I was a student of Mantak Chia’s work years ago. Back in my 20’s I was finally able, after a long time of serious practice, to master the “Big Draw”. It is a process for males and female where nearing the point of orgasm, you do a series of full body muscle contractions combined with breathing coordination and mental focus. The object is to reverse the direction of orgasmic energy. Normally it is focused out of the body through either the penis or vagina. This is a huge loss of energy for both sexes. The “Big Draw” trains the body to orgasm without loss of energy. Rather the orgasmic energy shoots backward and up the spine. It takes an incredible amount of time and focus to successfully execute, and it is a lot of work to actually do the technique as well. Not everyone who practices is lucky enough to attain the proper outcome.Are you able to orgasm without ejaculating? I believe ejaculation is depleting even for very healthy men but you can learn to separate the two.
Yes I have the same thoughts. POIS sufferers (without ME/CFS) basically have temporary ME/CFS (severity varies) after sexual activity. And since all symptoms disappears on its own after some time in POIS, maybe ME/CFS can resolve too, but something prevents it. I mean maybe there is no permanent damage in ME/CFS, and with certain help, ME can be cured. (Again maybe it’s overoptimistic but I wanna be hopeful)It might also be the case that an over-excitation of certain brain regions leads to a change in receptor homeostasis, like the one presumed by Cortene.
I get intense fatigue and brain fog, it's a distinct drugged feeling. Then this will tend to after that wave go in one of 2 directions I'll get extremely over stimulated with intense distortion of how I'm perceiving my body (it'll feel like i'm inhabiting my body weird, walking will feel strange, navigating the world around me is like navigating a maze), with extreme sensory over sensitivity, and out of control anxiety. The other direction will have me fly deeper into the fatigue and I'll get intense flu like feeling usually with a lot of nasal drip. I'll feel extremely cold too and ironically when the reaction swings in this direction the insomnia is far worse.
As this has worked for me and the girl in the original medium post I would say it is not impossible that this mental-caused fatigue is easier to trigger in people with CFS or that it is simply a part of the problem for a percentage of people.if this works for somebody, i wouldnt be sure if this is truly cfs.. might be something else
This isn't enough to prove that 0% of your fatigue is from a mental stimuli. I never expected to get a crash after sex and was devastated when it happened because of the implications.i have enough examples for my situation, where i was expecting a crash after doing a thing and i didnt and others where i crashed and didnt expect it
Understandable, though the second half of this is inaccurate. This is not explaining away the problem as psychological. It's more complex than that. It's a step-by-step process that connects the nociceptors > mind > body. This process happens to all of us every day, but in most people does not cause any problems.these psychosomatic models i do not like, they seam to try to explain away a problem which is physiological and not psychological.
if you break your leg you cannot imagine the broken bone away and suddenly play soccer
The puzzling part is that this will not work for everybody. For the people is does work for, I think this information deserves to get out there. Not to be buried under doubts and negativity, which is why I tried to respond to this comprehensively.
c) A thought occurs that, "Next time I do activity X I might be fatigued afterwards ..." or "I wonder if activity X will cause fatigue for me this time?" etc.
d) Heightened awareness around any fatigue that appears afterwards equalling heightened worry about doing this activity equalling a greater fatigue response from the body.
i am not saying this is wrong or does not work.As this has worked for me and the girl in the original medium post I would say it is not impossible that this mental-caused fatigue is easier to trigger in people with CFS or that it is simply a part of the problem for a percentage of people.
It's also hard (impossible?) to diagnose/differentiate between mental and exertion caused fatigue via a third party, since seemingly the only way to do this is to overcome the mental-caused fatigue and thus be able to say without a doubt that this was the cause.
This isn't enough to prove that 0% of your fatigue is from a mental stimuli. I never expected to get a crash after sex and was devastated when it happened because of the implications.
The process I detailed above has to be thoroughly applied and tested over the course of a few days (or possibly longer if you don't yet have adequate mindfulness). It's really not easy to be mindful of every fatigue-inducing thought as they come and only once you fully embrace the challenge of trying this can you know for sure through experience.
Understandable, though the second half of this is inaccurate. This is not explaining away the problem as psychological. It's more complex than that. It's a step-by-step process that connects the nociceptors > mind > body. This process happens to all of us every day, but in most people does not cause any problems.
