting experiments:

• being unhappy with my life
• brain fog
• inability to exercise

The approach has been so successful for me that I don’t even have many health challenges left to experiment with!

It’ll take about an hour of your time to work your way through the lesson. You might want to do it in multiple sessions to stay within your energy envelope.

Here is the link again: How to Guide for Conducting Experiments.

I’d love to hear what you think. Please send me an email or leave a comment with your thoughts and concerns.

One article is not enough for me to help you integrate all of the important aspects of nutrition for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia into your life, but it’s enough to give you an overview of what areas you may want to look into — now or at some point in the future. Also, I’ll share with the the best sources for in-depth information on those particular areas.

Below is a list of questions that you’ll want to know the answers to at some point in your recovery journey. I’ll use this lesson to answer them for you.

1. What’s the ideal diet to support my recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia?
2. I have so little energy! How can I still make sure that I’m able to prepare and eat healthy food?
3. How can I discover whether food allergies are contributing to my symptoms? How can I identify what foods are causing problems?
4. What’s the deal with nutritional supplements? Should I buy them and, if yes, where?

Let’s cover answer these questions in the order listed. [Read more…]

Should you join a support group?

Contact with other people who have CFS can counteract isolation and provide you with a sense of community, moral support and with valuable information. Self-help groups can also be a great way for you to help others, which in turn boosts your self-esteem.

At the same time, some support groups can be constraining. Some people who have attended meetings say that the suffering of the other people in the room is hard to handle and that people are complaining too much.

Will attending a support group be helpful to you?

Read this article to learn about the pros and cons of conventional support groups as well as the not-so-obvious support group where I found my happiness. [Read more…]

This article is also part of a comprehensive free e-course that I’m teaching on the fundamentals of regaining your health and happiness. Learn more about the course and sign up for free.

How to plan your future when you have ME/CFS?

Will you fully recover from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia?

A full recovery is, unfortunately, not certain when you have one—or both—of these conditions.

However, what is certain is that you can very much improve your situation.

What’s more, you can be as happy as, or even happier, than before you were ill—even if you don’t belong to the group of patients who make a full recovery. And I don’t mean the “pretty-happy-for-a-sick-person” happiness. No. I mean real, unconditional, no regrets, “life-is-as-awesome-as-it-can-get” happiness.

I’m aware that this last statement might be hard for you to believe at this time, so I’ll prove and explain exactly what this means for you as part of this lesson. [Read more…]