Unlock long covid recovery with mind body medicine

This approach took me from being almost housebound to working part-time, backpacking and climbing in about six months. If I was only going to do one thing, this is it.

On this site, I review the strategies that helped me recover from long covid and chronic fatigue syndrome. See all long covid recovery posts.

This is for information purposes only and nothing I share should be considered medical advice. What works for me may or may not work for you. Please do your own research and consult with your own trusted medical professionals.

What is mind body syndrome?

I had disabling symptoms with long covid including crippling fatigue, chronic migraines, racing heart, breathlessness, brain fog, blurry vision, depression, anxiety and more.

I went to the doctor and got everything checked out. I had blood tests, tests for my heart, vision tests and breathing tests. Everything came back normal. No doctor knew how to help me. My specialist told me I would likely have this condition for the rest of my life and would have to learn to manage it.

Enter mind body medicine. Mind body doctors argue that the mind causes many disabling symptoms in the body like pain and fatigue. And good news, you can fully recover.

The most studied mind body condition is chronic pain, but it also includes long covid, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome and many more. Mind body syndrome (MBS) was historically called tension myositis syndrome (TMS).

Dr. Kennedy is one of the leading doctors in adapting mind body medicine for long covid. This video interview with Dr. Kennedy and Raelan Agle saved my life. It pointed me towards straightforward and inexpensive techniques that helped me get my life back.

The techniques you learn about in programs can vary slightly. But things you may cover include:

• education on why you have symptoms from a mind body perspective
• accepting you have mind body condition with tools like an evidence list
• somatic tracking
• expressive writing
• body-focused meditations
• emotional processing
• self-compassion exercises
• gradual reintroduction to activities you thought caused symptoms like moving
• living your life with peace, gratitude and joy despite your symptoms

The process gently moves you from thinking physically to thinking psychologically. It teaches you it’s more likely you have symptoms due to stress, fear or repressed emotions, not because you “did too much.”

There is also a Harvard study published recently that shows how helpful a mind body approach is to long covid.

Curable

Curable is designed to help chronic pain sufferers. You do meditations that help you feel into your body, identify the emotions you are feeling, and learn about the connection between these emotions and your symptoms. You also do a lot of expressive writing meant to get old stress and repressed emotions unstuck from your body.

The app has limited resources for those with non-pain conditions and they are supplemental. During the core exercises, I would say “fatigue” to myself whenever the exercise said “pain.”

Despite this clunky workaround, Curable was a game changer for me. My chronic, debilitating migraines were gone within two months of starting Curable. And through their graded exposure therapy exercises, I started walking outside again after many months of being housebound.

At only $60USD per year, it costs less than a bottle of (useless) supplements.

Reign of Pain

This is Dr. Schubiner’s FREE course on how the mind can create debilitating symptoms like chronic pain. At the end of the course he talks about other conditions like long covid and chronic fatigue syndrome. He also lists many affordable resources where you can learn about treatments.

Be Your Own Medicine

Rebecca translates mind body medicine from being so focused on pain and to also talking about chronic conditions like long covid. This course was not available when I was going through this phase of my recovery, but it is now. It looks amazing and recommend checking it out. I’ve been on her email list a long time and she really gets it.

Dr Rebecca Kennedy

This is the revolutionary medical doctor whose video I linked above. She offers one-on-one appointments as well as group classes on her website.

Books, podcasts and videos

Whenever I have a symptom flare up, I listen or watch some content and just let the messages wash over me again and again.

Favourites include:

• The Way Out by Alan Gordon
• Any book by John Sarno (grandfather of mind body medicine)
• Curable’s podcast Like Mind, Like Body
• Anna Holtzman’s podcast From Chronic Pain to Passion
• Rebecca Tolin’s YouTube channel
• Tanner Murtagh’s YouTube channel on pain psychotherapy
• This Might Hurt film

Almost all of these are about chronic pain, so you need a basic understanding of how mind body medicine translates to chronic symptoms before they are very valuable.