Healing from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia

Episode 49 - People pleasing and recovery

September 17, 2019 11:00 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MB

Alex talks about people pleasing as a habit of the helper type that puts other peoples' needs before our own. Becoming aware of the pattern and its impact is the beginning of changing the behavior. If you go to great lengths to avoid conflict or get your self-worth from doing things for other people, you might find it worthwhile to explore this pattern in yourself. Understanding this pattern as a helper type with ME/CFS can help us avoid over-extending our energy in unhelpful ways. Use the s...

Episode 48 - Getting moving without pushing

September 10, 2019 11:00 - 8 minutes - 7.45 MB

In this Facebook Live recording CEO Alex Howard discusses getting moving without pushing in ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia recovery. The Achiever subtypes particularly can get caught up in over-doing patterns, so we need a new way to approach to break old habits and cultivate new helpful habits. Setting new goals versus recognising the achiever pattern is that a healthy mindset will make our new goal feel good, the achiever pattern mindset will feel like pressure. Recognising the healthy approach ...

Episode 47 - Cultivating enjoyment during recovery

September 03, 2019 11:00 - 16 minutes - 14.7 MB

Psychology Practitioner Marie Fleming talks about how to bring in a sense of enjoyment to your day during the recovery process, even though illness can be so challenging and uncomfortable. Being able to create a moment of enjoyment can relieve a little bit of suffering, without just trying to pretend to be happier.

Episode 46 - Creating healthy boundaries

August 27, 2019 11:00 - 14 minutes - 13.4 MB

OHC practitioner Marie discusses creating healthy boundaries, especially in relation to helper subtypes. Being able to say no to people or to tasks when we need to prioritise our own healing process is an important lesson in creating healthier relationships and making sure we're setting ourselves up for recovery.

Episode 45 - Offensive vs defensive for recovery

August 20, 2019 11:00 - 10 minutes - 24 MB

After developing a stable baseline, Alex elaborates on how to bounce the boundaries and increase the energy envelope. He uses the metaphor of being on the offensive (pushing the boundaries with activity/new foods/new supplements/new tools) versus being on the defensive (retreat, recovery, resting, stabilising). This is for a very particular stage of recovery (later stage 2/stage 3) when you are able to remain in a regular baseline without crashing, and having productive rest in order to then...

Episode 44 - Uncertainty and recovery from MECFS

August 13, 2019 11:00 - 13 minutes - 30.1 MB

What allows us to feel calm, confident, and embodied is making peace with the sense of uncertainty, making peace with not knowing what's going to happen. Alex talks about developing confidence and a sense of safety in the body versus trying to intellectualise solutions for potential challenges. Stress and worry use up energy that we need to heal - and in ME CFS and Fibromyalgia we need to remove any unnecessary energy drains in order to build up our systems.

Episode 43 - The mind body connection in recovery

August 06, 2019 11:00 - 23 minutes - 54.5 MB

Marie from our psychology team shares a little bit about her ME/CFS recovery story, and clarifies more about why the mind and body connection is so important in recovery from ME, CFS, Fibromyalgia (and generally all forms of stress and chronic illness). Limiting our approach to only aspects of the mind (or just on psychology) becomes extremely limited if we don't include information from the body - we will be neglecting the intelligence of our somatic experiences.

Episode42 - Listening to your emotions calms your nervous system

July 30, 2019 11:00 - 10 minutes - 24.7 MB

Ignoring our wants and needs can lead our minds and bodies to continually get louder until we finally listen and pay attention to what is currently happening. Making space for and being mindful of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and symptoms can actually calm the system down because it doesn't need to trigger the maladaptive stress response to get our attention. Becoming aware of our thoughts and symptoms is the first practice in learning how to understand our bodies and learn how to best ...

