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Activity or exercise cannot harm you. Instead, controlled gradually increasing exercise programmes have been used successfully to build up individuals who suffer from CFS (please see final chapter - Results of treatment trials for CFS).
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The severity of CFS symptoms experienced depends on the amount of regular activity taken since the start of the CFS.
What is the safest level to start at? The aim of the programme is to perform appropriate activities or exercises each day. The individual gradually increases the activity in a timed way, as they feel able. In view of: •
the research facts about the severity of physical deconditioning,
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your apprehension,
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and the daily living activities that still have to be done,
it is very important to start activity at a level which is well below your current level of ability. In that way •
you can still manage daily tasks without doing too much activity and relapsing
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you can build up a regular daily activity programme
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you can still manage to do some level of activity even on a bad day
Most CFS patients are more physically deconditioned or unfit than they think they are. To be diagnosed with CFS the disabling fatigue is severe enough to reduce, for a period of at least six months, the average daily activity by at least 50%. The consequence of such reduced activity is physical deconditioning. If you have had this condition for some time you may underestimate just how physically deconditioned you have become. There is a pattern to CFS. Doing too much activity for the level of your reduced physical stamina is followed by overwhelming symptoms necessitating rest. A pattern of rest and irregular activity develops which, in time leads to further physical deconditioning and reduced physical stamina. 50