I think the difficulty in approaching this comes from the hostile idea that we are somehow intent on being ill or so stupid that don't know what we're doing. It makes sense to be defensive about this because it's so untrue that it's painful. So I totally get you. Anyone suggesting that does not understand what we're going through. In fact, I don't even know what people are really suggesting if they think this is "all in our heads." Do they think that we are actually not experiencing anything (like a child throwing a tantrum to get an attention?). It doesn't make sense to me.
What was happening to me through this experience I can only describe as becoming conscious of an unconscious process. And through this increased awareness I was able to stop pulling the trigger unconsciously.
I don't think my experience supports this analogy. This was the cure to my symptom, without a doubt. So it's more like treating a broken leg with a cast and rest ...
The puzzling part is that this will not work for everybody. For the people is does work for, I think this information deserves to get out there. Not to be buried under doubts and negativity, which is why I tried to respond to this comprehensively.
The underlying problem remains for me at least. Like seemingly everything with ME/CFS, it's simply a puzzle piece in a grand puzzle. If I can reduce one symptom by practising this, I'll take it as win.
In the end, liking or disliking is irrelevant. It's about results. Try for yourself and give it a 100% honest effort. Only then will you be able to say how many of your symptoms can be explained/cured this way.
Right, this is interesting. I wonder whether the instantaneous nature of it is notable. Maybe other people can confirm eventually?You also mention instantaneous fatigue, which I just never had
According to this poll on PR, this is common in 25% of us. But I did not exclusively have instantaneous PEM before.If you have instantaneous fatigue, that sounds very different from PEM to me?
linusbert, to clarify, my experience does not mean that all ME symptoms are caused in this way since that only a portion of my own symptoms could be removed through the brain training. Others still exist for me. Especially exercise or socializing-related PEM.and i think there are plenty of tests right now which show problems.
like reduced atp levels in blood etc.
or doing a repeated bicycle test after 3 days , which will be worse in cfs than the first. probably not a test most of us should do.
i did not mean it in that way, maybe you heard different tunes in my words.Weird to be having to defend my illness on a forum that is supposed to be an oasis of acceptance,
i did not mean it in that way, maybe you heard different tunes in my words.
i am just saying that it might not be the typical cfs we expect because it does not fit the criteria if its not worsening after exercise. if you say you can with behavioural techniques overcome PEM , than its per criteria not cfs.
i also do not think that most people in this forum have the same disease because i believe this cfs is just a syndrome, a compilation of symptoms. but the origin of sickness might be different. for many it might be a viral trigger with sudden onset after disease, others got a disease slowly creeping into life like me.
i do not want this thought that cfs can be tackled with psychological techniques to manifest in medical community in general more as it already is, because this makes hell to a lot for us. even if CBT and graded exercise and brain realignment work for some, it should only be known as a potential thing to try, but in no way should be part of diagnosing and treating general cfs patients.
It does however mean that this may be a path worth pursuing for people interested who experience sex-related PEM.
In practice for me this looks like:
a) I worry that doing an activity (e.g. sex, yoga, whatever) will cause me fatigue.
b) The act of worrying about this causes fatigue.
The a) part of this is me trying to create meaning from a previous experience where I've already associated fatigue with the activity. The b) is a direct result of this meaning-forming process in my mind.
I know this can sound ludicrous or wacky, but don't knock it until you've put time into undoing these natural thought cycles. Mindfulness is extremely beneficial (perhaps necesssary) in noticing when these thoughts are appearing.
I also noticed that I had fallen into a way of thinking which was in itself amplifying the worry (and therefore the fatigue response from the brain).
c) A thought occurs that, "Next time I do activity X I might be fatigued afterwards ..." or "I wonder if activity X will cause fatigue for me this time?" etc.
d) Heightened awareness around any fatigue that appears afterwards equalling heightened worry about doing this activity equalling a greater fatigue response from the body.
So in conclusion to stop instantaneous fatigue from some activities I had to stop worrying that an activity was causing fatigue before or after the fact and tell myself some of the science points I mentioned in 1-5. E.g. that my fatigue system is misfiring because it's trying to protect me. The activity is not causing me fatigue, but it's my mental thoughts trying make sense of the activity and fatigue which is causing the fatigue.
everyone should know all possibilities and try all things they wanna try, but this idea that cfs has anything todo with psyche must go away in the medical community