Chronic Fatigue & Brain Fog: My Experiences After Spiritual Development

[ardacigin]

See, I've always had chronic fatigue and brain fog for the majority of my life. In this post, I'd like to let everyone know what happened after a recent spiritual development related to profound physical relaxation in daily life.

Just because one can experience a lot of joy on demand doesn't necessarily mean all forms of suffering, fatigue, brain fog or tension have disappeared.

After listening to Leo's issues on food coma, fatigue and brain fog, I've decided to go deeper on this issue for myself.

Before the recent spiritual development, I was experiencing significant levels of sleepiness literally after every meal. I had to sleep 1-2 hours just to feel normal or to crank up joy. 

Not just that, but I also consistently feel dullness and sleepiness come over me in meditation and daily life. This also meant brain fog and lack of sharpness mentally.

I initially thought this was due to the high levels of carbs I've been eating these past few months. Bread, pasta etc.  However, I could normally eat any food and feel perfectly normal. Something must be happening internally that produces these reactions to the food I'm eating.ü

See, these are learned habitual sensitivities. For many people (excluding medical cases), eating a variety of foods is perfectly healthy and doesn't produce chronic fatigue. 

Remember your 9 year of self. Was he/she picky about eating some bread fearing the 3-hour brain fog afterward? No. This is an issue developed with time, not an inherent genetical disposition you are cursed with forever.

Now, these past few months, it doesn't matter what I eat. Veggies, meat, fruits etc. I experience brain fog and fatigue right afterwards. I needed to sleep. I felt very intrigued by this sudden change. This kept happening for months on end.

This was affecting my thoughts, motivations, and energy levels significantly. Even the access to jhana and joy on demand. I was waking up in a state of annoyance and frustration before meditation. So I needed to figure this out.

I took supplements - Didn't work.

I changed my sleep cycles significantly and started magnesium supplements to improve sleep quality - Didn't work

I tried to crank up the joy in my mind to combat lethargy - Occasionally worked as a temporary solution

I needed to find a deeper solution to coax out the root.

In my recent meditations, I was feeling this profound relaxation. I thought nothing of it. It happens. Then it goes away.

Well, apparently some part of my mind took this cue and allowed me to see these mind-blowing levels of tension I was building up and reinforcing in daily life my entire life. Yes, even when I was experiencing a lot of joy and going deep into jhanas, I was not aware of this much unconscious tension. I thought to myself:

'Wow! I can't believe this tension. No wonder I'm feeling fatigued. In fact, I remember having this physical tension as 7 year old kid laying down to watch cartoons. This tension is such an instinctual way I operate AND I was reinforcing this without knowing every day'

This tension was there on my shoulders, over my torso and chest, preventing deep relaxation. Reducing the effectiveness of all joy and jhana practices by introducing strain and tightness.

This tension was affecting my relationship with others. Every time I saw someone, I was tightening up around the same way (shoulders and torso) in a learned habitual manner. This subconscious tension has finally risen up to a conscious level I can work with.

Now back to brain fog and fatigue:

This exact same physical tension was using extreme levels of energy in my body and mind AS I'm eating food. I've realized this was the culprit to my entire fatigue and brain fog issues. Because this tension broke up in every aspect of my life. (while walking, talking, thinking laying down etc.)

In this case, I tighten up around the act of eating food. As I'm moving the spoon to my mouth. Chewing it. Looking around. As my mind stopped its tendency to contract so many muscles both in the act of eating and in daily life, I was able to eat donuts, bread, chips etc with zero brain fog or sleepiness afterwards. 

Normally, I was waking up extremely groggy and frustrated regardless of sleeping 12 hours, 8 hours or 6 hours. Regardless of whether applying all sleep protocols. 

After this profound relaxation, I was waking up refreshed and joyful after 6 or 12 hours. Doesn't matter. My body is resting fairly deeply in daily life as well.

My meditations have improved DRAMATICALLY. I feel like now I'm in a spiritual development where I can do 3-4 hour sits without moving. Easily. In fact, I'll let you guys know my experiences right after doing such a practice. 

Now I'm getting used to this new baseline of mindfulness and profound relaxation. I'm shocked how so many varieties of personal and health issues were resolved and evaporated by this baseline relaxation.

I'm extremely motivated and happy for this new chapter in my spiritual development. I can't wait to share my experiences going forward. 

Feel free to let me know your questions.

Much love,

Arda

 

 

[Thought Art]

https://www.holdenqigong.com/

[Flyboy]

How did you "undo" this chronic tension?  I'm discovering that I have something very similar to what you describe, and as my meditation practice deepens it is becoming more and more obvious.  It's troublesome though because it many ways it feels like an anti-meditation force field; in a sit I can break through it with concentration, but when I sleep, for example, it basically is a pattern of thoughts that is hard-coded to deflect attempts to let go, relax, stay present, or allow peace and acceptance.  

