Everyone that has trained seriously, and for a long enough period of time, knows how important recovery is in terms of progress.
Those with a chronic illness have a steeper hill to climb when it comes to recovery. It's important to remember that training is stress to your body - interpreted the same as a stressful exam, breakup with an ex, or overdo bills. Your body cannot differentiate, no matter how much you ENJOY training.
I get asked every now and then by others with autoimmune diseases what tips I can provide to help them recover better. The short answer - there is no magic pill. But I have a feeling this list will apply to everyone reading this. But I do want you to realize, if you have an autoimmune disease, your margin for error is extremely small.
First step- You must sleep 8+ hours per night.
If you’re not doing that, you’ll be hard pressed to keep yourself healthy, let alone making progress in training.
Second step- You have to eat well.
Avoid foods that cause inflammation (take an MRT or food allergy test if you’re not sure what those foods are for you - a blood test, not a saliva test.)
Third step- Organize your life so that stress doesn’t pile up.
Putting things off or doing shit that I hate are easy ways that I get stressed out. It may take some time to offload tasks or build systems into your life that allow you to automize certain things, but having the discipline to do it now will pay off in the future.
Fourth and finally, find recovery modalities that help.
Deep tissue massage and floating (sensory deprivation tanks) are my go to. If there is any type of quick fix, it's these. But understand if you don't take care of 1-3, you're fucked.
Speaking of pills, a few things I've found helpful over the years, but please recognize I'm not a doctor and I'm not advocating any of this...
Morning - Vitamin D and Vitamin K
Evening - ZMA
I will also use BPC and Cortisolv in times of high stress, but again, I cannot recommend them for multiple reasons. Do your research. Talk to your doctor.
