We just had the Summer Olympics in Paris, which I saw a few parts of – mostly sports climbing and surfing.
I find myself fascinated by sports psychology even if I don’t have much interest in top-level sports. Why? I have an interest in psychology in general, so it’s natural for me to be interested in sports psychology too. There is also a more personal reason, which I sometimes joke about: I live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), so I have to live the life of a top athlete. I have to take care of myself and manage my health and energy as they do, and I am always looking for more pointers and insights.
Although how it looks in the world is very different, there are quite a few parallels between the life of an athlete and living with a disability like CFS.
Here are a few that come to mind, with some examples from my own life.
BODY
NUTRITION AND HYDRATION
We literally are what we eat so this is obviously important.
Food. I find I function much better if I eat fresh food low on the food chain (vegetables, fruits, some grains), and minimize certain foods (in my case, dairy, caffeine, sugar, refined foods, hyper-processed foods). If it’s local, organic, and in season, then even better.
Just enough. I eat until I am about 70 percent full most of the time. If I eat more, I feel heavy and sluggish. I seem to naturally eat slowly, which helps me notice when I am full enough.
Feedback. I notice the effects of different foods on my body and mind and choose the ones that feel good. These days, this is quinoa, most vegetables (I avoid onions), olive oil, feta cheese (the one cheese that seems to work well for me), and some fruits. I don’t eat many grains right now, apart from some beans in a chili now and then.
Hydration. I also function much better if I drink plenty of water, especially during the first half of the day. I drink a variety of herbal infusions and sometimes chai (without caffeine), hot water with roasted Maya Nut flour, or water with lemon. I often start the day with a glass of water with hydration salts. I taper off the water intake during the late afternoon and evening so I won’t need to get up in the middle of the night. I usually drink room temperature or warm drinks since it feels more nourishing to me.
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
Good energy management is another essential.
Pacing. When I engage in activities, I rest before, during, after, and extra.
I plan out the week and how much rest I’ll need for the – usually very few – activities scheduled. I allow some room for unexpected activities as well.
In my case, I find it helpful to also literally move slowly. I use slow movements in daily life – when I walk, shower, brush my teeth, make food, eat, and so on. It feels nourishing and helps me avoid crashes.
I like to schedule in plenty of time so I don’t need to rush.
Recovery and restitution. I schedule in rest after an activity. Often, I’ll do something for a few minutes and then rest for a while, until I notice I can do a few more minutes of activity. For instance, I always rest between daily activities like showering, making food, and so on. If I leave the house, I usually need to rest for what remains of the day and maybe the next one or two days.
Performance priming. I plan ahead so I have enough energy for a scheduled event. For instance, I know I have a meeting later today, so I rested extra for the last two or three days, and I made sure to get extra sleep and rest last night. I am also avoiding physical activities this morning, apart from the essentials like eating and showering. I also pay extra attention to eating foods that work well for me.
Varied activities. I vary the activities I engage in. Mainly, I vary activities that require mental versus physical energy. Sometimes, I have more mental energy and can do more mental tasks. Other times, I have more physical energy and can do simple physical tasks. Or I may need to rest from both.
BODY-MIND
Body awareness. I pay attention to the signals from the body. In addition to feeling extra fatigued, it can also be signs like a sense of vibration in my body, headaches, nausea, and so on. I have learned to take these seriously and rest when I notice I need to. Similarly, after some good rest, I may notice my body wanting to get up to do something, and if I don’t see a good reason not to, I’ll do it.
Good habits and routines. Habits deepen grooves so it’s easier to fall into them again. Even small changes in daily habits have a big effect over time.
I typically go to bed early, drink water with hydration salts first thing in the morning, eat low on the food chain, and so on. This summer, I have also often done qigong in the mornings, ideally outside in the morning sun. There is also a lot of room for improvement. For instance, I would like to set aside time for daily meditation again, and also more often go to sleep without listening to a podcast or audiobook.
Quality of rest. I am aware of the quality of my rest. I rest best horizontally in a quiet and tempered space.
