What is Chronic Illness?

Disabling fatigue. Inflammation. Digestive problems. Insomnia. Nervous system disruption.

This Isn’t “Normal Sickness”

Normally, being sick is a healthy adaptive response to facilitate recovery from injury or infection — which includes conserving energy to fight pathogens. Energy is conserved to focus on immune function.

This Is Chronic

Chronic illness is when the system lacks the energy to recover from one — or multiple — ailments.

Energy in the body is deeply and continually depleted. The lack of system energy allows disease to spread.

Explore the 5 Paths section

Energy

Healthy Buildings

Microbiome

Calm

DETOXIFY

Expectations

(free) Articles

“[Normal] sickness is a beneficial behavioral response that serves to enhance recovery, conserves energy and plays a role in the resolution of inflammation. 

“[By contrast], ME/CFS is a chronic disease underpinned by a state of energy depletion.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751187/
1

How Does Chronic Illness Begin?

Chronic illness usually begins with one or more health challenges, including:

  • Infection
  • Trauma
  • Environmental toxicity
  • Stress

Usually, it’s not one events — rather, multiple events — that trigger chronic illness.

Examples of challenges that lead to chronic illness:
  • Severe family or relationship stress
  • A prolonged illness
  • Moldy homes or buildings
  • Work or school stress

One Challenge Becomes Multiple

These causes stack up as a cascade of events.

The combination of:

A) Stress/trauma and B) Poor environmental health

…often leads to:

C) Immune system suppression and D) Weakened/infected bodily microbiomes.

This accumulation of multiple harmful factors is nearly ubiquitous in chronic illness. The body can handle acute stress and challenges, but it struggles greatly with chronic, compounding issues.

Thus, an initial health challenge can branch into multiple problems over time — and become much more difficult to diagnose and overcome.

As challenges add up, symptoms of chronic illness begin to emerge:

  • hypothyroidism
  • environmental sensitivities
  • insomnia
  • digestive challenges
  • brain fog
  • fatigue

The mysterious, system-wide nature of these symptoms makes it difficult to scout a recovery path — with or without the help of medical professionals.

The Beginnings of Illness?

Our health in adulthood often reflects our health in earlier years.

A newborn baby’s first months of life are critical for developing the immune system.

Humans have virtually zero gut microbiome at birth and thus depend on the mother’s milk (colostrum & breast milk) for days and months to provide potent immunoprotection and seed a healthy gut microbiome.

Babies are especially susceptible to infection and must, therefore, be protected from excessive exposure to pathogens. Children, too, are growing their immune system and are prone to illness.

Newborns inherit the genes of both parents, the gut microbiome of the mother, and within days, even the microbiomes of the hospital and the home around them. Thus, a mother’s immune system and building health in the first years of life directly affect the health of offspring.

Chronic health problems in adulthood are more likely when developmental years include traumatic experiences.

2

What Does Chronic Illness Look Like?

Gut Dysbiosis | Hypothyroidism | ME/CFS | MCS |CIRS

Some folks with chronic illness are able to perform adequately at work and home.

Others are unable to function at a high level — forced to rest for extended periods at home.

A staple of chronic illness is that the inflammatory state persists almost indefinitely.

These persistent, high levels of inflammation cause debilitating fatigue, but also prevent the body from being able to build the energy required to heal and recover.

Inflammation doesn’t occur in the body without a cause, and it’s almost always linked to an immune response — a response to the presence of pathogenic activity.

(ME/CFS)

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Hypothyroidism

(MCS)

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

(CIRS)

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome

Gut Dysbiosis

Chronic Illness Research is in its Infancy

The further these various illnesses are studied, the more overlap becomes evident between the various diseases — in both symptoms and their causes.

Each of these illnesses is linked to:
  • Toxicity
  • Pathogenic activity
  • Poor gut health
  • Poor sleep
  • Brain fog
  • Fatigue
  • Inflammation
  • Metabolic/thyroid issues

Keep in mind: The liver and kidneys are almost always affected by poor gut health — and by the resultant ongoing inflammation, toxicity, and poor nutrient absorption.

