My friend Jan asked me today to define the M.E fatigue for her and I thought I'd share it and that way keep a record to refer back to for myself too. I also added a bit about why we have to be so careful with our everyday activites.
Fatigue.
You have full blown flu, and need to carry the equivalent of your own body weight in your arms through a huge lake of treacle wearing weighted boots.
Why we have to be careful how much we do.
We are like a computer with limited hard drive capacity. Everytime we run a program (an activity) we are using up memory. If we try to run another program at the same time our computer systems slow down, and more and more for each program we are running. If we run too many programs at once our computer crashes.
We need to pace our activities and bare in mind that each thing we do has to be run by your computer (your brain). Reading, watching tv, listening to music, shopping, talking to friends dressing etc...but also remember that your brain governs all your body systems too so allow some brain energy to digest food properly; to think straight and make decisions; to be able to relax and get a good nights sleep; for all your hormones to work; for your organs to repair themselves and work efficiently; simply to breath and have your heart beating without discomfort; and finaly to be able to find joy in your life. All these things take brain power...don’t rob your brain of the strength it needs to do these.
