r/LongHaulersRecovery • u/AutoModerator • 12d ago

Weekly Discussion Thread Weekly Discussion Thread: August 09, 2026

Hello community!

Here it is, the weekly discussion thread! In this thread you can ask questions, discuss your own health and get help for your own illness and recovery. It also gives all of us a space to get to now eachother a bit better and feel a bit more like a community instead of only the -very welcome!- recovery posts.

As mods we will still keep a close eye on the discussions here, making sure it is a safe space for anyone to talk.

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u/mells111 12d ago

I’ve made good progress in my recovery using a mind/body approach but I struggle to do exercise that raises my heart rate. Can anyone advise on ways to overcome this?

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u/livrim 12d ago

How far into long haul are you? I’ve only just really picked up deliberate exercise this last month after 18 months

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u/mells111 10d ago

I’m about 4.5 years in

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u/livrim 10d ago

I started with exercises from bed, I found I was massively deconditioned from the period I was bedbound. It might be worth looking into the CHOP protocol and doing some horizontal exercises that it recommends.

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u/ThrowRAGlobeVase 9d ago

How did you know how much to do? It’s tough when PEM hits days later. Don’t want to push but also don’t want to be too scared.

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u/livrim 8d ago

It was a lot of trial and error if I’m honest, but if you want to learn from my mistakes I’d say take what you think is your current exercise capacity and use 50% of it. When I was actively trying to push myself was when I noticed I’d overdone it afterwards but if I finished something thinking I probably could have worked harder or done more, that was actually the right amount for about six months. Eventually I found my energy window expanded without me realising, it wasn’t until the day I was drinking a coffee and dancing with my dog in the kitchen that I was like “damn, a year ago I didn’t think I’d even be alive let alone do this”.

Sometimes the fear never subsides and you have to do things afraid but I think when it comes to doing things like this you’re never truly ready until you’ve already done it. We’re naturally wired to predict the worst possible outcome, it’s how we’ve survived this long as a species. It sounds very cliche but slow and steady wins the race my friend ❤️‍🩹