When severe enough, chronic illnesses can nearly or fully impair one’s ability to function in the world.

3

Overlapping Symptoms

Between all conditions

Let’s look at the striking similarities between most of these chronic illnesses.

  • Fatigue
  • Gut health problems
  • Digestive challenges
  • Thyroid & metabolism issues
  • Low body temperature
  • Insomnia & non-restorative sleep
  • Weak muscles
  • Nervous system excitation, restless limbs, can’t relax
  • Cardiovascular system issues
  • Weight problems
  • Brain fog & cognitive issues
  • Difficulty breathing deeply
  • Pin-prick sensations (neuropathy)
  • Stiffness in joints & muscles
  • Stiff neck
  • Anxiety 
  • Allergies
  • Auto-immune disease
  • Emotional instability
  • Learning/memory difficulties
  • Chemical sensitivities
  • EMF sensitivities
  • Mold sensitivities
  • Difficulty mounting a fever
  • Chronic ear, nose, and throat irritation/infection
  • …and more.

These symptoms can range from mild to severe — and vary in severity from day to day.

4

Organs

Are often affected

The major organs are certainly stressed by ongoing inflammation, toxicity, and nutrient depletion during chronic illness.

  • The gut
  • The thyroid
  • The liver
  • The kidneys
  • The brain
  • The skin

To recover from chronic illness, it can be important to take steps to address challenges to various organs — especially the gut and thyroid.

Stress

& The Gut

Mycotoxins

& The Thyroid

Mold

& The Brain

Mold Toxins

& The Gut

Mycotoxins

& The Liver

Environmental Toxins

& The Kidneys


In chronic illness, multiple major organs are usually overburdened.

5

Nutrient Deficiency

Nutritional deficiency is virtually universal in chronic illness.

It appears that most sufferers chronic illnesses are somewhat deficient in nearly every nutrient.

Low Food Quality
Low Food Quality

Low-quality food results in low nutrient supply.

Imbalanced, restrictive diets fail to supply adequate nutrition, as well.

Poor Soil Quality
Poor Soil Quality

…results in poor nutrient content in all foods.

Poor Gut Health
Poor Gut Health

…results in poor nutrient uptake (by the body), as well as endotoxicity.

Staying Indoors
Staying Indoors

…results in Vitamin D deficiency and harms digestive function.

Lack of sunlight also directly harms the gut microbiome, independant of Vitamin D status.

Spending time indoors may also expose you to harmful mold and bad air quality.

Bodily Toxicity

High toxicity — from environmental exposure or endotoxin in poor gut health — leads to an increased usage of nutrients.

This is a dastardly component of chronic illness, made much worse because an inflamed gut is not able to absorb nutrients adequately to keep up with excessive nutritional demands. It’s clear how chronic illness becomes a disease of energy depletion.

Getting small, manageable doses of broad-spectrum nutrients is critical in chronic illness. So is taking powerful steps to restore gut function so nutrients can be properly absorbed again.

Read more.

6

Hypersensitivity to Environmental Toxins

Toxic VOC’s

VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) are reactive chemicals found throughout nature and in industrial, home, and beauty products.

Sources of VOC’s:
  • Industrial Cleaning Chemicals
  • Mold
  • Flame Retardants
  • Synthetic Fragrances

These compounds are inhaled and absorbed into the body.  These toxins can overburden the liver, and become stored in bodily tissues.  

Burning fat can become a risky process: When fat stores are burned, their contents (toxins) spill into the bloodstream.

When toxins begin to overwhelm the body’s detoxification abilities, toxins become sequestered in fat cells.

Elevated Detoxification Requires Extra Nutrients

Accelerated levels of detoxification can rapidly deplete the body’s nutrients.  

Minerals and B-vitamins are especially used up in heavy detoxification.

As gut health begins to suffer, the endogenous production of B-vitamins by microbes will wane — and nutrients in food will be poorly absorbed.

