Surviving severe me

The Humorous World Of M.E

With Diane Shortland

REST AND RELAXATION…..

“… allow the feeling to grow and strengthen throughout your body, opening up to take this sensation deeper into you, and succumbing to the building and intensifying of this growing wave of pleasure…. Allow it to envelop your fully receptive being until you relinquish all resistance and surrender to the tingly and warm force within you that finally reaches a crescendo by dispersing into ripples of gratifying ease and delight!”….. am I watching porn? Reading a black lace novel? Or surveying the latest sex manual?…. No, I am engaged in a mere relaxation session that is all!

Ha, so I have you attention now then, do I? You thought this topic was going to be dreary hey? Thought you would skip all literature on resting since it takes up way too much of our ME ridden lives already to focus precious activity time on it, right? Well I could not agree more except before you go back to MTV and dismiss this as yet another bantering from those ‘alternative’ people. I would like to emphasize that I am one of you, not them! I never believed in all that spiritual hippy stuff either, but when the depths of despair are sinking in fast, and the prospect of yet another year of ME rolling around, I decided it was maybe worth investigating the effects of a minor deviation from my current “no way, not for me” thinking.

Now I would like to say I have made a miraculous transformation but that simply would not be true. You see, old habits die hard. I still inwardly smile to myself at the ‘cheese’ I am exposing myself to every time I enter the world of serious relaxation, but equally I see benefit in my perseverance. A lack in street cred maybe but rest and relaxation is swiftly becoming the new high impact sport, you know. Just as staying in is the new going out. Quite frankly us MEers are cutting edge darling! So, in the anticipation of becoming an ‘it’ girl I hurriedly spent hours ransacking my cupboards for that ‘funny rest and refresh tape’ someone bought me once that I, well how shall I put it… was not for me! I now listen to it regularly and wish my Aunt still worked at that ‘wacky’ job of hers because having family eligible for New World Music discounts suddenly seems so much more appealing!…

Back in pre ME civilization, my perception of “rest” was a little different to now. Feet up, watching a feel good chick flick, with an Archers and lemonade and a best friend to gossip to (or cry with, depending on the film) pretty much summed it up really. But then the lergy hit, and suddenly that very same leisure pursuit became a heavy duty activity with multiple stimulus overloading and eight years later, one I have still not fully achieved.

The notion of rest had taken on the meaning of losing several necessary hours a day completely zonked out on my bed feeling utterly rotten. While I knew this was what I had to do however, my mind and body frequently antagonized me by testing my resolve on a minute by minute basis. Even if I managed to keep my limbs from fidgeting in an Olympic feat of gymnastic restlessness, my brain quite literally had a mind of its own. It would, and still does given half the chance, race away in a trail of word associations, trivialities and of course totally amazing (well at least they seem it at the time) money making schemes. So, when my newly acquired Occupational Therapist asked me if I was getting proper neurological rest, I had to stifle a laugh. After a long pause I divulged that whilst ‘resting’, if someone text me then I would ‘generally’ text back!

So, in a bid to stop my ‘bad behavioural pattern’ as she called it (oh I feel like a naughty school child with ADCH now!) I was introduced to the wacky world of relaxation tapes, theory being that my inappropriate ‘monkey chattering’ would be banished from all existence (notice I said there “theory being”, in reality it still remains very close by, sitting in the wings like an unshakeable aura, during any peaceful moment ready to leap in with prize tip bits to distract me, such as “do you think clouds move faster these days?” or “if I plan now what I am going to watch when I finish this boredom called rest, I will not have to waste precious activity time deciding!”)

Now finding the right type of relaxation tape for you is no easy task as there are quite literally thousands to chose from (phew, I cannot be the only one who got sucked in then!) Firstly there are the purely musical non-verbal variety, and I quickly discovered that birds twittering drove me mad. Jungle noises gave me the willies and instantly reminded me that we are never more than a few feet away from a spider (eek, immediate panic and paralysis kicks in… well at least that stops the fidgeting bum syndrome though!) and thunderstorms (yes some people actually enjoy them - apparently!) made me want to hide under a table with my fingers in my ears.

As expected though, my love of the sea made the ocean sounds tapes very appealing and I even found an enjoyment in talking whale (no comment). So persevere, the right one is out there for you too. However this kind of music relaxation does involve a lot of resistance on your part and although provides the idyllic backdrop to rewarding rest, does in actual fact leave all the mind training down to you. Which of course is fine unless you suffer from an overactive brain that has a passion for churning out continuous streams of unimportant banter… come on down Little Miss Chatter Pants!