My sleep has been terrible for a really long time, and I think it causes chronic fatigue during the day.  Would love to know more about how you were able to get past this.

[Nahm]

@ardacigin

Great work & great share. ?? 

[ardacigin]

4 hours ago, Flyboy said:

How did you "undo" this chronic tension?  I'm discovering that I have something very similar to what you describe, and as my meditation practice deepens it is becoming more and more obvious.  It's troublesome though because it many ways it feels like an anti-meditation force field; in a sit I can break through it with concentration, but when I sleep, for example, it basically is a pattern of thoughts that is hard-coded to deflect attempts to let go, relax, stay present, or allow peace and acceptance.  

My sleep has been terrible for a really long time, and I think it causes chronic fatigue during the day.  Would love to know more about how you were able to get past this.

This realization happened while lot of strain and tension build up after a heated argument. Since I don't normally get angry or violent in daily life, this was a little unexpected. Right after I meditated, I said to myself:

'Wow! What is this tension on my shoulders? Let me intentionally release it every time I'm aware of it.Oh, wait. I can do this while walking talking watching videos, playing games eating food...Wait this tension was always there? Are you serious!' 

 It became second nature afterwards

This was a really spontaneous and effortless realization. My mind realized how it was producing this aversion and tension, not the external world and simply dropped it. I always knew tension can be dropped by this time shit got real and my mind dropped it.

And it is a process. I can currently feel some tension on my shoulders as I'm writing this due to uncomfortable position the keyboard is in but then I immediately release it to a relaxing posture. My mind is extremely attentive to any strain or muscle tension at this point.

I don't know what to say. This was entirely new and shocking to me. My meditations are almost pain free. Allow me to experience some more of this new baseline and I will formulate some advice and tips

Edited April 19, 2021 by ardacigin

[ardacigin]

5 hours ago, Flyboy said:

My sleep has been terrible for a really long time, and I think it causes chronic fatigue during the day.  Would love to know more about how you were able to get past this.

I've basically realized the sleep wasn't refreshing due to lack of rest one gets in daily life. You might think you are relaxed in daily life but really inquire:

'Do I spend each moment regardless of typing, walking talking in a state of profound relaxation?'

In fact, sometimes I've started to feel even more relaxed and restful actually sitting upright in meditation compared to my earlier sleeps laying down in bed. This is unbelievable. 

You might be shocked how one can have more rest sitting cross legged compared to laying down but this tension was so prevalent that I couldn't even rest properly in deep sleep.

So, simply try this:

'Maintain introspective awareness of effort and tension in daily life, continuously release it. Immediately observe its positive effects. Repeat'

Let me know if this helps.

[Flyboy]

@ardacigin I appreciate the advice!  As my mindfulness improves and starts to penetrate my daily life more, I am noticing the tension more and more often and reminding myself to let it go.  The relaxing often only lasts a minute or two, but I hope with time and habit and increased mindfulness that eventually it will start really making a difference.

[Igor82]

I want to add that I went to a place called "Walkfeeling" here in Sweden, where they basically train ordinary people and athletes to walk and run with a proper posture. They told me that what posture does is that it increased our ability to breathe more deeply, with more air in the lungs, and also to have the muscles stay as relaxed as possible. When we have a poor posture, there are minor muscles that strain in order to compensate for the core muscles not being that strong, or the wrong muscles having its movements been chronically habituated. Proper posture will only strain the major muscles, while the hips, neck, and shoulders stay relaxed.

Imagine having a perfect posture, as if you were a Winning Phoenix, walking tall through life with confidence, deep breaths, and relaxation. That's Walkfeeling for you.

[ardacigin]

@Igor82 My posture is not perfect  Especially after this relaxation business. I can sometimes slouch and completely drop my arms and shoulders down like a dead fish while walking etc, but it feels incredibly restful and rejuvenating. 

I'll try to balance it out with an acceptable level of muscle tone.

[ardacigin]

9 hours ago, Flyboy said:

@ardacigin I appreciate the advice!  As my mindfulness improves and starts to penetrate my daily life more, I am noticing the tension more and more often and reminding myself to let it go.  The relaxing often only lasts a minute or two, but I hope with time and habit and increased mindfulness that eventually it will start really making a difference.

Definitely don't get bummed out about the tension coming back. Keep releasing it. Continuously in each moment. You'll develop mindfulness, sensory clarity and equanimity with this training. Shinzen would be proud

[Space]

On 4/20/2021 at 0:07 AM, ardacigin said:

So, simply try this:

'Maintain introspective awareness of effort and tension in daily life, continuously release it. Immediately observe its positive effects. Repeat'

Great post, thanks for sharing. I'll be trying to implement the above going forward.