“You Don’t Need to Worry about Detox Because You Have a Liver”

While it’s true that many “detox protocols” are more marketing than science, the popular notion that “you don’t need to worry about toxins because you have a liver” is hardly an informed one.

In chronic illness, compromised gut health leads to copious endotoxin — which is readily absorbed into the body via a “leaky gut.”

Chronic inflammation is a staple of ongoing illness, and directly impairs liver function.

All of this leaves the sufferer less able to cope with excessive environmental toxic exposure, even as levels of toxins in the indoor and outdoor environments rise each year.

Wasting nutrients + poor nutrient absorption
= Chronic deficiencies
7

Gut Health Worsens

Chronic toxicity — with elevated detoxification requirements — causes the gut flora to become less and less healthy.  

Instead of good microbes digesting food and releasing nutrients, bad microbes digest food and release what’s known as endotoxin into the bloodstream.

This only increases the body’s toxic load.

Endotoxins vs Exotoxins

  • OUTSIDE THE BODY (Exo-) — Toxicity that originates in the environment are known as exogenous toxins.
  • INSIDE THE BODY (Endo-) — Toxicity that comes from microbes inside the body is known as endotoxin. Endotoxin is produced when food is maldigested.

Toxicity that comes from inside the body is known as endotoxin.

Endotoxin is produced when bad microbes in the gut ferment your food.

8

Inflammation Rises — Chronically

Inflammation is higher in chronic illness.

Inflammation especially rises after eating — due to endotoxin — as well as after exposure to environmental irritants.   The body’s immune response kicks in — and stays on 24/7.

High inflammation & toxicity tend to cause blood sugar to plummet.  Unstable blood sugar destroys sleep.  

Inflammation keeps blood glucose and nutrients from entering cells — so the body is perpetually starved for energy and nutrition.

Each passing day with worsening sleep leaves one further and further from healing and recovery.

“Independent of the cause and location, inflammation – even when minimal – has clear effects on gastrointestinal morphology and function. These result in altered digestion, absorption and barrier function.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835780/
9

Your Brain Stops Working

Brain fog and poor memory are staples of chronic illness.

There are several reasons for this: Inflammation destabilizes blood sugar and impairs cognition. Inconsistent sleep results in long-term mood instability.

Irritability is common when chronically ill. Frustration about feeling poorly, and feeling stuck is the norm.

The trauma of feeling awful, undergoing medical procedures, feeling helpless and the reality that friends and family don’t understand or believe how severe the illness is — all this adds up to powerful storms of emotions that may go unresolved for years, if ever.

Perhaps the biggest factor is this: Brain function will suffer until consistent sleep is restored.

READ MORE: Battling Deep Insomnia

Extended periods of nonrestorative nights and poor gut health leave the brain unable to calm down.  The effects of a single night of poor sleep pale when compared to dozens and dozens — or hundreds — in a row.

Nutrient and caloric deficiency from poor digestion also lead to chronically elevated stress hormones.

What happens after months (or years) of elevated stress hormones, falling blood sugar, poor sleep, and nutrient deficiency?

Your brain on chronic illness feels fried.

10

Sleep Disappears

One of the major signs of chronic illness is the collapse of restorative sleep.

Quality sleep depends on hormone production, stable blood sugar, and low inflammation.

Gut health directly impacts sleep, too, by controlling all the aforementioned variables, as well as removing toxins and supplying the nutrients.

“Non-restorative sleep despite sufficient or extended total sleep time is one of the major clinical diagnostic criteria [of CFS/ME].”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501671/

Each night of poor sleep is another day the body can’t make progress.

When sleep begins to improve, it can take weeks or, sometimes, months of solid sleep to recover from long-term disrupted sleep cycles.

Each night of poor sleep is another day the body can’t make progress. To recover, the circadian rhythm must be a primary focus.

11

Sometimes, Debilitation

If symptoms progress, a chronic illness sufferer may not be able to eat, sleep, exercise, concentrate, socialize, or even find enjoyment in life-long favorite activities.  

