The quote form the article below explains why attending a weekly 45 min. mindfulness meditation (laying down, body-scan style) touched off significant PEM for me that day and even more the next. Wow. So many want to judge us as just not "doing" our illness/recovery right! I'm guessing others have felt that they'd "failed" at getting all of the benefits of meditation, too, when this pendulum of swinging between the ANS and PNS is the real culprit. Since perceiving the worsening PEM through listening to my body-mind, as yogi Rodney Yee would say, I've done better with 8 - 15 min. sitting mediation. I do feel a greater stillness and ability to respond to relationships and the world more skillfully through this level of meditation, but I know I will never become an "adept." From Dr. Pocinki:
"Note: Even sitting quietly at rest for the first five minutes (period A), there are excessive autonomic fluctuations, as if the ANS is struggling to regulate heart rate and blood pressure even at rest, with no stress.
With deep breathing (B), there is a small increase in parasympathetic activity, but the body over responds so much that when the deep breathing phase ends, the body feels the need to correct for this with a big sympathetic surge at the beginning of the rest period (C).
This sympathetic excess then triggers an even bigger parasympathetic surge, slowing the system so much that there is no sympathetic response at all in stage D, when sympathetic activity should be stimulated.
On standing (F), blood pressure drops initially, leading to an excessive sympathetic response, which in turn triggers an even greater parasympathetic response, which causes a precipitous drop, another rebound sympathetic surge, followed by another parasympathetic surge. Even after three minutes of standing, the ANS is still struggling to get things stabilized.