Episode 41 - Saying YES to you on the recovery path

July 23, 2019 11:00 - 9 minutes - 21.8 MB

In this Facebook Live recording CEO Alex Howard discusses saying YES to you on the recovery path from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia. It can feel like we're saying 'no' to just about everything when we're on the recovery path - to people who want to socialise, or to foods we want to eat, or to activities or achievements we want to accomplish - but Alex wants to reframe this mindset by reminding you that saying NO to so many things means saying YES to making healing the priority.

Episode 40 - 4 fundamentals of recovery

July 17, 2019 13:53 - 10 minutes - 24.3 MB

In this Facebook Live recording CEO Alex Howard discusses the 4 fundamentals of recovery from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia from which to keep track of the recovery journey and build tools to move forward. 1. Do we have a baseline? (activity levels, pacing, a place from which to build) 2. Are we making progress over time? (Less crashes, more ups, quicker recoveries) 3. Protect the progress! 4. Accelerate the progress by tackling various symptoms or co-morbidities

Episode 39 - Why don't people believe full recovery is possible?

July 09, 2019 12:44 - 11 minutes - 27.2 MB

After discussing what is possible from recovery, and exploring things that may help someone recover from ME CFS, some people have a rejection or resistance to the idea that recovery is possible. It can be devastating to get your hopes up, which is why some people choose instead not to believe in recovery from ME CFS and Fibromyalgia. Contributing to this is the stigma and misinformation about the illness to begin with, and therefor an inability to begin to understand how to solve the problem...

Episode 38 - Recovery Goals

May 21, 2019 16:00 - 12 minutes - 29.7 MB

Alex offers some advice on how to set goals that make you feel like you're winning - and how to avoid resolutions that cause worsening of symptoms. Recovery takes time, and the best goals to set on the recovery path are small, achievable goals that help us feel like we're making genuine progress.

Episode 37 - What stops people from recovering?

May 15, 2019 13:07 - 6 minutes - 6.19 MB

A complex illness like ME CFS can exhibit many different symptoms and co-morbidities. Being able to make sense of the cycles and systems affected can help us find pieces to work with that keep patients from healing. The body has a natural tendencey towards healing so we try to discover all the pieces of the ME/CFS puzzle and delicately try to balance the systems to alleviate symptoms and begin healing. What in your life is potentially obstructing your body's natural capacity towards healing?

Episode 36 - The danger of maybe

May 07, 2019 15:25 - 8 minutes - 20.4 MB

It can be a real challenge to commit to future plans when we're still working on our recovery from ME CFS or Fibromyalgia. Alex offers some tips about how to handle social commitments when you really don't know if you'll be well enough to attend.

Episode 35 - Making recovery the most important thing in your life

April 30, 2019 11:00 - 7 minutes - 16.4 MB

In this short Facebook Live session, Alex explains the importance of making recovery the most important goal in your day to day life, especially in the early stages. If we have multiple goals or priorities it can put our health in a back seat when we should be making choices that are best for our body and recovery. Are you giving your recovery the priority it needs for it to be the thing that progresses and moves in your life?

Episode 34 - What sort of psychology do you recommend?

April 23, 2019 11:00 - 10 minutes - 23.2 MB

Through his personal experience and extensive education in various psychological approaches, Alex offers his recommendations for what kind of psychology work might be right for you depending on where you are on your recovery journey. There are many different tools to work with the past, the present, and the future - and the recovery path requires some combination of each of these, and this will evolve as you move through the healing journey. Do you feel like it's more important for you right...

Episode 33 - Why listening to your body is so hard

April 16, 2019 11:00 - 10 minutes - 23.9 MB

The advice, "listen to your body" sounds like it should be easy, but it isn't quite as simple as it seems. We often get conflicting messages from our body and it can be tricky to decide which message to listen to. Alex offers advice on how to make the next best informed decision based on all the information available.

Episode 32 - Trauma and ME CFS recovery

April 09, 2019 13:09 - 13 minutes - 31.7 MB

Alex explores "Trauma", major disruptive life events, and "trauma", small or developmental patterns that can effect our well-being. By understanding and working with our own traumas, we can develop healthier relationships with ourselves and our experience in life. One benefit of addressing trauma can be calming the nervous system in order to heal the body more efficiently. The Optimum Health Clinic does not endorse the idea that ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia are trauma based illnesses, only that t...

