I wish I could give this DVD more than five stars, it has been extremely helpful. If you have any problems with chronic fatigue, you might be able to do only very little, maybe as little as five minutes a day, but for me it really helped and now after few weeks I can do about 20mins, which is a great achievement. It works somehow by relaxing the body by stretching and breath exercise, bending the spine gently to release tension.
I would recommend this DVD not only to M.E/CFS patients but also to every beginner who wants a friendly yoga DVD.
I am 27yrs old and have been home with M.E/Chronic fatique syndromme for 2 years now, now in a recovery phase. I've done many things trying to get better and it can be very frustrating trying new things that do not work but this DVD is definitely one of them - it has helped a lot!
You might not appreciate this DVD if you are fit and well, but for me, this has been the only yoga I can do. There is a wonderful team of people behind it, they all had m.e. and recovered from it. I have listened to some interviews with Fiona and she has very good understanding of what it is like to be chronically exhausted and her yoga practice is very gentle and encouraging. Alex Howard who is part of the team runs a successful clinic at Harley street, seeing hundreds of people with m.e., combining nutrition, various holistic approaches - and yoga is a big part of it. He is really caring, giving many of his programmes for free online on his website, having excellent understanding of M.E. as he spend 8 years home with this condition. I find his and Fiona's approach very encouraging, as I said, I couldn't be more grateful for what they do.
What I absolutely love about this DVD that it has no special effects, sounds etc. - I see from other reviews that other people find this disappointing, well, if you do not go shopping to tescos with sunglasses as you cannot bear lights and noises, you might not understand and you might prefer some other more commercial DVD but if you want to raise your energy levels and buy a nice friendly DVD, this is the one to go for. I doesn't have models, seashore and exotic sounds, but it has two balanced yoga sessions on it, which can be divided to 4 small sessions. One of them, Fiona's part is the most simple and gentle yoga session, I was doing this one for first few weeks until I got some strength to do more.
M.E. is a very challenging illness, I am not going to say how exhausted I can feel and how difficult it can be trying to find new things that do work. For me, a breaking point was finding a really good nutritionist who has been in practice for 20 years, doing Bicom bioresonance. Then I started getting better, eating many vitamins and enzymes. Finding this DVD was another "jump" in my recovery, I clearly started having more energy, could concentrate better, I could start doing things like reading books again, which I couldn't manage before. I am not quite sure what exactly makes me better, I do many things like juicing, sprouting seeds, relaxation/hypnosis cds, so I cannot say what exactly yoga does for me but I can say that at the end of my small yoga sessions I do feel more energised and being more flexible does make me feel much better.
If you have M.E. or any other illness, I wish you all the best with your recovery, I hope that some of this information has been useful. God Bless.