WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, welcome to Wellness Wednesday. I am Sally Riggs, psychologist, fellow long hauler and your Long COVID Coach. And today I wanted to talk to you about visualization.

Visualization is a very powerful technique in the Mind-Body repertoire. And it involves thinking about something very clearly and distinctly in our mind's eye in a way that evokes the emotion, the smell, the sensations. As if, we were there in the moment. And the reason why it's such a powerful Mind-Body technique is because our brains don't have a way of telling the difference between something that we're visualizing that has happened, something that we're seeing that is happening, and something that we're visualizing in the future that hasn't happened yet, and is hypothetical. And so when we visualize something in the future, our brains can't tell the difference between something that has happened, or something that will happen. And so the way that our bodies respond at a cellular level is the same as if it had already happened.

Now, this is a technique that is very commonly used in things like Cancer treatment. For example, people undergoing chemo may visualize little Pac-Mans coming along and eating the Cancer cells, or some other type of image that denotes wellness and recovery from their Cancer. And it's also used in other ways, and across Psychology really - but particularly relevant to Long COVID. Because we can also visualize what we want to be happening in our bodies at a cellular level, or the futures that we want for ourselves at a global level. So, to give you an example, you will know that I am an ultramarathon runner, and I am working with a CAWS coach to slowly rebuild back my strength and my ability to run without my heart rate going through the roof, and other MCAS or Dysautonomia symptoms being triggered. And also, of course, the most important, post-exertion malaise.

So I'm working towards being able to run again, but it's a slow process. And I was actually at a business retreat last week, where we were using visualization. And somebody who had also had some post COVID symptoms, had chest pain, shortness of breath, etc., and had run 5K not long ago. And I said to her, "Oh, gosh! How did you manage to run the 5K?" And she said, "I just visualized myself running the 5K". So we were using it for business purposes. And currently, I am continuing to do a 30-Day Program of Visualization, that it occurred to me that might also be really relevant to my Long COVID recovery journey.

And I have this photo of myself, that was taken at a race in 2018 July. For those of you who are New York based, it was at the Team Championships in Central Park. I run with a team called the Dashing Whippets, and the Team Championships is a pretty small race its only 5 miles. But it's a chance for all the teams to compete against each other in the New York area, and the men compete against the men and the women compete against the women. So you have a women's race and a men's race, and so everybody cheers each other on when they're not racing.

And I have a fabulous photo of me that is kind of standing with my hands on my hips after my race. And it is a glorious hot July day. That was so hot, I didn't need a jacket to wear to the race even though it started at 6:30 in the morning, and I'm standing afterwards still wearing my little race shorts and my little racing bra vest. And you can see my muscle definition, you can see my strength, you can see my power, and someone with very pale skin, but I have been training throughout the season, and so I have little golden honey color on my skin, which of course with post COVID and Long COVID, I have not had for a long time because our skin changes and is not happy with the sun anymore.

So I look very happy, very healthy, very strong, very fit. And I have started using that picture to visualize my body back in that state again. And I close my eyes, I can remember the exact spot that I was standing in Central Park - how I felt, how my skin felt, how my body felt. And I spend about 5 or 10 minutes really just going over that image in my mind. And I started doing this about a week ago, and of course, I'm not claiming any magic bullet or fantastical cure. But interestingly, I've lost a couple of pounds. And the last couple of weeks I have been traveling, so it's been hard to maintain the healthy diet that I usually follow. And there were definitely some things that I ate that I shouldn't have. And prior to that I had slowly been gaining weight. And this morning, when I got up to do my strength training, my stomach was not bloated. And in my workout gear, I looked semi normal for the first time in a while.

So definitely not making any claims for magic bullet, but incredibly powerful as a process. When we think about what's happening at a cellular level, in Long COVID and all of the things that are involved in our illness and in our recovery. That if we visualize specific things in a very clear way, evoking the emotion, invoking the other sensations, our bodies can't help but act as if that's already happening. And then at a cellular level, changes will happen as a result of the fact that the body is thinking that that's already happening.

Now one other thing that I want to stress, this does not mean that we pretend like we don't have Long COVID and we just go out and do the things that we want to do. And I know that many of the NLP type - Neuroplasticity Programs, Gupta, Lightning, I know there are lots more - all have an emphasis on overcoming the fear and beginning to do things in our lives anyway, without fear. And I definitely endorse that. But it's a very subtle, fine line process between pretending that we're fine and just going out and doing all the things and crashing and getting PEM. Versus trying to keep our bodies in a state where our nervous system is safe and calm and not fearful.

Obviously, one of the things that visualization also does is having an effect on our nervous system, and helps our bodies feel safe and calm and able to stay in that Rest and Digest state as much as it's needed. So I hope that this has given you some inspiration to try this week. I have another 21 days on my-no, I can't even count. 22 days I think, on my visualization challenge. And I'm sure because I'm really enjoying it that I'm going to be continuing much longer than that. And I'd like to maybe challenge you to pick one thing to visualize for a couple of minutes each day. And if you'd like to hit reply to this email and tell me what it is that you're visualizing. You'd be absolutely more than welcome.

I hope you have a tolerable week and I will see you soon on another Wellness Wednesday. Take care.