Dr. Ellie Stein, MD - Recovery on a Budget?? Here's how!

👉👉 Making Hormesis Work For You - Dr. Stein's FREE pdf summary - bit.ly/3KA1j5E

Internal Medicine MD here with ME/Long covid- now recovering rapidly. Redlight therapy is doing major work for me too. Mind-body medicine and IFS. Deep shadow work and inner child healing. Dr. Stein is an idol. Even responded to my email. I am working towards offering resources and guidance and seeing Dr Stein's work is a huge inspiration. And your channel has been huge for me in my recovery journey.

I wish the advice to manage energy and pace had come at the start rather than the end of the video. If you are already in PEM as many ppl are if they are symptimatic, they must already be triggering hormetic activity, surely.. in which case adding more is surely unhelpful and damaging as mentioned towards the end if the dose is too high

Thank you, Raelan and Dr. Stein, for recognizing that so many of us who have MECFS, Long Covid, MCAS, POTS, fibromyalgia, EDS, etc. have been sick for so long, unable to work, and in debt. We are often unable to see any doctors who don't take insurance, even though they are the ones who usually know more about these diseases. We can often not afford even a massage or an expensive supplement. That said, a gentle reminder that those of us with heart problems should avoid cold plunges, and some us us do not do well with any kind of fasting. Thank you again for your work!

So glad the 'taking it slowly and being cautious' advice was added to this. I see many people advocating for fasting, cold water therapy and other things that stress/improve the body, but without mentioning that this can overwhelm someone with a lower baseline. If you're already in rolling PEM, overwhelmed or not coping with your daily load, then adding more stress to the body probably isn't a good idea. My personal opinion is that there has to be a little bit of stability in place before adding more stress. If you're at the start of a huge crash, this probably isn't the best time to be throwing yourself in an ice bath! That said, we can't recover laying in bed all day. I think this is such a tricky illness to get right and I completely understand why many of us can struggle with working out what is the right amount of movement or 'stress' to place on ourselves. Fasting made me crash initially despite loving it before being ill. I had to eat regularly and stabilise myself before I could attempt it again. I can now manage some daily 14-16 hours fasting without issues, but I wouldn't want to push past that. Yet. Also, cold water therapy doesn't have to be a full on ice bath. It can just be a body part, end a shower on cold, place an ice pack on the body for a bit (never directly on skin). It doesn't even have to be ice in a bath, just some cold water. Is it unpleasant to you/make you shiver a little? If yes, then there's your stress. It doesn't have to be horrendously unpleasant, teeth chattering, hypothermic danger level stress for benefits! It's so tempting to want to go fully in on these things because they DO work, and we all want to get better fast. But please try and tune into your own needs!

Everyone is different. I have done intermittent fasting for 3 years of my chronic fatigue journey. I’d eat in a 6 to seven hour window. I never lost weight. I did lose having an appetite. I lost sugar cravings. I did not embark on intermittent fasting during this body shutdown phase. I was 6 mos into intermittent fasting before becoming bedridden. Other people support eating on a regular schedule. I guess I’m overwhelmed with all the varied information in my state of mind.

So the sun also emits the infra red same as red light therapy (Johnson and Lee 2021) … therefore that’s why the sun is essential step 1

Do you have a recommendation of a red light or infrared light?

I find rebounding on a mini-trampoline works well for this. I've gotten away from it but just starting to get back to it. I read or heard, can't remember, that is puts energy into the body. I just do 5 minutes a day a very gentle "health" bounce, my feet don't even really leave the surface, but the gentle bounce for 5 minutes has a lot of benefits. I hope to eventually get up to 10 minutes and so on.

I am soo absolutely impressed with Dr Stein!! I hope to some day offer affordable treatment options for my clients. Raelan, your commitment to connecting with people like doctor Stein is so inspiring. In and of itself, you are providing invaluable information for ME/CFS sufferers. It is treatment just to hear these interviews. 💕🌸

Thanks Raelan! I did a follow up visit with my GP who in the past couldn’t help me. I told her what I had discovered and how I had gotten better with brain training. She said “you know that’s interesting. My mom died and then I had minor surgery. I was so tired I just could not break out of my lethargy. so at one point I decided I’m going to garden and I’m gonna push through that lethargy. And you know what? I got better.” I am like yeah :-) I copied this link of Dr. Stein and emailed it to my doctor because it’s the “medical stuff”. I try to use medical terms when I talk to people about what happened to me and how I got better otherwise they think I just had positive thinking and so it’s woo woo

Great talk! This channel is such an inspiration. As many speakers I saw, I am dreaming with the idea of being able to recover and tell my story to help others. This is my second time with long covid. First time I went througt it I was pregnant and with 1year old toddler. The second time started with a reinfection after being 100%recovered for more than 1 year., my kids are 1.5 and 3.5 years old now and I am fighting everyday to be me again. I am so sure I am going to do it that I want to write it here as a compromise to myself and to thanks Raelan to make me belive is possible. 😊

So Dr. Stein said there were specific wavelengths of light that were researched to be most beneficial, but not what those were. Also, would love to know what the fascinating book that 'is going to take 4 months to read' is!

Thanks Raelan and Dr Stein! I've been looking into getting a red light therapy device, so it was great to hear Dr Stein speak about them. Facsinating information that you need energy to sleep.. that was certainly new to me too. A seperate video on that topic would be great! 💛🧡💜

Loved that you had her back, so much helpful info. It's so nice that she is making her programme accessible to the most vulnerable ,even when it probably makes her life a lot more complicated.

Recommendation for red light?

Thank you so much for acknowledging how difficult this illness is financially! Great interview!

Wow. I have never heard that about sleep, and it makes so much sense. I always struggle to sleep when I have used up all my daytime energy. (EFT Tapping or Deep Relaxation Meditation helps me then.). Signed up for your talk

Thanks Raelan and Dr. Ellie Stein for sharing this thoughtful conversation with us 🙏❤️ Similar to Dr. Stein I had this lightbulb moment somewhere last year that at least the graded exposure and so the retraining of the stress response of our bodies works according to the principles of hormesis. If it wouldn't be hormetic interventions (light to moderate stressors and not permanent) the body couldn't adapt and level up and the stress-response of the brain would become even more sensitized. But even if it's nice to understand theoretically the real challenge is in the application during recovery where you have to feel the right dosage for everything.😊 And I think here is where a lot of re-learning takes place and where we have the opportunity to form new habits through patient listening to our bodies and through conscious responses to the signals it gives. Raelan and Dr. Stein: Do you think that coffee or caffeine in general could be used in the same way as a hormetic intervention during recovery? What were your experiences with caffeine and - if you quit during recovery - did you reintegrated a daily caffeine source after your full recovery? I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. best regards from Germany 🌞

This was such a great interview! Cold plunges....my mom started all of us kids on cold plunges when we were infants. I was addicted to finishing my shower with cold for all my life until I moved to MT where the well water feels like ice. I've started doing it again and it really helps with my brain fog! I could never do a plunge now....would die of hypothermia before I could get out😂