I have a particular interest in exercise but find the deconditioning aspect of GET unacceptable. Obviously less activity means deconditioning but it doesn't explain why I cant recondition ie adapt to exercise in the normal way.
I do however like to experiment with various rest/ activity levels and throw ideas around.
Leaving the flawed underlying theory of GET aside, one of its' first premises, practically speaking, is to get back down to a level of activity (that includes all physical activity including household chores etc) where we have no flare of symptoms and then to stabilize at that level. So this is an aspect of Jasons energy envelope by another name. But even that can be difficult as Valentjin says, life intervenes. I think this stage should be maintained, if possible, for months rather than a few weeks as GET suggests. It's an essential healing phase where we need to consolidate and allow our bodies to rebuild. Esther12, I think maybe this is the zero peanut phase.
Yes, in addition to getting down to a level of activity with no extreme PEM, the premise is also to have enough of a buffer zone at that level to be able to deal with the unexpected plus attempt the increased activity. Basically, I think you're not supposed to push GET so hard that you get sicker. I did when I first became ill and got much sicker long-term, but I had just seen the words "graded exercise therapy" without knowing much about it so I was exercising way too much. At 1-minute increments, hypothetically, if you stop increasing immediately when you hit an unacceptable level of PEM and go back down to the last okay level, one shouldn't make oneself sicker. But yes, personally, I think going with slower increments and taking more time to stabilize is safer than the examples in the manual being discussed in the other thread.
However, its almost impossible to reduce stressors to that degree (and I use 'stressors' in the broadest sense including infection, mould, traffic fumes/noise bla bla). So that's the first problem, we cant properly get back to the zero peanut level.
Or can we?
This depends on the severity of one's CFS and how much support one has for taking care of the necessities. One of the things I actually did was pretty much completely cut out my social life for a few years which when bedridden means phone and even IM/e-mail contact. I also stopped posting and even reading this forum and others for a long time. I guess it's a question of what activities one is willing and able to sacrifice.
For me intensive pacing (10 mins gentle activity and 10 mins rest) seems to have improved things a little (when I do it!) and maybe its a way of resetting the system every ten minutes. In other words returning to zero peanut level every 10 minutes.
This reminds me of Bruce Campbell's recovery story and his discussion of the energy envelope:
http://www.recoveryfromcfs.org/chapter7.htm
There is the added concept of "expanding the envelope".
Your 10 minute on, 10 minutes off idea reminded me of this on that page:
"The same student also taught me that how we rest can affect the amount of energy available to us. At the beginning of the course, she was resting six hours during the day, taking two naps of three hours each. She decided to break up her day into one- and two-hour blocks, taking a 10 to 15 minute rest during each block. Using this strategy, she reduced her total rest time by an hour and a half a day after two months. Four months later she was resting three hours a day, half as much as before the course. By taking frequent short rests, she added three hours of productive time to her day, without increasing her symptoms."
I read that a couple years ago, tried it, and it really helped.
I agree its obviously far more complicated than that, with a myriad of variables that are likely to be cutting us down. But in chatting things through we might spy an inkling of an answer.
I value the chance to talk about activity and exercise on a thread that avoids getting heated about GET. So thanks to charityfundraser for starting it. And just reading and writing about this peanuts analogy has inspired me to get back to that 'tough pacing'. Though now with a more developed understanding of what I'm trying to do, which hopefully will make it easier. Metaphors can be very powerful.