Episode 31 - The inner critic and recovery

April 02, 2019 11:00 - 8 minutes - 19.7 MB

Becoming familiar with and identifying thoughts of our energy-depleting "inner critic" can be huge in helping us identify unhelpful thought patterns or beliefs that we can stop and change. Changing the tone of our inner mental chatter to one that is positive and caring can free up emotional energy and help us make better choices. Alex also offers some tips on how to handle the inner critic once you recognise it.

Episode 30 - Windows ME

March 26, 2019 14:14 - 8 minutes - 19.8 MB

The mental pattern of Windows ME means we run every thought and activity through the filter of having ME. This means every situation can cause stress if we continually question what the future holds for us which can increase the constant maladaptive stress response. At stage 1 Windows ME can help us find our boundaries, but beyond that it can start to cause problems.

Episode 29 - Mental tennis

March 19, 2019 12:00 - 16 minutes - 36.8 MB

Mental tennis is a mental pattern that can make decision making feel impossible. In ME/CFS our nervous systems are already over-stimulated, and when it comes to deciding how to spend our energy, patients can feel stuck in a tug-of-war over how to move forward and make the "right" choice. Alex offers some tips on how to recognise and address mental tennis to get clarity on making a choice in the moment with mindfulness and checking-in in a new or different way.

Episode 28 - Why should our nutrition patients do the psychology programme?

March 12, 2019 12:50 - 10 minutes - 23.8 MB

Alex discusses why patients in the nutrition program can benefit from also doing the psychology work with The Optimum Health Clinic. We do not in any way promote the idea that ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia are psychological illnesses, but that chronic illness is both difficult, stressful, and at times traumatising, and that ME/CFS in particular causes over-arousal, over stimulation, and the maladaptive stress response. Our psychology work can help reduce the stress load and calm the nervous system ...

Episode 27 - Joy and freedom on the path to recovery

March 05, 2019 14:48 - 11 minutes - 26.4 MB

The recovery path can take so much discipline and organisation that we can sometimes forget that a balanced life includes play, fun, and joy. Alex talks about finding a balance between our Helper/Acheiver/Perfection types and our childlike inclinations for enjoyment. Recovering from ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia can feel like serious business, and remembering to introduce playful activities can really help on the journey to wellness.

Episode 26 - Willpower and recovery

February 26, 2019 13:18 - 11 minutes - 26 MB

We now know that approaching healing from ME CFS from a "pushing" motivation can make everything worse, so willpower for recovery in ME CFS and Fibromyalgia needs a new meaning. Pushing to work harder and do more will not work for recovering from these illnesses, but we may need determination in other ways to find acceptance and allow ourselves to rest and take steps to get into a healing state. Willpower on the recovery path is doing LESS, to stop doing something you want to do when what yo...

Episode 25 - The story behind psychology subtypes

February 13, 2019 14:50 - 13 minutes - 18.3 MB

Alex explores the psychological subtypes (Anxiety, Achiever, Helper) that can play a part in remaining ill with ME CFS, and how noticing these patterns can help us put ourselves first and notice the thought behaviours that are unhelpful in our recovery. Beyond recovery from ME CFS, understanding psychological subtypes will help us to grow and evolve throughout our lives in various challenging circumstances. Psychological subtypes aren't unique to chronic illness, and the work we put into und...

Episode 24 - Asking for help

February 05, 2019 10:00 - 16 minutes - 38.5 MB

Sometimes we need to ask for help from friends, family, and professionals - Alex discusses how to notice what our needs are and how to reach out for assistance or support. Whether it's talking about our experience or getting practical help with physical tasks, learning how to ask for help on the recovery path from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia can be immensely useful.

