Hey CFS Warriors, it's Victoria here and I just wanted to talk to you tonight about setbacks and crashes. You know, I used to feel like I lived in the twilight zone of a crash and a setback and they could last anywhere from two weeks to months for me where my days were just spent entirely in bed or just revolved about around when I could get into bed. So you know if you've ever felt like that because CFS is basically made up of setbacks and crashes I just wanted to share with you some things that have really helped me on the recovery path to minimize those crashes and where they became more of a dips that might last either an afternoon and evening in bed or a little extra rest on the weekend or just pulling back on my activity for a few days to just get through. So it's really amazing what a difference we can actually make in our setbacks and crashes. So first of all the thing that really helped me was realizing as the CFS health program and the Optum of Health Clinic underscore is recovery is not a straight line and when I finally accepted this it really helped me because you know it really calmed down that stress response to the crash and you know even the Apollo rockets to the moon their journey was 90% of the time off course and so they had a feedback mechanism that helped them course correct and that's kind of like our journey. You may be off course much of the time that as long as you're listening to your body listening to that feedback mechanism that you've been given you'll be able to course correct and actually reach your destination. Second thing that really helped me was leaning into the crash again embracing the place that I was. You know Tony Robbins talks about if there's something you have to do and you really don't want to do it find a way that you can actually enjoy the process and that sounds kind of crazy when you think about it in regards to a crash but I began to do that. I think how can I gently care for myself through this so I'll share with you a few things that I did at the end of this video that really helped me with that. The third thing was for me to just recognize that when I was in a crash I was going to have an emotional bomb out as well and so there might be tears and when I realized that and like when I find myself just a mess and tattered emotionally I'd go oh yeah I'm in a crash and recognize that was just part of the process it really helped me cope immensely so that was really important just to let my emotions be because as I rested my body back into a healing state my emotions would follow suit so the fourth thing is to rest don't stress you know so often I would lie in bed all day but my mind would be going 90 to nothing or I'd be all stressed out about am I ever going to recover or how long is this crash going to last not to mention all the other things in my life that I could stress about but you know that doesn't do any good for our recovery process and basically our bodies you know the the World Health Organization classifies this as a neurological illness which means our bodies are in that fight-and-flight state so we really need to calm that down and as I learn to do that and get my body to a healing state during a crash maybe using guided meditations or EFT alternate nose breathing techniques self-hitting notes all of that helped me calm down that stress response so that my body could get into a healing state and move through that crash more quickly the fifth thing was to let go of the achiever beast you know I was on a mission after four years of the pushing crash cycle I started the recovery path in my you know at the end of the fourth year of this illness and it took me a year to work from a three minute walk to a ten minute walk and I tell you what when I had crashed during that time it just frustrated me so much because I knew I'd have to start back from the beginning I might have finally reached a seven minute walk and it would mean I'd have to start back in a three minute walk but you know what I did it and I did it many many times and as my recovery progressed as I went forward I gained ground more quickly after the setbacks and crashes so it really is okay you don't have to do all those things that you think you need to do for your recovery during a crash you just need to let go and rest so basically if there's anything else dressing you that you feel like you need to do get it off the plate delegate it so you can just spend that time recovering but you just gotta let it go you know you just gotta take that time to recover so the sixth thing that really helped me was as the optimum health clinic calls a first aid kit and I had a list that I kept on my phone because you know when when when you hit a crash brain fog sets in and it gets really hard to remember what you need to do to help yourself through recovery so I'll just go over some of those things that I've written down on a list for one I would always order in Greek landshops in a salad because I really needed a high protein hit whenever I'm went into a crash so when eat as much protein as I could the other things I would do would I would watch a TV series something light no heavy violence or drama because I just needed to have something light to help me float through back to recovery a fun book would be good to read but you know what sometimes I'd pick up children's books something like the Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter because the reading is light lighter and easier and it's not dark so those were really good things for me to read in a crash play with my cat I'd like to journal or draw in an adult coloring book EFT videos with Braggates he was my favorite so I would do that YouTube guided meditations for deeper relaxation listen to music stretch these are all things that I could do from bed I would also watch online recovery modules from the programs that I would be in and that always encouraged me and of course you can find free ones on YouTube you can check out my channel something to encourage you when you're in bed with a crash around the therapy talk to a friend if I was feeling really emotional the challenge with that is often it was month-throw it was also impacted made it hard to talk but you know sometimes I had to just bypass that and talk with a friend and work through things that's important if you can do it during crash also have someone make me a fresh juice watch travel sheds and dream about the future and I used to love to watch wind surfing DVDs because it would give me hope that someday I'll be back on the ocean and I was able to get back to wind surfing so anyway those were things that helped me and again I had on my list to ask myself is there anything I need to do that's stressing me and get that off the plate so those are some of the things that helped me in mind journey I'm still on recovery but like I said minimizing those crashes and setbacks is just so wonderful when you can get farther down the road and life begins to open up again so you know obviously other things are important the nutrition and movement and all of that if you've done any brain retraining programs that really helps in a crash and what I've found is not trying to get more energy with it but to do it on calm and deep rest it really didn't beneficial so I hope that helps you as you're working through recovery you know people without CFS just could never understand the depth and the darkness of those setbacks and crashes but so I just want to encourage you that you can begin to take actions to minimize the duration of them and the depth of them so that you don't crash so deeply and the time starts to get less and less as you go along so be encouraged warriors even though it doesn't feel like it sometimes life is not over it's starting again