How to Manage Your Energy When You Have Chronic Fatigue Symptoms

28 March 2025


How to Manage Your Energy When You Have Chronic Fatigue Symptoms



Not enough people understand the “chronic” part of chronic fatigue symptoms, let alone know how to help you manage them. By the end of this video you’ll have a concrete framework for understanding how much capacity you have, so you can finally start accommodating and caring for yourself properly.

Thanks to the spoon theory, those of us with chronic illness, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, disability, and/or invisible disability have a wonderful tool for communicating our energy levels to others. But understanding that we’re “low on spoons” isn’t necessarily actionable. How do we get more spoons? How do we spend our spoons wisely? That’s what I’m talking about in this video.

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not enough people understand the chronic part of chronic fatigue symptoms let alone know how to help you manage them by the end of this video you'll have a concrete framework for understanding how much capacity you have so you can finally start accommodating and caring for yourself properly if you're neurospicy or a spoonie and are looking to master yourself and your time in a compassionate way this is the place for you to be subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when i post a new video every other tuesday so who am i to talk about this topic i have multiple chronic illnesses including pots and ehlers-danlos syndrome and have had chronic fatigue symptoms since i was 14 years old in fact the day i wrote the script for this video i could only do so after taking a long nap for reference my body tends to be evil and not let me nap even though i desperately need as much sleep as i can get thanks dysautonomia and had to lie on my side and write by hand on my ipad because sitting up enough to type was out of the question now it's your turn to learn how i relate to my capacity and i am so excited because it has been such a helpful framework for myself and my clients so this framework is what i like to call the three gas tanks unlike spoon theory and spoonie terminology which simply applies a blanket understanding of energy that you have available for example an able-bodied person has like 30 spoons at their disposal at the beginning of the day whereas someone with chronic illness chronic pain chronic fatigue those kinds of things starts out with maybe like five spoons at the beginning of the day and they spend two of them on the shower and then they'll they've got his three left that can be a really helpful model to understand the distinction between able-bodied capacity versus disabled body capacity i have found however that being more granular about the energy available to me and my clients have found this as well has been so helpful i break energy and capacity down into three different gas tanks if you were a car you've got three different gas tanks and each one has a different type of fuel the first gas tank is the physical gas tank how much energy do you have to accomplish physical tasks the second gas tank is the cognitive gas tank how much energy do you have available to you to accomplish cognitive tasks and this is a really important gas tank for those of us who have mental illness and or neurodivergence then the last gas tank is the emotional gas tank how much capacity do you have to experience emotional things and or perform emotional labor this is another gas tank that is so important for those of us with neurodivergence into our history of trauma or mental health issues being able to distinguish between these three different gas tanks is so helpful what i do with my clients inside of my program the action navigator is every day in our private discord community i invite them all to check in and checking in means two things one checking in with your gas tanks and you actually share how full or not full your gas tanks are and then the next step is to share which of the discord channels you're going to participate in that day to care for yourself and accomplish the things you want and or need to accomplish but that first part remembering to check in with your gas tanks at the beginning and end of every day can be so amazing because you start to see much more nuanced patterns in how your capacity changes over time and what contributes to you having more capacity versus what contributes to you having less capacity so if we break this down by gas tank i usually use one emoji two emojis or three emojis for a gas tank and i use the fuel pump if it's completely empty because some days you wake up and a gas tank just it just ain't there and that's fine but if i have just like one battery emoji today that means it's going to be mostly a sofa day i'm not going to be doing much but besides my bare minimum physical movement to like go to the bathroom make myself breakfast do my one chore in the morning that's about it but if i have two in my tank that means i i have more availability to do physical stuff and i might do a vr game i might do more chores my life is pretty boring on the physical front right now mainly i try to save my physical spoons so i can go out dancing if and when i feel safe cognitively it's the difference between okay all i can do today is basic administrative tasks in my business versus having two or three brain emojis in my gas tank that's when i can do my best coaching work with my clients and that's when i can do my best content creation for this business if i'm on a low brain day it makes it so much harder for me to do cognitively intense work and then emotionally this one i find really invaluable it's like do i have the capacity emotionally to be triggered so as someone who has a lot of trauma i get easily triggered a lot and i also get overstimulated really easily which is also related to the cognitive gas tank but if i'm really low on gas in my emotional tank that's going to dictate how i behave socially that day it will dictate who i feel capable of talking to it will dictate what media i am capable of consuming and it makes it so much easier to maintain boundaries to protect myself and care for myself when i'm really aware of how much capacity i have for handling harder things and so that's why the emotional gas tank and by proxy the cognitive gas tank can be so important to understand so this leads me to my next really important point these three gas tanks are not mutually exclusive and they affect each other for example if you are someone who feels really good after spending an afternoon with your best friend that is often the kind of experience where you feel like you have more physical energy afterwards than you did before so let's say you go into that encounter with your