Yoga can be a good, gentle way to stretch your body and loosen up tight muscles and joints. It also helps with balance and strength, and as you become more advanced, it can provide you with a cardiovascular workout as well.
Some people treat yoga just as exercise, but when done in the traditional way, which emphasizes controlled breathing and awareness, it also can help you relax, calm and focus your mind, and deal with emotional turmoil.
A few studies have shown that people with fibromyalgia (FMS) can benefit from yoga. While it hasn't been studied for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS), many experts on ME/CFS and the CDC recommend it as part of a treatment regimen. Some yoga experts claim yoga gives the body more energy than it takes and say this makes it ideal for fatigue-related conditions.
When starting yoga, as when starting any exercise routine, you should first check with your doctor and then proceed very slowly. Try one or two simple poses a day and pay close attention to how they make you feel. Once you're sure it's not exacerbating symptoms, you can start slowly adding more.
TIP: To counter post-exertional malaise, instead of adding more poses to a single session, add a second session to your day. By working in short burst with long periods of rest in between, you may find you're able to do more without triggering malaise.
Because you'll be starting so slowly, you'll probably want to either do it on your own or with a personal instructor. If you're doing a self-guided program, be sure you fully understand the poses before trying them, and be sure to start with simple ones that have you lying on the floor. A video or a book with good pictures can help.
As you add upright poses, keep in mind that many people with FMS and ME/CFS are prone to dizziness, especially upon standing. If you focus mainly on positions that are lying down, sitting, or standing in a very stable position, you should be able to keep this from being a problem.
To help get you started, here's information from Ann Pizer, About.com's Guide to Yoga:
More on Exercise for Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Getting Started: Exercise with Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Warm-water exercise
- Tai Chi
- Pilates
Sources:
2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All rights reserved. "Treatment Options"
Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 2007 Dec;13(10):1107-13. All rights reserved. "Effects of yoga and the addition of Tui Na in patients with fibromyalgia."
