How simple joy helped me recover from long covid

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.

Joy

Joy has turned out to be one of the biggest things that has moved me towards health. Long covid is a mind body condition caused by a hyper-sensitive nervous system. This causes your body to be stuck in freeze, fight or flight for long periods of time. When you’re laughing with friends or in awe of a sunset, you’re not only having fun but healing too.

Art

When I was at my worst, I really struggled to move around my apartment, shower or heat up food. I couldn’t follow the story of an audiobook or podcast. I couldn’t talk to anyone. So I started with scribbling with crayons, which I could do a few minutes at a time.

Next step I painted cards for friends with a solid color of paint. Some people sent me cards or paintings in return, which was so fun!

My friend Amanda suggested we create a collaborative sketchbook together. We passed it back and forth, adding to each other’s art and creating new things. This gave me a “deadline” of sorts to finish something. Though I honestly took over a month at first to do the simplest things.

Reading

It took about six months, but I eventually could follow what was happening in an audiobook if I took lots of breaks. This built up to eventually being able to read a print book, again with lots of breaks.

After a year, I decided to start a queer book review blog. It took forever to set up — something that would have been so easy for me before. My first reviews were so hard. I had to re-read the book and take notes because I couldn’t remember what had happened very clearly. Typing was painful and took many days. But eventually, I got my first review up. And I just kept going!

Beach sits, cold dips and friends

One of the first activities I could do was get driven to the beach and lay on a blanket, not talking to whoever was with me. My friend Amanda is a saint. She would just come sit next to me read a book in silence. Eventually, we built up our talking so I could sit and talk for hours at a time.

I loved cold dipping with my friends before I got sick. And this was one of the only ways I could think to hang out with people.

I’d get to the beach really early so I could lay down and recover from the two-minute walk from the car. With a small group I really didn’t have to talk much, just try to listen. I am so grateful for these friends as they went out of there way to come to a beach close to me. One person took the bus halfway across Vancouver over and over again, just to come to my beach. Seriously, what did I do to deserve friends like this? I am so grateful.

Some days I would cancel on friend hangouts because I felt too sick. But then I would feel even worse. Eventually, I learned in through studying polyvagal theory that spending time with people is one of the best ways to show your nervous system you are safe. So I always prioritized friend hangouts, even when I didn’t feel great.

A puppy

Adopting a puppy had such a huge positive impact on my recovery. It’s brought such a fast improvement to my life, as I suddenly had something else to look after than myself. I was ready for the change when it happened. She just gave me the cute, cuddly motivation to push onward in my recover.