Deep Resting — Real Relief for Long Covid

A few months ago, a businessman in the UK contacted me and asked if I would help him with his Long Covid symptoms. He had hardly left his house in 2 years, was unable to drive his kid to school, and was so fatigued he could barely take zoom meetings for work.

I have been working with people with chronic pain, physical issues, and trauma for many years. I myself recovered from severe PTSD and 25 years of chronic pain and have been pain and anxiety-free now for over 6 years. I didn’t know much about Long Covid so I joined a Facebook group to see what is being talked about. This group had over 50k members and as I scrolled through I noticed a very large array of symptoms most of which I recognized from my own work with clients and the MindBody Connection. Whether I’m working with someone with persistent migraines, fibromyalgia, or IBS, the common denominator is always prolonged stressful thinking — could the same be true of Long Covid?

Now, I am very careful never to dismiss anyone's suffering. Pointing to the MindBody Connection is not about blame or an excuse nor are we saying you are making it up. When I was suffering for decades with my lower back pain, there were times when I felt like my pelvis had been hit with a baseball bat! All pain is real. So what does this mean for people with Long Covid?

As news of the pandemic hit our newsfeeds at the beginning of 2020, the world was deluged by a constant stream of statistics, images of overfilled mortuaries, exhausted healthcare workers, and desperately ill patients on ventilators. Stories of loved ones dying alone and panic-stricken family members shut out of caring for their fatally ill parents and partners were everywhere. It was very alarming. Having had my own journey with trauma I chose to limit the amount of news I watched but many innocently watched day in, day out, around the clock, mesmerized and paralyzed with what they saw. But what did that constant diet of tragedy and panic do to the nervous system? What, I wondered, is the connection with Long Covid?

As I read the literature and research on Long Covid, I noticed a couple of things; one thing that kept coming up was that people with Long Covid didn’t necessarily have the severest SARS-CoV2 virus infection and were often not the people who were hospitalized. Another was that many of the people with Long Covid report their symptoms using words like uncertainty, doubt, guilt, and unsafe. They were people who described themselves as normally very busy, driven, capable, high achieving perfectionists. ‘Pushing through’ was a common tactic until they exhausted themselves into collapse. Another curious thing I noticed was that medical professionals were repeatedly saying they didn’t know the cause of many of the symptoms? Now, I’m not a doctor and I may be wrong but my training as a trauma counselor and decades of experience points to anxiety as the cause. Again and again, I see these personality types combined with prolonged stress and anxiety suffering with the same chronic symptoms seen in Long Covid patients.

Fatigue

The first time I worked with a client with chronic fatigue it became very apparent that he was constantly up in his thoughts stressfully overthinking everything, and I mean everything and that was long before Covid19 hit the news. It is a vicious cycle of worrying that leads to insomnia, that leads to being overtired, that leads to stress, that leads to exhaustion. When he saw that he was torturing himself with his own thinking his symptoms started to get better.

Brain Fog

Many Long Covid sufferers deal with brain fog. I experienced this when I was dealing with perimenopause. It’s frightening. It’s like trying to think through molasses! You can’t find the words you need, you can’t remember how to do things you know you know how to do. I was terrified I was getting dementia or Alzheimer's! When I saw that the more stressed I was the worse it got I started to understand that I was feeling my terrified thinking and making it worse.

Breathlessness

Is terrifying. Not being able to catch your breath, feeling suffocated and desperate for air makes everything else seem pointless. The more we panic the worse it gets. As a trauma counselor and a former asthma sufferer I have talked many people out of a panic attack and when we looked back at how it started it always goes; doubt/worry/fear — overthinking — stressful thinking — panic — can’t breathe.

Insomnia, Palpitations, Chest Pains, Dizziness, Stomach problems ….

This list is endless ( at least 205 according to the National Institute for Health Research ) but you can guess where I’m going with these too.

So what’s the answer?

Slowing down is the first thing I tell all my clients, it’s what helped my 25 years of chronic pain and many other physical problems listed above to go away. Pain, including dizziness, palpitations, and fatigue are signals from our bodies that we are going too fast. Burnout was an epidemic long before we even heard of Coronavirus for which there are multiple techniques and methods on offer out there.

But I want to point you a bit further upstream.

You see, it was when I stopped all those busy methods and techniques that I got better! I had done years of meditation, mountains of expressive writing, and hours of yoga and Pilates. I was an expert at ignoring negative thinking and staying positive. Now, there is nothing wrong with any of these things but they are still ‘doing’ something. And, as a former perfectionist, I had to do them right which kept me in the ‘Fight or Flight’ stress response and pain and discomfort. When I ask people if they are resting they say yes but when I ask how, they will often say; Oh, I vegged out and watched Netflix, or I just lay down and scrolled through Instagram — this is not resting!

Have we forgotten how to rest?

I want to introduce you to Deep Resting.

When I trained to be a Three Principles Practitioner I was introduced to the idea of Deep Listening. Having been a coach for over 30 years I thought I was a good listener but I soon realized I was not. I was basically waiting for you to finish so I could tell you what to do — newsflash, that is not any kind of listening! Deep listening is listening with a quiet mind, listening to understand instead of listening to reply.

So let’s look at Deep Resting.

Deep resting is resting without the intent of anything else and you can’t do that while doing something else. Even meditating and reading is doing something! Sydney Banks who first brought us the Three Principles understanding once said; “don’t confuse the act of meditation with the state of meditation”. The state of Deep Resting is purely that. It’s a state of mind at rest in the present moment. This moment is magical. It doesn’t require me to do anything, it’s available to everyone and it contains all the wisdom and resilience that you need. Being able to stand back and watch thoughts go by, not having anything on them is the best thing I can do for my nervous system. Resting in the peace that comes from knowing I don’t have to listen to those thoughts, that they are often quite unreliable and that they will pass all on their own has given me back my life. This is not mindfulness, or meditation, it doesn’t take practice or work, just insight. It’s understanding that your wellbeing is innate, that you don’t have to work at it, or get somewhere to feel better. You already have it, here, now.

If you are suffering from Long Covid please know that I am not saying you are exaggerating, making it up or that you are to blame in any way. Yes, sadly, some people have real damage to their lungs as a result of the virus but according to experts at Oxford University Hospital Long Covid Clinic, most do not. We have all been through something that has had an effect on us. Some of us feel that effect in our bodies and our bodies are screaming at us to slow down. ‘Rest and repair’ is the opposite of ‘Fight or Flight.’ Deep resting is listening for that peaceful feeling and slowing down to the speed of peace.

After all, isn’t peace what we all want?

Incidentally, Marcus, the businessman has pretty much recovered from Long Covid now. He is going into work, driving his kid to school, and taking long walks. Oh, and he’s gotten really good at Deep Resting too. If you would like to watch a video of us discussing his recovery journey, click here.

And if you would like to learn more about my work, please go to https://www.chanastudley.com/long-covid-support

Chana Studley is an author, international speaker, and coach.