A Quick Update of my Progress: on ME Awareness Day

Most of you who read this will know I am working pretty much full time now (well, over a 30 hour week anyway). In July 2014 it will be a full three years since I was diagnosed.

I felt like I should blog on today of all days, but I'm not going to be political, or waffle on; this is just a short bullet point list of a few things that I do to maintain my health currently:

• Drink 8-10 250ml glasses of water/juice per day
• Drink a smoothie/green smoothie most mornings
• Eat simple, simply prepared food including lean meats and fish
• Get a regular bedtime and have a bedtime routine
• Exercise in the gym once a week
• Walk in the fresh air if only for 10 minutes
• PACE and switch my daily activities
• Meditate
• Do some gentle yoga/stretches
• Journal/document my thoughts through words and art
• Listen to my body and learn to know when it needs to rest

I know this might look like a REALLY basic list, but start with the simple things first and the rest will follow. The three basic, key elements that I always return to if I have a flare up or setback are:

• GOOD NUTRITION
• PACING
• REGULAR SLEEP PATTERN

Speaking from first hand, personal experience, I strongly believe I would NOT have recovered had I not learned, through much trial and error I might add, to get just these three things right; the rest came later. And different approaches work for different people, depending on the severity and variety of symptoms.

As I always say, this blog is NOT medical advice. It's simply a record of things that have worked for me in my own personal recovery journey.

I do hope, though, that it can offer comfort and inspiration to others that are dealing with the many and varied symptoms of ME/CFS.

Happy Monday all, look after yourselves.

J x

January 2014 Update: Being Calm and Staying Hydrated

My favourite quote from my favourite film, made into some art this month | see it uncensored here

I started the month with a cold, and ended it with one, (sniffling as I type here!) prompting me to really think hard about my diet and eating regime. I've tried so many different things and never stuck with them, so February is going to be all about mindful eating. There's a great post on that here. Also I want to try and cut down the amount of processed foods I consume to the absolute minimum. I'm not going to start clearing out cupboards though, as that is not only too drastic but also extremely wasteful.
As well as eating, I have been consciously drinking more, with help from the Hydrate app (this links to the Android app but I'm sure there'll be something similar available for iPhones). It's great as you can set a reminder which will sound, reminding you that you need to drink, you can also set different water intake quantities, for example millilitres or ounces. I'm pretty sure that my increased water intake has helped decrease my cold symptoms, and I've drunk a minimum of 2 litres every day for the past 12 days now, apart from Thursday when I was particularly ill, but I still managed to drink 1.5 litres that day!
I've also discovered a brilliant website called calm.com, where you can do short meditation and guided meditation sessions, from 2 to 20 minutes. There's different calming scenes including beaches and calm lakes, and a variety of soothing instrumental music. There's also an iPhone app available and an Android app is apparently on the way. I'm intending to be more productive with my internet time in February, and this is definitely something I'm going to work in to my day, I think it will be especially useful during the "power down" hour that I'm hoping to implement regularly before bed (more about that in a future post)!

I'm feeling positive going into February, how do you intend to manage your #spoonie life this month? Let me know in the comments!

J x