Even the smallest tasks can become daunting, difficult and exhausting.

Onlookers might suspect depression, or that it’s “all in the head.”

Social Isolation

Negative interactions from others can increase stress, feelings of rejection, isolation, and helplessness.

These experiences can even become a new source of trauma for the chronically ill.

They often see few solutions and dwindling support among skeptical friends and family.

Relying on Social Media

Many turn to social media health groups, looking for advice from others with similar experiences — and find new, more-supportive communities there.

Unfortunately, many social media groups focus on only a few problems and narrow solutions.

Bouncing around from group to group, looking for “the fix” is very much the norm. Wild careening from one approach to the next is many folks’ experience.

This is logical — health seems complicated, and putting all the pieces together can be a challenge. Narrow paradigms do not put all the pieces together.

Without the confidence that meals will digest, or that sleep will come at night, tomorrow probably won’t be much better — unless we get to the bottom of things and take action.

12

The 5 Paths to Recovery

Maybe there is an easy fix.

Maybe there’s one pill, or natural compound, or drug — or even a single diet — that fixes everything in the body and mind.

On the other hand, what evidence is showing is that recovery of our health usually requires a larger shift in the way we live. A way that nourishes each aspect of our biology and mind, while limiting legitimate threats.

Perhaps we need to build ourselves up, restore the metabolism and gut health, reduce toxic load and exposure, boost our immunity, and find our peace.

Maybe it all — everything — matters.

You might need the help of doctors and specialists. You might not. In either situation, finding what you can do yourself is the key to maximizing recovery.

I recovered from chronic illness after nearly a decade where I was a shell of my true self.

The 5 Paths — as a way of thinking — allowed me to heal, fully recovered.

You can, too.

This completes ‘Intro to Illness.’
To continue, select ‘High Energy.’

Energy

Healthy Buildings

Microbiome

Calm

DETOXIFY

Expectations

(free) Articles

the TESTIMONIALS

Related Articles

What is Chronic Illness?

Disabling fatigue. Inflammation. Digestive problems. Insomnia. Nervous system disruption.

This Isn’t “Normal Sickness”

Normally, being sick is a healthy adaptive response to facilitate recovery from injury or infection — which includes conserving energy to fight pathogens. Energy is conserved to focus on immune function.

This Is Chronic

Chronic illness is when the system lacks the energy to recover from one — or multiple — ailments.

Energy in the body is deeply and continually depleted. The lack of system energy allows disease to spread.

Explore the 5 Paths section

Energy

Healthy Buildings

Microbiome

Calm

DETOXIFY

Expectations

(free) Articles

“[Normal] sickness is a beneficial behavioral response that serves to enhance recovery, conserves energy and plays a role in the resolution of inflammation. 

“[By contrast], ME/CFS is a chronic disease underpinned by a state of energy depletion.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751187/
1

How Does Chronic Illness Begin?

Chronic illness usually begins with one or more health challenges, including:

  • Infection
  • Trauma
  • Environmental toxicity
  • Stress

Usually, it’s not one events — rather, multiple events — that trigger chronic illness.

Examples of challenges that lead to chronic illness:
  • Severe family or relationship stress
  • A prolonged illness
  • Moldy homes or buildings
  • Work or school stress

One Challenge Becomes Multiple

These causes stack up as a cascade of events.

The combination of:

A) Stress/trauma and B) Poor environmental health

…often leads to:

C) Immune system suppression and D) Weakened/infected bodily microbiomes.

This accumulation of multiple harmful factors is nearly ubiquitous in chronic illness. The body can handle acute stress and challenges, but it struggles greatly with chronic, compounding issues.

Thus, an initial health challenge can branch into multiple problems over time — and become much more difficult to diagnose and overcome.

As challenges add up, symptoms of chronic illness begin to emerge:

  • hypothyroidism
  • environmental sensitivities
  • insomnia
  • digestive challenges
  • brain fog
  • fatigue

The mysterious, system-wide nature of these symptoms makes it difficult to scout a recovery path — with or without the help of medical professionals.

