WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks! It's Sally Rigg's here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and your Long COVID coach, and welcome to another Wellness Wednesday.

And I am super excited to be back after taking off the whole of August. I am reinvigorated and regenerated to make these videos for you and to work on Long COVID And polyvagal strategies. And I wanted to kick off the autumn today, with a bit of a controversial topic. I know that you know, I love to talk about controversial topics, something that is much talked about in the Long COVID community.

And I see people talk about it in the Facebook groups. I've even seen people making YouTube videos on it, and that is fear. And I am going to say the opposite of probably what you've heard everybody else say, it's got nothing to do with fear. Your Long COVID recovery has got nothing to do with fear. This is something that people asked me a lot when my polyvagal strategy course was going out.

Gosh, we went live end of July, and lots of people were signing up and asking me questions about it. A few people mentioned they tried some other brain retraining programs and struggled with the bit where they were told that they had to keep telling themselves that they were safe. And so I want to talk about that today because that is nonsense. If we are thinking about our nervous system and the vagus nerve, our autonomic nervous system is subconscious.

It is something that we can learn to notice and have an input over. But it happens automatically. And it happens automatically based on thousands of teeny tiny little cues that happen physiologically within our bodies, and then also externally within our environment. So things that we see, things that we hear, is things that we smell, etcetera, cue our nervous system for safety, or not for safety.

For example, if you are in the military, and you have been overseas, and you have seen some traumatic things, and you come home and you're in your local town, just going to the store, you know, cognitively that you are safe. You know that you are not in a war zone anymore. But your body does not know that. And this is evidence that cognitive strategies cannot override on nervous system. I have been told many times and since I've been on this journey, learning about polyvagal strategies, gosh, for about the last two years now.

I've taken a lot of courses and training. I've worked with coaches, and some of them were familiar and some of them were less familiar. And I remember one particular person telling me that I needed to put my hand on my heart and say I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. Now. I'm guessing you've probably heard that because it's a bit of a popular one going around. And it is a big old crock of nonsense. Yes, putting my hand on my heart might be a polyvagal strategy, depending on how I do it. And there's lots more info about that in our course.

But telling myself that I am safe, does not cue my nervous system for safety. There is not a cognitive override switch for our nervous system. So, Yes! Your vagus nerve is damaged. We talked about that a lot before I went on break and we now have the data and evidence that back that up even though we all knew it for a long time. Fixing that calming your nervous system down learning your nervous system, and helping your body to be working in sync with your nervous system is a really important part of the process. But part of that process is not you telling yourself that you are fine.

Just like that person in the military who is home in their safe Main Street telling themselves that they're fine doesn't make any difference either. And I say this because I think you and I've certainly been through this too. There is a lot in all of information out there about recovering from Long COVID. And we're at a point now where, despite what your physicians might tell you, we have a lot of information. There have been some remarkable conferences recently, and researchers are very upbeat and excited. And the feeling is very much we know a lot.

Now, we're very close to putting this all together, which is wonderful. But in the sort of information that's out there, there can be a sense of, I'm doing it wrong, and it's my fault. If I'm not telling myself that I'm safe, it's my fault. If I'm telling myself that I'm safe, and it's not working, it's my fault. It's not your fault. That's not how our nervous systems work. And there are plenty of people out there telling us otherwise. Some of those people are a little bit bullying, you need to do this. Well, maybe that might be the case. But what they're telling you is not the thing that you need to do. You need to queue your nervous system for safety, internally.

The other question that I have gotten a lot, which is sort of related to this, quite a few again, of the brain retraining programs, after that step of telling yourself that you're safe. Then bring in this thing called graded exposure, the idea that you very slowly go out there and expose yourself to the things that you're afraid of. And over time, that will reduce your fear. Well, it will reduce your fear, but it's not about fear. Graded exposure is CBT. And I know that because I was a CBT therapist for more than 20 years. Graded exposure is a very, very, very effective treatment for anxiety. But guess what? Your symptoms are not caused by anxiety.

We don't go out and do things because we get post-exertional malaise. And very quickly, we learn that that is awful, and we want to avoid it. And so sure, there's a little bit of anxiety about doing activities, because we don't want to get PEM. But guess what, you don't want to get PEM. So it's okay to have that anxiety. And the reason that we can't do the activities that sadly, we love and are desperate to do isn't because of anxiety. It's because our mitochondria are broken. And again, there have been lots of new papers that have been coming out recently, publishing research on this and confirming again, what we've all been talking about in terms of mitochondria, and the relationship between our broken mitochondria, Long COVID, the damage that's been done by the spike protein. And they're seeing some structural physiological changes, which are very important.

