Day 27 Tips and Tricks for Sofa Heroes: Spoonies

Help spoonies have access to functional medicine by supporting the study by the OHC

Hi Everyone -
If you're new to the chronic illness world you've probably heard me use the term "spoonies" a lot and wonder what it means!

I mentioned it briefly in my first post but I want to dedicate this whole post to Spoonies as having this little theory in my life has allowed me to connect and feel supported by so many people with different chronic illnesses and conditions.

Read the full   Original Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino here.

The Spoon Theory describes how units of energy are represented by spoons, and how people living with chronic illness have a lot less spoons to spend on a day than a healthy person.  Spoonies understand what other spoonies are going through, and can relate to how much more difficult it is to do normal day-to-day activities.  The Spoon Theory can help friends and families understand when we're running out of spoons, or just how precious each action we take is.

An example of spoon use/cost

One example of spoon use/cost

I relate the spoon theory to Link from The Legend of Zelda and his health bank represented by hearts on the screen. A healthy person has a full 20 hearts filled to the brim, which by the end of a very very strenuous day will still have 10 full hearts where as a Spoonie starts the day with barely 3 filled hearts and lives most of their lives in the blinky danger-zone (or most of their life balancing daily tasks carefully to avoid the blinky danger-zone).

As a spoonie it's possible your energy is very hard to predict, so your spoons can change from day to day, but getting a good idea of your spoon count and costs can help you find a baseline and "Bounce the Boundaries" to work safely inside your energy envelope without causing a crash.

More from the Spoonies Community

See Art by a Spoonie for Spoonies
Stacey and Claire Spoonie Talk Facebook Page
Counting My Spoons Spoonie Blogger

If you found this blog helpful please help me raise money for The Optimum Health Clinic which is working to complete a study proving the benefits of their functional medicine protocol for people with ME/CFS so more people have access to help.

From a UK mobile you can text SOFA68 £5 to 70070

Go to Day 1 for the full table of contents