The hardest day in a crash is often the day it gets better

The lowest point is not the most dangerous day in a crash. It is the morning after, when you wake up and notice: today is easier. On that day two things come together that do not fit together. Your body needs rest more than at any other moment, and the mental strength you would need for that was used up during the crash. That is what this article is about.

The day it gets easier

You wake up with a little more energy. The symptoms feel lighter, maybe you slept better, there is some clarity in your head again. After days in which nothing but lying down was possible, that feels like relief. And of course you want to use this energy. Finally a shower. So much has been left undone, and that weighs on you too. Finally some fresh air. To be a little bit yourself again.

It is such an understandable reaction to days in which you felt at the mercy of the situation. The wish to do something again is the wish to be able to act again. And that is exactly why it is so hard to slow down.

What your body really needs on this day

A crash is an enormous effort for the body. Energy production in the cells is severely disturbed, the nervous system and the metabolism are out of balance. When things get easier, that is not the end of the work but the beginning of recovery. The body now has to repair what the crash cost, and for that it needs a great deal of capacity. Capacity that is not available for laundry, conversations or walks.

And there is something else. The first strength that comes back is often not real. In my book I describe the push-crash spiral. When actual cellular energy is missing, the body falls back on adrenaline and cortisol. They make you alert and capable for a short while, and the real exhaustion is no longer felt. This happens to me often during a crash, especially in the evening, when I feel stronger than I did all day. Adrenaline pretends there is energy that does not exist. So anyone who gets going again on the first better day is practically inviting the next crash.

Why we start anyway

We know all of this. Anyone who has lived with ME/CFS for a while knows the push-crash cycle, knows the baseline, knows the rule not to go over the limit on good days. And it still happens. Why?

Because mental strength is not a permanent state but a supply. In the first two or three days of a crash it is still there: you know this is temporary, you stay calm, you look after yourself. Yet every further day draws on it. By the third or fourth day the supply is empty. Then comes the point where you think: I cannot take this any longer.

And it is in exactly that state that the better days eventually arrive. The decision whether to rest or to get going is not made with full willpower, but precisely when willpower is used up. That is the real reason why these days are the hardest. The body asks for the most discipline at the moment when the least of it is left.

Borrowed mental strength

During a crash, when nothing works any more and your own supply is empty, strength can come from outside. Not as a motivational phrase, but in a very practical way. A person you are allowed to tell that you cannot go on, without them offering tips or wanting to take you to a doctor. A routine that takes the decision away from you because it runs anyway. Reminders of what you have already managed, an old video, a photo, a sentence. Sometimes I watch documentaries about elite athletes or about other people who need enormous willpower to reach their goal. This borrowed strength helps to get through the hard days.

And the comparison is not far-fetched. People with ME/CFS, Long Covid or Post-Vac summon exactly this strength every single day. We are taken to our limit and keep going anyway. Getting up, showering, eating. The result looks smaller, yet what it costs is comparable.

On the easier days this tips over. The same borrowed strength that carries you through a crash now tends to motivate too much. Anyone who has just been held up by athletes or by what they have already achieved will also want to get something done on the day when something is possible again. That is exactly what is counterproductive. On this day you do not need motivation, you need permission to stay lying down. The strength that counts now is the strength to do nothing although you could.

The next two or three days

Whether the crash is over or starts again is decided in the days after the first better morning. Three things help to carry them.

If only it were as easy to do as it is to write. Yet these are exactly the days that decide whether the push-crash cycle is interrupted. Not at the lowest point, where we are usually forced to act “properly” anyway. It is the first day on which something would be possible again.

When everything surfaces in a crash

In a crash, everything we usually distract ourselves with falls away. And that is exactly when what we carry around all year comes up: old hurts, grief, relationships that did not end well. A single sentence can make the whole backpack ten times heavier. How I deal with that, and a small exercise for looking at the backpack from a distance, I share in episode 73 of my podcast Tidal Faces, recorded in the middle of a crash. One note: it is about old hurts. If you are not doing well emotionally right now, listen to it on another day.

For the hard moments

In a crash we need quick measures, and afterwards time to process what happened. You will find both in the SOS Crash Guide: five steps for the crash and five steps for the time after. Free, for the screen and for printing, so you can read it when remembering and deciding are too much again.

📖 More in my book

In Beyond Survival you will find the complete crash management (chapter 2): how to tell a crash, a dip and an adjustment phase apart, what helps during a crash and how to find your way back into your baseline afterwards. And in chapter 4 the push-crash spiral, which explains why the first strength after a crash feels so real when it is not.