best friend and you've got like one battery bar in your physical gas tank and you've maybe got like two heart bars in your emotional gas tank and then at the end because you had such a wonderful time with your best friend your heart tank is overflowing you feel so rejuvenated emotionally that that capacity tends to spill over into the physical gas tank right and then for those of us who experience social encounters differently we find social encounters draining we may have gone into a social encounter with a fair amount of physical energy and enough emotional energy to handle that encounter but afterwards we may feel completely drained so draining out the emotional gas tank it keeps going and it pulls from the physical gas tank two so understanding how your three gas tanks relate to each other can be transformative it suddenly gives you more control over getting some precious spoons back and that's what we're going to talk about next now that you understand the concept of the three gas tanks comment below and tell me if you had an aha moment about how your gas tanks tend to relate to each other go ahead and just type aha in the comments when coaching my clients i often talk about the idea that awareness and understanding must come before problem solving and action now that you have an understanding of the three gas tanks you're well on your way to having the awareness and understanding part down i definitely recommend keeping the three gas tanks top of mind for the next few days or weeks in order to come to a deeper understanding of how your gas tanks tend to behave and relate to one another that being said this framework can provide ahas years from now too so don't just do it for a couple of weeks at last we have arrived at the point of this video how to manage your energy as someone with chronic fatigue symptoms because getting medical support to improve your symptoms is incredibly difficult to access for so many of us and even if we do have the privilege of that access it doesn't mean that the medical solutions even exist for her conditions yet i want to highlight the things in your life that you do have personal control over so you can start improving your quality of life right now how do we do that accommodate accommodate accommodate by discovering where we're spending more gas from our tanks than we need to or spoons for those of you who love spoonie terminology we can have more gas available to us to spend on things that are difficult or impossible to change but are still important and meaningful to us for example in my special interest hobby life i'm a west coast swing dancer and instructor it's a spoon heavy activity but it means so so much to me and i refuse to give it up i save as many spoons as i can elsewhere in my life so i can spend them on dancing so how do we save spoons in the first place we accommodate ourselves to make certain activities less taxing here's a quick workflow for determining how best to accommodate yourself one decide which activities in your life tax you the most two for each activity which gas tanks get drained the most three for each activity how can you change adapt or accommodate yourself to spend less gas from that tank for inspiration here are some of my and my clients favorite accommodations sit down as much as possible working from bed or on the floor instead of sitting at a desk is transformational for me a lot of my clients benefit from having a shower chair you can sit down while brushing your teeth and by the way you can watch tick-tock while brushing your teeth i do that and i love it you can sit down while doing the dishes you can you can sit down while folding your clothes sit down other accommodations include noise cancelling headphones noise blocking earplugs such as the loop brand earplugs i love mine using a grocery delivery service like instacart having a mailbox delivery service such as hellofresh another simple but powerful one is keep shelf-stable food and beverages in your bedside table so you can eat breakfast or snack without having to get out of bed not all accommodations involve a financial investment they can like having tools or services that help you earn the spoons back but if that is something that is not available to you i invite you to really think critically about how you can change or adapt certain activities to reduce how taxing they are for you for example one of my favorite tick tockers casey davis aka domestic blisters just simply stopped folding clean laundry and she has a communal closet where her her partner and their children all have one closet so all she has to do to put laundry away is take the laundry up to that room sit on the floor and toss the clean clothes without folding them into everybody's respective drawers or bins that's the kind of out of the box thinking i'm inviting you to do if you are someone who does not have financial means right now to add tools and or services to your life and then beyond simply accommodating yourself is considering how your three gas tanks relate to each other like the example i was giving earlier if you are someone who benefits so much from socializing with a good friend that it overflows into your physical gas tank that's something you can take advantage of if you are in a rut if you're burned out if you could really use some more spoons in your physical gas tank arrange a time to hang out with your best friend and you'll come out of that with more physical energy than you went into it this is why understanding the three gas tanks and how they relate to each other for you can be transformational to help you make better decisions to care for yourself in a compassionate way they can give you more control than you had before over your capacity over time now you have a really powerful framework for managing your energy as someone with chronic fatigue symptoms students in my action navigator program have access to an activity i call spoon hunting that guides them step by step through this process but on steroids for finding areas of their life where they can benefit the most from accommodations and figure out how to best accommodate themselves in those activities so if you want to take an even deeper dive into this work use the link in the description box below to book a zoom call with me to learn more about my signature course it's packed to the brim with tools and techniques for mastering your time getting organized and offering yourself radical compassion as a neurospicy spoonie i can't wait to meet you check out this video next to see my bedroom office setup that allows me to run my own business without exhausting myself if you liked this video hit that like button and subscribe and be sure to share it with your friends i'll be back in two weeks with another video see you then bye