Episode 23 - What is possible in recovery from ME/CFS?

January 29, 2019 13:45 - 8 minutes - 19.2 MB

When we start making some progress on our journey, the recovery process can feel incredibly slow and we start to wonder what exactly is possible from recovery from ME, CFS or Fibromyalgia. Alex explains that you do not need to be perfect biologically or psychologically in order to recover - and you can easily underestimate what is possible in the long term.

Episode 22 - Deep Rest

January 22, 2019 13:37 - 11 minutes - 25.6 MB

Alex Howard discusses deep rest in ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia recovery. The maladaptive stress response in MECFS keeps the nervous system wired, and mindful rest can help us recover the parasympathetic nervous system. Noticing our personality patterns can help us recognise when we aren't allowing for deep rest when our mind wants us to push through and overexert.

Episode 21- Being methodical

January 15, 2019 13:30 - 8 minutes - 19.7 MB

In this Facebook Live recording CEO Alex Howard discusses being methodical: taking time when starting new supplements, treatments, or movements in order to see what is helping on the road to recovery from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia.

Episode 20 - For the body to heal, you have to be in it

January 09, 2019 16:43 - 18 minutes - 42.7 MB

In this Facebook Live recording CEO Alex Howard discusses how the maladaptive stress response can keep us in a state where we are unaware of what our body really needs. Being able to relax into your exhaustion can take practice, but being able to deeply rest is necessary for healing to take place.

Episode 19 - Helper patterns

January 02, 2019 13:12 - 10 minutes - 25 MB

The Helper subtytpe in the Optimum Health Clinic model is one type of characteristic that can be looked at in terms of habits and beliefs that may contribute to becoming or staying ill with ME, CFS or Fibromyalgia. Exploring self-worth and supporting the self can be helpful tools to practice to overcome unhealthy helper patterns.

Episode 18 - Gratitude and comparing ourselves to others

December 12, 2018 14:46 - 10 minutes - 9.18 MB

In this Facebook Live recording CEO Alex Howard discusses gratitude and comparing ourselves to others. While being able to acknowledge our loss and difficulty is an important part of being in our body, it is also an extremely useful practice to be grateful for what we do have and the things that are working here and now.

Episode 17 - Sofa Heroes

December 04, 2018 15:46 - 16 minutes - 15.2 MB

Alex Howard discusses SOFA HEROES: Because you have to be a superhero to live with ME, CFS or Fibromyalgia. The Sofa Heroes fundraising campaign will raise money for our double-blind study with the University of Surrey on the effectiveness of The Optimum Health Clinic Method for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia in order to make the treatment available through the NHS or covered by insurance. See how you can start a Sofa Heroes campaign at https://www.theoptimumhealthclinic.com/fundraising/ Read about...

Episode 16 - The problem with psychology approaches for recovery

November 27, 2018 16:03 - 16 minutes - 14.7 MB

Alex discusses the limitations of psychological approaches and miracle recovery stories from psychological therapies for ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia. Through the Optimum Health Clinic, the patient gets both psychological support to encourage healing, and also functional medicine to look at various biological systems that may be out of balance. Exploring the Lightning Process and Mickel Therapy and Reverse Therapy, EFT and more, and their places in some parts of recovery, Alex explains how they ...

Episode 15 - What supplements should I take?

November 20, 2018 13:18 - 9 minutes - 10.4 MB

Alex describes the slippery slope of self-medicating or taking supplement advice from non-professionals. With personalised care from The Optimum Health Clinic, a nutritionist can help you discover exactly which supplements will be most helpful for your specific needs.

