Mindfulness-Based Approaches to Fatigue Management

Fatigue can profoundly affect how people live, work, move, relate to others and participate in everyday life. It is a common and often disabling feature of many long-term health conditions, including Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Long Covid, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, functional neurological disorder and fibromyalgia.

For people living with persistent and complex fatigue, self-management can be challenging. It may involve adjusting expectations, changing familiar patterns of activity, finding a different relationship with rest and activity, and adapting to changes in identity, roles and abilities. Alongside the symptoms themselves, people may also experience uncertainty, stigma and misunderstanding.

What is covered?

This one-day online workshop explores how mindfulness can offer a compassionate and practical approach to some of these challenges.

The approach has been developed collaboratively with people living with fatigue within NHS services. Drawing on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), the programme has been adapted to recognise the particular needs and experiences of people living with significant and fluctuating fatigue.

The workshop will explore not only how mindfulness practices can be adapted, but also consider specific intentions in mindfulness programmes including approaches to movement, rest, activity and participation. We will consider what it means to practise mindfulness when energy and capacity are limited or unpredictable.

What's the format?

The workshop will combine accessible teaching and discussion with experiential mindfulness practices.

There will be opportunities to reflect on the practices and concepts in small groups and to consider how the material relates to your own experience and/or professional work.

You are invited to come as you are. There is no expectation that you will participate in every practice or activity. The day will encourage awareness of your own energy, capacity and self-management, alongside consideration of how we can create safer and more inclusive mindfulness spaces for people living with fatigue.

The session will be recorded, so that you can return to the material afterwards and pace your engagement with the workshop according to your own needs.

Who is this for?

The workshop is intended for:

• Mindfulness teachers and trainees.
• Therapists and other health professionals working with people experiencing persistent or complex fatigue.
• People living with ME/CFS, Long Covid and other fatiguing conditions who are interested in mindfulness-based approaches.
• Others with an interest in developing more compassionate and accessible approaches to mindfulness and fatigue.

No previous experience of mindfulness teaching is required.

Where?

The workshop will be online, and you will receive your link after you have booked.

The facilitator

Fiona Mckechnie

Fiona has over 35 years' experience of meditation and yoga and completed an MSc in Mindfulness-Based Approaches at Bangor University in 2016. She is a mindfulness supervisor and trainer and is currently Joint Service Lead for the Bristol NHS Foundation Trust ME/CFS Service.

She has worked in NHS and independent ME/CFS services since 1998 and is a Trustee of the British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS (BACME).Fiona has several publications including Mindfulness based therapy for fatigue Mckechnie 2023 and chapters in Occupational Therapists guide to sleep 2015(ed Brown and Green, Jessica Kinglesy publications and in The Palgrave Handbook of Third-Wave Psychotherapies. She was contributor to and editor of British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS (BACME) therapy Guide 2015 and 2024

She was a contributor to, and editor of, the British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS (BACME) Therapy Guide (2015 and 2024).

Certificate

If you would like a certificate of attendance, you can request this after the event.

Booking

The cost of this workshop is £75. We also offer a choice of two other options:

£100 – Supporting rate. You can support other participants to attend who are on a low income.

£50 – Supported rate, if you are on a low income and can’t afford the basic rate.

As part of our equity, diversity and inclusion policy, we also have a limited number of concessionary tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis. These are for people who are facing acute financial hardship and who would otherwise not be able to attend. To request a concession ticket please email spft.smc@nhs.net.

We are striving to make our courses accessible for all. If you have additional needs or learning styles, please let us know so we can support you.

You can book here.