#Manage #Energy #Chronic #Fatigue #Symptoms

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46 Comments
  1. Share your aha moments here! 💡💡💡

  2. Aha! 🤗 very helpful—thank you!

  3. I'm robbing the gas tank thing thank you this is a second thing I've found in one day that is from two people in america I'm in ireland you and baylan that is like wow this is brilliant I'm autistic cfs abuse survivor then got a virus can't do it anymore

  4. Your gas tank thing is better then the spoon thing

  5. Very useful video, thank you so much!

  6. Aha. If I don’t sleep well the night before, I am nauseous, lightheaded and exhausted the next day. I have to be kind to myself even more so for the next 2 days. It’s so frustrating.

  7. Aha. When my emotional gas tank is low my physical tank is too. I just noticed that I was making good progress in my mental health with my first therapist after seeing her for a long time. Warming up to people for me takes a long time. So when I felt comfortable and safe with her my physical gas tank was more full.

  8. My current main accomodation, that's helped me to get to college on time, is to keep coffee on my bedside table. I'm partial to coffee gum, but would make cold coffee work in a overed cup if I needed to.
    I don't always get a ton done during the day, but at least I get to class on time! Now to practice some of the other energy management tactics here…

  9. Aha! I like the 3 gas tank frame work for thinking about energy.

  10. K.C. Davis is a great accommodator!

  11. Aha! Being self aware is a skill I am working on and I believe it's invaluable! I really did have an aha about how the gas tanks effect each other.

  12. How can I contact you? Just finding you 1:30

  13. These videos are making me warm to eugenics and rate hikes

  14. Amazing video! I definitely aha-ed a few times

  15. Are these techniques also effective for people with fibromyalgia? My sense is that they might. I’m going to start using this approach and see what happens. Thanks for sharing your tips with us!

  16. The concept of three gas tanks (petrol tanks) is really insightful, and particularly how they are inter-related. It explains why I can participate in some activities that I really enjoy for much longer than activities I enjoy less.

  17. How do I refill those tanks even partially when all 3 are permanently empty and in debt and I can’t even move or think and I don’t have access to any support now and going forward and my home is also draining and I can’t change it and it’s at the point I can’t even do the bare essentials for my health like take meds I have physical mental intellectual and sensory Disabilities chronic pain and a lot of other crap I can’t change my environment and idk what to do and I don’t have access to doctors (that’s a long story atm)

  18. Thank you so much for this wonderful advice❤ I never thought about things this way and I think that this is going to help me pace myself and hopefully reduce the chances of future flares

  19. Thanks Cassie. I live with M.E. which has been very severe in the last 10+ years. It's interesting to discover that I share a lot of my struggles with other M.E. sufferers (not surprising really) but even more interesting to learn that there are many other conditions that cause very similar issues. It's a challenging process, learning to accept what you need to accept and find ways of working with it rather than against it, which is difficult when your instincts are to do far more than you actually can! It is a lesson I am gradually learning and it helps to hear from others in similar situations. Thank you 🥰

  20. can you explain the emotional gas tank ? i dont get it. whats the difference between that and cognitive gas tank ?