Mindful of what takes energy. Activities that many consider restful actually require energy. For instance, watching a movie or listening to audio takes energy. If I want to semi-rest while watching or listening to something, it’s better if it doesn’t require a lot of cognitive or emotional processing. If I watch or listen to something that requires more processing, I do it when I have more energy and often only for five or ten minutes at a time.
MIND
Meditation. Different forms of meditation have been an important part of my life, now and in the past.
I used to do regular practice to train more stable attention, which helps in all areas of life, including in noticing and not so easily getting caught up in stressful thoughts.
I also notice my nature throughout the day. In one sense, I am this human self in the world. In a more fundamental sense, I am what this human self – and the wider world and anything within the content of experience – happens within and as. This gives a sense of coming home, and it helps this human self relate to it all with a bit more psychological distance and perspective. This noticing goes into the foreground or background at different times depending on where the attention is.
Mindful movement. Many athletes include mindful movement in their program. It helps them connect with their body and mind differently. I find mindful movement nourishing and transformative. For instance, qigong means to transform energy, and that’s how it feels. I may feel out of it in different ways – discomfort, sense of stagnation in my system, anxiety – and when I do qigong, I feel better, sometimes much better. It sets my system on a different course.
If I notice a tendency to rush in daily life, I take it as a cue to slow down. Rushing is uncomfortable and most of the time unnecessary. In my case, it can also lead to post-exertion malaise (PEM).
Resilience and coping strategies. How do we deal with challenges and setbacks? This involves perspectives, self-talk, and more.
If I find myself in a CFS crash, I know it’s easy to engage in fearful thoughts so I intentionally let them be and focus on something else. If I don’t feel very good one day, I remind myself that this is common and it changes, it’s a dip and rest helps. I give myself permission to not do anything useful that day apart from resting, which is the main priority anyway. It’s the most useful thing I can do.
If I notice fearful thoughts about the future, I remind myself that these are scary imaginations. They are not reality. I remind myself of what I have in my life – food, shelter, family, friends, and so on. I also look at the worst realistic scenarios, and it seems they are OK and I can find some peace with them.
If I am especially fatigued and brain foggy, I find it’s better to wait if I have decisions to make or need to do a task. When I feel a little better, I can do it more easily, faster, and better.
When I rest, I am doing my job. My job is to rest and give my body a chance to recover and build up some energy.
It’s also helpful to be aware of perfectionism. I don’t need to do any of this perfectly, all the time, or in all situations. It’s what I generally do that counts, that’s what has an impact over time. Also, small changes over time add up.
Finding my value. In our culture, we learn to tie our self-worth to our activities and identities in the world. That’s a problem whether you are an athlete or have a chronic illness, so it’s important to investigate this and find some clarity around it.
One side of this is that we all are far more than our activities, identities, and physical health. It’s one small part of the immeasurable richness of who and what we are.
There is also something more essential here. Can I find my value independent of my activities and identities? Do I have value just by being – just like a baby, or a cat, or a tree? Or maybe even existence itself? Is that my more real and fundamental value?
Clarifying priorities. I find it helps me to clarify my priorities. What’s most important to me in my life? If I am ninety-six and look back at my life, what would I have liked more of in my life? What’s less important?
If I know I will die tomorrow or in a year, how would I want to live my life today?
I also sometimes explore the more essential motivations I have. I notice I want something, and ask myself: what do I hope to get out of it? I keep repeating that question until I arrive at something simple and essential, which is also often universal. This also helps me see that there are usually many possible strategies to find that essence. (For instance, one need is to feel accepted and loved. I tried to find it through activities and identities, and I can now find it in a more essential way.)
Gratitude. This and the next one may not be common for athletes, but I find it helpful. I remind myself of all the things in my life it’s easy to find gratitude for – sun, wind, food, a cat sleeping next to me, friends, family, a roof over my head, and so on. We cannot take any of this for granted, and, amazingly, it’s here now.
I also explore the genuine gifts in what my personality doesn’t immediately like. My personality doesn’t like this chronic illness, and I can also find genuine gifts in it. It has helped me learn to rest. It has helped me find my value more independent of my activities and identities in the world. It has helped me identify, examine, and find more clarity around stressful thoughts. It has helped me be more aware of what’s important to me. It’s a relatively good container for self-exploration and exploration of life.