[Leo Gura]

@ardacigin If you want some serious lifting of brain fog, try carnivore diet plus heavy metal detox your brain.

[WaveInTheOcean]

@ardacigin If you want some serious lifting of brain fog try:

- eating mostly vegan (healthy vegan food that is)

- restricting your eating-window to 8-10 hours (fasting when you wake up for like 3-4 hours is so fucking great. You feel light in body and mind and it's so nice to exercise and meditate on an empty stomach)

- exercise multiple times a week. Especially running is fantastic.

- meditating 30-60 min every morning pref. AFTER exercise on an empty stomach

- just don't eat tuna and other products you know contain many heavy metals. Given, I live in Denmark and we have a strict food control here from the authorities, so it's harder to get too many heavy metals inside your body. But anyway, I don't buy into the whole "even 1 heavy metal atom in your body ruins your level of consciousness"-religion @Leo Gura seems to have bought into. =DD

Edited April 21, 2021 by WaveInTheOcean

[Space]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@ardacigin If you want some serious lifting of brain fog, try carnivore diet plus heavy metal detox your brain.

Would you say its worth a try even with lower quality meats/products? I did some rough calculations and I literally can't afford to be eating organic beef, chicken, eggs, fish every meal. But i'm hesitant to buy the cheap stuff.

[WaveInTheOcean]

It's fucking hilarious we are sitting here on a self-development forum and the advice is to go on a carnivore diet. If the whole world did that, in a few years the global warming will have made the oceans flood over your cute little luxury houses in USA. Talk about karma, biting yourself in the ass! ?

Meat, especially beef, lamb and to some extent pork is terribly bad in regards to emission of green house gasses, and you all know it. 

Ans I'm not even talking about the other issues of mammals suffering in the billions, massive amounts of rainforest being cut down to soy plantations (to feed up the fucking pigs instead of giving those VEGAN insanely nutritious soy beans to the starving kids in Uganda), massive amounts of waste of water.

Seriously, I fucking hope @Leo Gura you at least go for mostly chicken meat.

 

[RedLine]

ardacigin flexing about his meditation gains again haha, your posts motivate me to meditate harder, thank you

 

 

16 minutes ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

It's fucking hilarious we are sitting here on a self-development forum and the advice is to go on a carnivore diet. If the whole world did that, in a few years the global warming will have made the oceans flood over your cute little luxury houses in USA. Talk about karma, biting yourself in the ass! ?

Meat, especially beef, lamb and to some extent pork is terribly bad in regards to emission of green house gasses, and you all know it. 

Ans I'm not even talking about the other issues of mammals suffering in the billions, massive amounts of rainforest being cut down to soy plantations (to feed up the fucking pigs instead of giving those VEGAN insanely nutritious soy beans to the starving kids in Uganda), massive amounts of waste of water.

Seriously, I fucking hope @Leo Gura you at least go for mostly chicken meat.

 

lool stop watching cnn bro

Edited April 21, 2021 by RedLine

[Hello from Russia]

@WaveInTheOcean Self-Development is a Selfish pursuit, in a sense

[WaveInTheOcean]

4 minutes ago, RedLine said:

ardacigin flexing about his meditation gains again haha, your posts motivate me to meditate harder, thank you

 

 

lool stop watching cnn bro

I'm from Denmark brother. I dont watch your braindeath biased horseshit TV channels, luckily.

Also if you're postulating that meat, especially beef meat, is not an issue in regards to global warming, or that global warming is a hoax, you would be banned from this forum, if I was a mod. 

Edited April 21, 2021 by WaveInTheOcean

[RedLine]

2 minutes ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

Also if you're postulating that meat, especially beef meat, is not an issue in regards to global warming, or that global warming is a hoax, you would be banned from this forum, if I was a mod. 

I studied the topic and there is not conclusive scientific evidence that climate change is produced by human action, climate changes pretty fast trought history, it is something natural. It is proved that polution produce heatlh problems in human and animal but not climate change.

 

An I also think there is nothing wrong with killings animals, it is something natural. We all die. I think animalists probably watched too much Disney.  

[WaveInTheOcean]

4 minutes ago, RedLine said:

I studied the topic and there is not conclusive scientific evidence that climate change is produced by human action, climate changes pretty fast trought history, it is something natural. It is proved that polution produce heatlh problems in human and animal but not climate change.

 

An I also think there is nothing wrong with killings animals, it is something natural. We all die. I think animalists probably watched too much Disney.  

Instant ban. Can't have all this ignorance on the forum, mods please?

You probably also voted Trump. What the fuck are you even doing here lol?

??

Edited April 21, 2021 by WaveInTheOcean