  21. Thank you so much for your helpful responses to cfs but I don’t understand the reference to spoons ?

  22. Thank you so much for spreading helpful info on this stuff!❤ It’s very difficult when you’re chronically ill and the people around you keep telling you that if you just move more or get out more than you’ll get better, when it’s quite the opposite. I know rest and moving as little as possible is what my body needs a lot of the time, but I have so many people that would tell me I’m “giving up” or making myself worse, when I’m really just trying to get the rest and accommodations that I’ve desperately needed for such a long time.

  23. Aha .. lol… This may help me in the end.

  24. Aha 💡 emotional spoons. I know the physical and mental but didn't think about emotional. My emotions impact my physical and mental hidden disabilities. Thank you!

  25. My problem is I feel like i have enough energy in my physial gas tank and i do chores or go out to socialise. It is afterwards that i feel wiped out with PEM. That's why i find Pacing so difficult.

  26. Aha!!! And also – ASMR… because your voice is so soothing and tingly 🤍 watching your videos simultaneously educates AND relaxes me. Thank you for being you 💜💜

  27. Do you also have anxiety?

  28. I found this video full of useful info I plan on incorporating into my daily life. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia some years back and am always relying on caffeine to fight off the fatigue and brain fog. I've been looking to make more habit changes to help me manage my chronic health conditions more effectively. You got yourself a new subscriber. I look forward to learning more from your channel.

  29. "thanks dysautonomia" 😁👍

  30. Omf I love your channel sm

  31. I really appreciate your channel. You're the only person I know who gives this kind of information.

  32. That's a great idea! I was trying to explain this to myself but couldn't get out of my abstract realm with it.

  33. I will perhaps track my gas tanks with emoji for a while to become more aware of them. 🙂

    I do a lot of things from bed bc I’m tired and it’s comfortable but I worry it’s the reason I can’t sleep at night bc that’s one of the first things they tell you not to do re: sleep hygiene. A problem I consistently run into is that once I take my night meds I’m pretty toast cognitively and with the not sleeping that’s a significant part of the day I’m not terribly useful. The time blocking video was a real game changer for me but I still end up with the over scheduled calender of doom because I’m trying to get it all done in the limited time I have. I don’t really go out anymore unless I really have to because I can’t drive so doing anything is an hour or so of the thing 2+ hours riding my bike. I even LIKE riding the bike but that just seems like such a poor trade-off of time. I guess on some level I don’t really understand accommodating myself because all I want is to be more efficient.

    I do really like your channel though. It’s the only one I turned on the bell.

  34. The gas tank is such a good model!! I'm neurodivergent and as soon as you said it I realized I have a boundless physical gas tank but tiny little cognitive and emotions gas tanks. That helps so much!

  35. Have you tried the dictation feature in the Apple apps. There’s a little microphone icon beside the spacebar where you can use speech to text, it might help to make your script writing faster and easier on less mobile days. Most people can speak 120 words per minute as opposed to typing 60 words per minute when sitting up at a desk, I’m not sure what your iPad typing speed is but it’s almost guaranteed that speech to text (dictation) is faster. The only trick is you have to learn the different commands for punctuation.

    My problem recently is learning to stop activities before I run dry and hit the wall. I’ve been chronically overdoing things to exhaustion. Last month I ended up in the er with a back spasm so bad they had to knock me out to get it to ease up. And just this morning I almost had another one because I overdid it yesterday. My brain still thinks I can keep going, but over the years of RA limited mobility life, my body doesn’t have the muscles it used to.

  36. Fantastic video! I found this so helpful. Thank you

  37. The beginning is me every day with my cat 😂😂 can't wait to watch.

  38. 3 gas tanks is so helpful! Because I can be depleted physically but have energy to do cognitive tasks. Or vice versa. Great video!

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