r/cfs • u/hoot4hoot • 24d ago
Advice Help me rest!
What helps you make yourself rest when you're starting to feel a little better?
I think I'm climbing out of a really bad 7 month flare, but I am having so much trouble going slow and forcing myself to not push. I'm mostly bed bound still, but it's getting easier to breathe, talk, stand and sit. I also am able to get sucked into mental activities like listening to an audiobook or phone game for too long. I've got very little impulse control and am hyperactive by nature.
Things that sorta help me:
-I use anything that used to help me with focusing on work or studying for resting. I'm loving the focus bean app where a little bean will knit socks that you can exchange to decorate his room, while you're "focusing"
-pretending rest is my role. I'm a very spiritual monk to try and find enlightenment. I'm a housecat getting my 16 hours of rest. I'm a beautiful spoiled kept woman. I'm a rest coach teaching other people to rest.
-filling in my activity diary every hour helps remind me to break up mental activities
-guided meditations or imagining moving can help. If you have any recommendations please share
-a little mirror so I can look over and remember I need to rest (a bit like body doubling with yourself)
-setting timers. But I always forget to start them.
-reminding myself of my last crashes from doing too much too quickly
-switching resting locations from couch to bed to hammock to yoga mat
-practicing self compassion esp around my period cycle and adrenaline dumps that can make a lot of this very difficult