Alterations in muscle fiber, enzymes that are supposed to help us with that aerobic activity depleted small fiber neuropathy which draws blood away from the muscles and prevents oxygen from getting to the mitochondria in our muscles. As a result of that, when we try and do any physical activity, particularly sport, running, or any type of athletic activity, we are going to get post-exertional malaise and graded exposure is not going to fix that. Graded exposure is not going to fix the enzymes. Graded exposure is not going to fix the small fiber neuropathy. Graded exposure is not going to fix our mitochondria.

And guess what? The reason that all those things are broken is not because of fear. It's because of that goddamn spike protein that came in and messed with our bodies. If you are anxious about getting PEM, that is legitimate. PEM can lower our baseline and set us back months in our recovery. As you will know I'm on March 2020 acute infection and at the time I was training for a 50k, we didn't know this back then. I continued to train throughout most of 2020. And 2021, I barely got out of bed as a result. If you push on through and get PEM, that is dangerous. And so the rule that I go by now and I've been working with a course coach for a very long time, which is maybe something for another Video -

All of us who have ever done any kind of sport are used to pushing on through. And we're used to waking up and thinking, "Oh, I don't want to do my workout today. Let me just skip it." "No, don't be silly Push on through." Now we need to take the opposite approach, PEM is very, very dangerous. If for any reason, you're worried that this is not the day for you to do whatever activity, skip it.

And guess what, I've skipped workouts for almost four years now. And look what happened. I didn't die. The world didn't come to an end. I have gained a little bit of weight. And that's kind of sucky. But you know, it will change. And I'm at a point where I'm beginning to work out again pretty well. And that's going to be nice. But we have to change that attitude around. If we're worried about doing an activity, don't do it. Nothing bad will happen. This idea that, Oh, you're so anxious, and you have to go out there and get over it. Again. I don't know about you. But I don't want to go back to 2021. That was the worst time in my life. And if skipping a workout means that I don't get back there.

I am more than happy to skip a workout. And this brings us to another very topical topic right now, which is getting COVID again. If you are in the US, if you are in the UK, we're in the middle of huge, great big surges again, and the new variance is even more contagious. To the point where people are getting it, even if they're masked. And I have seen a lot of posts around, We need to stop worrying about getting COVID again. We need to just get on with our lives. And then when somebody does can COVID trust your body's natural ability to heal itself.

Relax, don't panic, it will be okay. I'm sorry, what now? How did that go the first time around for you? Did your body naturally heal itself? If you have Long COVID, and you're watching this, "No, it did not naturally heal itself." And what's different than the first time around? Have you changed your pathophysiology? Have you corrected all that nonsense that the spike protein did in your body? So, how is your body naturally going to heal itself now? Anybody with Long COVID is living breathing proof that the spike protein is an absolute nightmare. And we want to avoid it at all costs.

And if that means that you wear a mask and use a nasal spray and use mouthwash and don't eat inside and only hang out with people who have been tested and all of those things, that is not exacerbating your fear, that is protecting yourself from a very dangerous pathogen. I have avoided reinfection for three and a half years. And I am very keen to do so because I have seen hundreds of people who have Long COVID and have gotten reinfected. And they go back six months in their recovery. And it is not funny. And at this point, we know how to keep ourselves safe. And we have mechanisms to do that.

And again, that's maybe another video for me talking more about those. But if you are someone who is still taking care and still masking and still being cautious, that is not fearful. That is legitimate. And I don't know about you, but when I put on a mask and I go outside, I'm not telling my nervous system that I'm anxious. I'm telling my nervous system that I'm safe, and it loves it. I just went to Norway on a cruise for seven days. And I didn't get COVID and cruises are a hotbed of awfulness right now a petri dish of germs. And many, many, many people on that cruise did test positive. People had norovirus. People had other kinds of things. And I did not because I followed the precautions, and did what was helpful.

And I'm not saying that's a failsafe, but I was obviously to some extent lucky. But I had a wonderful trip. My nervous system enjoyed itself and I was not fearful. So some things for you to think about there. And if anybody has any questions, as always, please reply to this email. Pop your comments in the comment section, if you're watching this on YouTube. I know this is a bit of a contentious topic.

And I know that a lot of people are talking about how we have to throw off that fear and live our lives again. But I would come back to, "No, we have to cue our nervous systems for safety. And we have to take care of ourselves because we've been through a lot and that deserves compassion and thoughtfulness." I hope you have a tolerable week and I will see you again for another Wellness Wednesday.

Take care!