The Beginnings of Illness?

Our health in adulthood often reflects our health in earlier years.

A newborn baby’s first months of life are critical for developing the immune system.

Humans have virtually zero gut microbiome at birth and thus depend on the mother’s milk (colostrum & breast milk) for days and months to provide potent immunoprotection and seed a healthy gut microbiome.

Babies are especially susceptible to infection and must, therefore, be protected from excessive exposure to pathogens. Children, too, are growing their immune system and are prone to illness.

Newborns inherit the genes of both parents, the gut microbiome of the mother, and within days, even the microbiomes of the hospital and the home around them. Thus, a mother’s immune system and building health in the first years of life directly affect the health of offspring.

Chronic health problems in adulthood are more likely when developmental years include traumatic experiences.

2

What Does Chronic Illness Look Like?

Gut Dysbiosis | Hypothyroidism | ME/CFS | MCS |CIRS

Some folks with chronic illness are able to perform adequately at work and home.

Others are unable to function at a high level — forced to rest for extended periods at home.

A staple of chronic illness is that the inflammatory state persists almost indefinitely.

These persistent, high levels of inflammation cause debilitating fatigue, but also prevent the body from being able to build the energy required to heal and recover.

Inflammation doesn’t occur in the body without a cause, and it’s almost always linked to an immune response — a response to the presence of pathogenic activity.

(ME/CFS)

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Hypothyroidism

(MCS)

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

(CIRS)

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome

Gut Dysbiosis

Chronic Illness Research is in its Infancy

The further these various illnesses are studied, the more overlap becomes evident between the various diseases — in both symptoms and their causes.

Each of these illnesses is linked to:
  • Toxicity
  • Pathogenic activity
  • Poor gut health
  • Poor sleep
  • Brain fog
  • Fatigue
  • Inflammation
  • Metabolic/thyroid issues

Keep in mind: The liver and kidneys are almost always affected by poor gut health — and by the resultant ongoing inflammation, toxicity, and poor nutrient absorption.

When severe enough, chronic illnesses can nearly or fully impair one’s ability to function in the world.

3

Overlapping Symptoms

Between all conditions

Let’s look at the striking similarities between most of these chronic illnesses.

  • Fatigue
  • Gut health problems
  • Digestive challenges
  • Thyroid & metabolism issues
  • Low body temperature
  • Insomnia & non-restorative sleep
  • Weak muscles
  • Nervous system excitation, restless limbs, can’t relax
  • Cardiovascular system issues
  • Weight problems
  • Brain fog & cognitive issues
  • Difficulty breathing deeply
  • Pin-prick sensations (neuropathy)
  • Stiffness in joints & muscles
  • Stiff neck
  • Anxiety 
  • Allergies
  • Auto-immune disease
  • Emotional instability
  • Learning/memory difficulties
  • Chemical sensitivities
  • EMF sensitivities
  • Mold sensitivities
  • Difficulty mounting a fever
  • Chronic ear, nose, and throat irritation/infection
  • …and more.

These symptoms can range from mild to severe — and vary in severity from day to day.

4

Organs

Are often affected

Chronic illness can impair any biological function, but the major organs are certainly stressed by ongoing inflammation, toxicity, and nutrient depletion.

  • The gut
  • The thyroid
  • The liver
  • The kidneys
  • The brain
  • The skin

To recover from chronic illness, it can be important to take steps to address challenges to various organs — especially the gut and thyroid.

Stress

& The Gut

Mycotoxins

& The Thyroid

Mold

& The Brain

Mold Toxins

& The Gut

Mycotoxins

& The Liver

Environmental Toxins

& The Kidneys


In chronic illness, multiple major organs are usually suffering.

5

Nutrient Deficiency

Nutritional deficiency is common in chronic illness.

It appears that most sufferers chronic illnesses are somewhat deficient in nearly every nutrient.