Episode 014 - Being inspired for recovery

November 13, 2018 14:29 - 12 minutes - 14.3 MB

What we need when the going is challenging and difficult, is support, inspiration, and motivation - and there are few situations as challenging as living with ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia. Alex discusses various ways of cultivating inspiration with the help of practitioners or self-inspired resources. Watch The Secrets to Recovery Movie at http://www.secretstorecovery.com/movie/

Episode 13 - Recovery takes a team

October 30, 2018 14:09 - 12 minutes - 13.8 MB

On the verge of the release of the Secrets to Recovery film, Alex reflects on the process of recovery from the patients that have been interviewed, and also the process of making a film - in that these projects take teamwork and collaboration. ME/CFS can feel like a very lonely journey, but Alex encourages being aware of all the members of your team helping you on your path to recovery.

Episode 012 - What if you've tried everything to recover?

October 23, 2018 15:12 - 22 minutes - 25.7 MB

When we've invested so much hope and energy into various methods in an effort to recovered, it can be challenging to try new approaches. The Optimum Health Clinic takes a look at all various stages of recovery and can help you develop a personalised plan for sustainable health.

OHC Live Ep 011 - Sustainable recovery

October 17, 2018 16:01 - 11 minutes - 13.4 MB

Sustainable recovery is the ultimate goal for the patients of The Optimum Health Clinic. Alex discusses the problems with miracle recovery stories and treatments that offer an overnight recovery. He also discusses the problem with "positive thinking" as an unsustainable practice. Realistic goals and a long term sustained practice with good habits will build recovery and tools to use for a lifetime.

Episode 10 - Patience and tenacity on the recovery path

October 09, 2018 12:30 - 6 minutes - 7.82 MB

While filming patients for the latest Secrets to Recovery documentary, Alex is reminded of the perserverance and hope that patients and family members have on the journey to recovery. Watch the film at http://www.secretstorecovery.com/movie/

Episode 09 - The achiever pattern in recovery from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia

October 03, 2018 13:07 - 17 minutes - 20.5 MB

Identifying when we might be trying too hard to be the perfect patient will help us recognize the achiever pattern and how it might actually hinder our progress. Recovery from ME/CFS requires us to recognize when we're trying to push instead of stay in a healing state and wait until we have genuine energy to do more. Alex offers some tips on how to recognize the achiever patterns, how it can help and hinder, and what to do when the pattern hijacks our recovery.

Episode 08 - Community and ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia Recovery

September 20, 2018 15:37 - 22 minutes - 25.4 MB

With an isolating illness like ME, CFS or Fibromyalgia, it's important to find a way to stay connected to some sort of community. Alex gives some tips on how relationships may change and how to connect to new people on the recovery path.

Episode 07 - Bouncing the Boundaries

September 11, 2018 15:06 - 18 minutes - 21.4 MB

Alex discusses reaching a point in our recovery when energy is coming back and we're ready to do a little more activity. The process of finding our baseline without post-exertional-malaise (or delayed fatigue response) is called bouncing the boundaries. Bouncing the boundaries with movement and exercise may be most helpful in the later phases of stage 2 (tired and wired) and during stage 3 (reintegration).

Episode 06 - Why is psychology important in ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia?

September 04, 2018 13:53 - 32 minutes - 37.1 MB

Alex discusses The Optimum Health Clinic's approach to psychology and the philosophy behind the benefits of certain psychological aspects on the road to recovery from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia. Alex also addresses the controversial ideas around treating ME/CFS with psychology, discusses some specific methods and their limitations, and encourages a strong multi-approach individualised plan including functional medicine for each patient.

Episode 05 - Managing relationships when you have ME, CFS or Fibromyalgia

August 24, 2018 12:43 - 31 minutes - 36 MB

A diagnosis with ME, CFS or Fibromyalgia can be confusing to explain to friends and family when the invisible illness is so misunderstood in society. Alex talks about different ways you can help the people around you understand your illness and how they can help you manage and recover.

Episode 04 - Sleep and ME/CFS

August 15, 2018 15:33 - 22 minutes - 25.8 MB

A more restorative sleep is essential in recovery from ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia and in this session, Alex talks about sleep as a reflection of our mind state during the day - and how we can take steps during the day to make sure we have a better, more restorative sleep at night.

Healing from ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia

Episodes