Week 1: Understanding chronic fatigue
Week 2: Getting to know your symptoms
Summary
Week 3: Learning how to manage stress and relax
Week 4: Healthy thinking, healthy self
Weekly review
Action Plan Review
Week 4 Outline
Healthy thinking for a healthy self
The role of thoughts in chronic fatigue
Common thoughts in chronic fatigue
A case example: Marge
Identifying your thoughts
Unhelpful thinking styles
The benefits of changing your thinking
Skills to help you identify and manage unhelpful thoughts
Using a thought diary
Examining the evidence
Is it a helpful thought?
Considering alternatives
Finding the positives
Summary
Week 4 Action Plan
Aided Self-Reflection
Topics Covered
Week 5: Balancing your activity patterns
Topics Covered
Weekly review
Action Plan Review
Week 5 Outline
Balancing your activity and reclaiming your life
Fear of body sensations
Activity patterns
Balancing your activity
Exercise and chronic fatigue
Skills to help you balance your activity and reclaim your life
Know your baseline
Time-based pacing
Grading your activities
Behavioural experiments
Activity scheduling
Summary
Week 5 Action Plan
Aided Self-Reflection
Week 6: Maintaining your gains and staying well
Topics Covered
Weekly review
Action Plan Review
Week 6 Outline
Introduction to relapse prevention
Look how far you’ve come!
Barriers to recovery
Learning to understand your body’s cues
Lapses versus relapses
Relapse prevention
When more help is needed
Skills to continue your progress and maintain your gains
Mapping your symptoms
Learning from your lapses
Create your own staying well plan
Summary
Big changes start with small steps
Week 6 Action Plan
Aided Self-Reflection
Course completion
Skills for symptom monitoring, goal setting and managing chronic fatigue in daily life
Congratulations, you’ve reached the skills content for this week!
As we’ve discussed, getting to know your symptoms and how they impact you are important first steps in learning how to manage your chronic fatigue. Below, we introduce skills that will help you do this. As with any new skill, these strategies will require practice. You might find them challenging, even frustrating, at first. This is completely normal. Continue your practice and you’ll notice improvement over time.