Low Food Quality
Low Food Quality

Low-quality food results in low nutrient supply.

Imbalanced, restrictive diets fail to supply adequate nutrition, as well.

Poor Soil Quality
Poor Soil Quality

…results in poor nutrient content in all foods.

Poor Gut Health
Poor Gut Health

…results in poor nutrient uptake (by the body), as well as endotoxicity.

Staying Indoors
Staying Indoors

…results in Vitamin D deficiency and harms digestive function.

Lack of sunlight also directly harms the gut microbiome, independant of Vitamin D status.

Spending time indoors may also expose you to harmful mold and bad air quality.

Bodily Toxicity

High toxicity — from environmental exposure or endotoxin in poor gut health — leads to an increased usage of nutrients.

This is a dastardly component of chronic illness, made much worse because an inflamed gut is not able to absorb nutrients adequately to keep up with excessive nutritional demands. It’s clear how chronic illness becomes a disease of energy depletion.

Getting small, manageable doses of broad-spectrum nutrients is critical in chronic illness. So is taking powerful steps to restore gut function so nutrients can be properly absorbed again.

Read more.

6

Hypersensitivity to Environmental Toxins

Toxic VOC’s

VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) are reactive chemicals found throughout nature and in industrial, home, and beauty products.

Sources of VOC’s:
  • Industrial Cleaning Chemicals
  • Mold
  • Flame Retardants
  • Synthetic Fragrances

These compounds are inhaled and absorbed into the body.  These toxins can overburden the liver, and become stored in bodily tissues.  

Burning fat can become a risky process: When fat stores are burned, their contents (toxins) spill into the bloodstream.

When toxins begin to overwhelm the body’s detoxification abilities, toxins become sequestered in fat cells.

Elevated Detoxification Requires Extra Nutrients

Accelerated levels of detoxification can rapidly deplete the body’s nutrients.  

Minerals and B-vitamins are especially used up in heavy detoxification.

As gut health begins to suffer, the endogenous production of B-vitamins by microbes will wane — and nutrients in food will be poorly absorbed.

“You Don’t Need to Worry about Detox Because You Have a Liver”

While it’s true that many “detox protocols” are more marketing than science, the popular notion that “you don’t need to worry about toxins because you have a liver” is hardly an informed one.

In chronic illness, compromised gut health leads to copious endotoxin — which is readily absorbed into the body via a “leaky gut.”

Chronic inflammation is a staple of ongoing illness, and directly impairs liver function.

All of this leaves the sufferer less able to cope with excessive environmental toxic exposure, even as levels of toxins in the indoor and outdoor environments rise each year.

Wasting nutrients + poor nutrient absorption
= Chronic deficiencies
7

Gut Health Worsens

Chronic toxicity — with elevated detoxification requirements — causes the gut flora to become less and less healthy.  

Instead of good microbes digesting food and releasing nutrients, bad microbes digest food and release what’s known as endotoxin into the bloodstream.

This only increases the body’s toxic load.

Endotoxins vs Exotoxins

  • OUTSIDE THE BODY (Exo-) — Toxicity that originates in the environment are known as exogenous toxins.
  • INSIDE THE BODY (Endo-) — Toxicity that comes from microbes inside the body is known as endotoxin. Endotoxin is produced when food is maldigested.

Toxicity that comes from inside the body is known as endotoxin.

Endotoxin is produced when bad microbes in the gut ferment your food.

8

Inflammation Rises — Chronically

Inflammation is higher in chronic illness.

Inflammation especially rises after eating — due to endotoxin — as well as after exposure to environmental irritants.   The body’s immune response kicks in — and stays on 24/7.

High inflammation & toxicity tend to cause blood sugar to plummet.  Unstable blood sugar destroys sleep.  

Inflammation keeps blood glucose and nutrients from entering cells — so the body is perpetually starved for energy and nutrition.

Each passing day with worsening sleep leaves one further and further from healing and recovery.