In periods, I explore the gifts in what my personality doesn’t like in a more structured way. For a set number of days, I engage in a regular all-inclusive gratitude practice with someone else. This helps open my mind to find the genuine value even in that which my personality may not immediately like.
Heart-centered practices. These help me find more peace with myself and the world. I especially like tonglen and ho’oponopno.
Goal setting. I sometimes set goals that seem helpful and feel deeply right. For instance, my goal for this spring and summer was to do qigong most mornings, with the help of a weekly course and the support from that community. This spring, my goal was to eat less sugar and I rarely eat sugar these days. I feel much better when I avoid it.
Reducing stress. I can reduce stress in several ways – by eating well, getting enough rest and sleep, asking for help, saying an honest no, nurturing nourishing relationships, being in nature, and so on. I can also reduce stress through the other points in this list, including examining stressful thoughts, grounded and kind self-talk, gratitude, heart-centered practices, and so on.
SOCIAL
Support system. It’s important to nourish a good support system, as much as we are able. Having friends and family that understand, and healthcare professionals who are knowledgeable about CFS, helps us in innumerable ways. They can offer emotional, practical, and informational support.
Communication of needs. I have had to learn to ask for help and see the gifts in it. I am also learning to say an honest yes and no, and that an honest “no” is a yes to myself. It’s also important to educate those around us about the characteristics of our illness. Fortunately, there are some good resources out there.
Guidance. I have found guidance from skilled coaches and professionals very helpful. Some have been in the field of functional medicine, others were in the mainstream medical profession although they specialized in CFS.
Peer support. When I went to the CFS retreat in Norway some years ago, one of the things that really helped me was being around people who understood how it is to live with CFS – from their own experience or through their professional practice. It made me feel seen and more normal, and I also got to see that certain symptoms I had thought had to do with me are common symptoms of CFS.
ECOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT
Supportive environment. It’s important to find a physical environment that’s conducive to what we wish to achieve. For me, what I want to achieve is rest and recovery, and that means a physically comfortable environment, quiet, and with some nature around.
A part of this is to reduce stressors – like extreme temperatures, noise, and so on.
Clean air/water/food. Again, we are what we eat so it’s important to eat clean food (organic), drink clean water, and breathe clean air.
Nourished by nature. We are nature, and we evolved in natural and rich ecosystems. It’s what feels right and enlivening to us at a primal level. I feel nourished by nature and seek out nature in daily life, whether it’s just noticing the wind, sun, rain, and so on, or it’s going out into a more natural environment.
NOTES
This is one of the topics that could easily be a book or a dissertation, and there are likely some out there already. I have just touched on a few examples here.
I notice the mind part of this is by far the longest, followed by the body. All four areas are equally important, although I do tend to focus on the mind and body since that’s what I am drawn to, and my social life is very limited due to the CFS. (I am far more engaged socially when I have more energy.)
I wrote this on August 13, just after the Summer Olympics in Paris, but didn’t publish it. I just remembered this article so am publishing it now, even if it could be better organized, weighted, and thought through.
INITIAL OUTLINE
- supporting the bodymind in functioning optimally: parallels between sports and living with a disability (CFS)
- body
- nutrition, hydration
- good diet, hydration, hydration salts,
- energy management
- avoid over-exertion
- recovery/restitution
- schedule in time for recovery and restitution
- pacing, adaption to physical limits
- optimizing before important event/actvitiy
- nutrition, hydration
- mind-body
- mindful movement
- meditation
- stable attention, mental focus/suppleness
- noticing one’s nature
- quality rest, release of tension
- good habits, routines
- mind
- resilience, coping strategies
- putting it in perspective
- finding one’s value independent of activities, production, winning/losing
- we are all much more than this
- we have value by our being
- conscious self-talk
- realistic, grounded, supportive, putting in perspective
- goal setting
- resilience, coping strategies
- social
- support system
- communication of needs
- guidance from coaches, professionals
- peer support
- ecology
- environment management -> supportive, nourishing, conducive to restitution/recovery
- reduce external stressors
- change of scenery, nourished by nature, clean air/water/food
- body