Guided relaxation tapes are strange things really, but they do have the added bonus of an in-house school teacher to bring you back from dream land with the swoop of a thrown chalk stick. With a constant voice in your ear relaying what your brain is ‘meant’ to be doing, it does have the effect of slightly more focus. Of course my money making grand planning has suffered as a result but since none of them ever actually materialized that is probably not necessarily a bad thing!

As with the musical variety, the guided tapes cover a diverse field of topics and techniques - not to mention voices. I often chose mine purely on the basis of how the man or woman sounds. You see for some reason I find it difficult to seriously relax to the voice of anyone who sounds like Macy Gary, Julian Clarey or Graham Norton. It just does not have that lie back and think of England vibe for me! Plus, with mystery voices come mystery appearances and my imagination loves to run wild visualizing the attractive features of transvestites, train spotters, Bett Lynch look-a-likes and the Waynetta’s of this world. So then I ask you, how can I possibly rest when my brain is insistent on imparting the immortal lines “I’m ‘aving a fag!” over and over again?

There are endless types of relaxation to, the most effective (but also what requires the most focus) for me was something called Autogenic mind and body training. Now pay attention guys because if you do this right and whole-heartedly it really is on a par with drug taking (am I allowed to say that? Oh I just have!) With progressively resting different parts of the body, the end result is this bizarre sensation of an out-of-body experience. You are not exactly looking down on yourself but the equally you are not exactly ‘in’ your body either and it gives a whole “ma’an, I’m tripping!” perception of infinity which… well, I really rather like actually. Sure, it involves a little more conscious effort than swallowing a ‘promised pill’ but it is possibly slightly more ME friendly.

Then there are the themed variety that involves visualization, and these really are great for breaking the monotony of yet another groundhog day. You can go anywhere you like and do anything you want… well that is as long as someone has made a tape of it of course. I am yet to find one of a night at the races, or meeting a cute guy in a pub! On the positive side though I have climbed a mountain with immense satisfaction and been swimming in a beautiful lagoon without even thinking twice about a, the fact I cannot swim, or b, whether someone will steal my clothes while I am in there!

Of course there are always those out there who feel the need to take things to a new level, and the world of relaxation is no exception. I am thus, referring to those guided tapes I have headed as “wacky”. It may just be me and my apparent lack of preparatory schooling, but no-one ever coached me for the provision of having to take a journey within myself to visit and mend my broken DNA double helix! I simply ask: why not? It was fun… in a “if it was the 19_’s would this disclosure warrant the discussion of a pre-frontal lobotomy?” kind of way!

Relaxation tapes can also merge with self help guidance, the extremes forms of which can imply that all illness is a manifestation of lack of mind/body equilibrium and not loving yourself enough. At which point if you are anything like me, you will immediately jump on your pre-conditioned “ME is a physical illness” soap box response, consider yourself hugely discriminated against and insist on nothing less than an official apology printed in the Daily Telegraph and appearing on the 6 o’clock news!

However, taken as a vague concept and interpreted liberally, such reasoning can give you a small sense of control to change. My contribution to this line of thought was positive affirmations, “repeat your hosen pronouncement daily until you reap the benefits of such change” it suggested, so I began with the obvious ‘I have good health and I feel well’ statement and threw in a little “a premium bond winning envelope shall land on my doorstep” proposal too. I remain optimistic on both counts but after no immediate transformation I have taken it upon myself to increase the daily number of utterances just in case my wishes need to be heard more frequently before action is taken.

So, in conclusion, good luck in finding the inner you through deep rest and relaxation. But just in case you discover yourself to be a victim of the in-abating monkey chatters, here is a little exercise I found amongst my listening. If there is something on your mind or you are suffering from a great unanswered question in your life, during rest is apparently an excellent time to confront your unconscious regarding this. Then whilst pondering if you imagine (and here is where it gets really wacky) a plane flying in the sky, it’s tail smoke will spell out the answer and guide you to your destiny. I would be intrigued to see how you find this because interestingly whatever I pontificate over, it always spells out strawberry cheesecake ice-cream. My favourite. Now that cannot be mere coincidence!!