“Independent of the cause and location, inflammation – even when minimal – has clear effects on gastrointestinal morphology and function. These result in altered digestion, absorption and barrier function.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835780/
9

Your Brain Stops Working

Brain fog and poor memory are staples of chronic illness.

There are several reasons for this: Inflammation destabilizes blood sugar and impairs cognition. Inconsistent sleep results in long-term mood instability.

Irritability is common when chronically ill. Frustration about feeling poorly, and feeling stuck is the norm.

The trauma of feeling awful, undergoing medical procedures, feeling helpless and the reality that friends and family don’t understand or believe how severe the illness is — all this adds up to powerful storms of emotions that may go unresolved for years, if ever.

Perhaps the biggest factor is this: Brain function will suffer until consistent sleep is restored.

READ MORE: Battling Deep Insomnia

Extended periods of nonrestorative nights and poor gut health leave the brain unable to calm down.  The effects of a single night of poor sleep pale when compared to dozens and dozens — or hundreds — in a row.

Nutrient and caloric deficiency from poor digestion also lead to chronically elevated stress hormones.

What happens after months (or years) of elevated stress hormones, falling blood sugar, poor sleep, and nutrient deficiency?

Your brain on chronic illness feels fried.

10

Sleep Disappears

One of the major signs of chronic illness is the collapse of restorative sleep.

Quality sleep depends on hormone production, stable blood sugar, and low inflammation.

Gut health directly impacts sleep, too, by controlling all the aforementioned variables, as well as removing toxins and supplying the nutrients.

“Non-restorative sleep despite sufficient or extended total sleep time is one of the major clinical diagnostic criteria [of CFS/ME].”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501671/

Each night of poor sleep is another day the body can’t make progress.

When sleep begins to improve, it can take weeks or, sometimes, months of solid sleep to recover from long-term disrupted sleep cycles.

Each night of poor sleep is another day the body can’t make progress. To recover, the circadian rhythm must be a primary focus.

11

Sometimes, Debilitation

If symptoms progress, a chronic illness sufferer may not be able to eat, sleep, exercise, concentrate, socialize, or even find enjoyment in life-long favorite activities.  

Even the smallest tasks can become daunting, difficult and exhausting.

Onlookers might suspect depression, or that it’s “all in the head.”

Social Isolation

Negative interactions from others can increase stress, feelings of rejection, isolation, and helplessness.

These experiences can even become a new source of trauma for the chronically ill.

They often see few solutions and dwindling support among skeptical friends and family.

Relying on Social Media

Many turn to social media health groups, looking for advice from others with similar experiences — and find new, more-supportive communities there.

Unfortunately, many social media groups focus on only a few problems and narrow solutions.

Bouncing around from group to group, looking for “the fix” is very much the norm. Wild careening from one approach to the next is many folks’ experience.

This is logical — health seems complicated, and putting all the pieces together can be a challenge. Narrow paradigms do not put all the pieces together.

Without the confidence that meals will digest, or that sleep will come at night, tomorrow probably won’t be much better — unless we get to the bottom of things and take action.

12

The Big Picture

Maybe there is an easy fix.

Maybe there’s one pill, or natural compound, or drug — or even a single diet — that fixes everything in the body and mind.

On the other hand, what evidence is showing is that recovery of our health usually requires a larger shift in the way we live. A way that nourishes each aspect of our biology and mind, while limiting legitimate threats.

Perhaps we need to build ourselves up, restore the metabolism and gut health, reduce toxic load and exposure, boost our immunity, and find our peace.

Maybe it all — everything — matters.

You might need the help of doctors and specialists. You might not. In either situation, finding what you can do yourself is the key to maximizing recovery.

I recovered from chronic illness after nearly a decade where I was a shell of my true self.

The 5 Paths — as a way of thinking — allowed me to heal, fully recovered.

You can, too.

This completes ‘Why Think Big?.’
To continue, select ‘Energy Metabolism.’

Energy

Healthy Buildings

Microbiome

Calm

DETOXIFY

Expectations

(free) Articles

the TESTIMONIALS

Related Articles

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