When the Sun Shines but Your Body Slows
Why warmer days lift my mood but weigh down my limbs
It is a ‘barmy’ fifteen degrees in the UK as I write this. Bright sun. Blue sky. The kind of day that quietly lifts your mood without asking permission.
I cannot currently see any of it, though.
I am sitting inside an oxygen chamber, mask in place, listening to the gentle hum of compressed air. This is my fourth session. This time, there has been a week and a half between treatments.
During that gap, the brain fog returned.
The fatigue followed.
Not dramatically, just stubbornly.
The warmer weather has lifted my spirit, but strangely, it has made my symptoms feel heavier. My limbs feel weighted. My energy has dipped again. Mentally, I feel brighter. Physically, I feel slower.
It is an odd contradiction.
Sunlight improves mental health for many of us. There is something about warm light on your face that reminds you the world is still turning. Yet, my body seems unconvinced. It moves at its own pace, indifferent to the season.
Perhaps there is a medical explanation. Temperature regulation. Autonomic dysfunction. Circulation changes. I am sure there is an official name for it somewhere.
But knowing the name does not always make the heaviness easier.
Between sessions, both the brain fog and energy levels slid back to their familiar baseline. I have had moments recently where tiredness has felt overwhelming again. The sort of fatigue that presses down rather than merely slows you.
Five years in, this rhythm is not new or any worse.
Chronic illness reshapes your sense of normal. What once felt like a crisis slowly becomes the backdrop of life. The body you keep expecting to “return” does not return. Instead, you adapt. You adjust. You live inside a new baseline.
On Monday, I recorded a podcast episode about the long-term effects of living with chronic illness. Not just physically, but psychologically. What it does to motivation. Identity. Patience. Hope.
Nearly five years of recalibration.
And, here I am again, hoping.
I have good reason for my newed hope. The previous oxygen sessions yielded noticeable results. After each treatment, the brain fog lifted. Not metaphorically or a bit. It genuinely cleared. My energy returned for a while. The world, which normally seems kind of fuzzy, sharpened at the edges.
Last time, the effect lasted a little while before fading. That is why I am sitting here today, quietly hopeful that this session might do the same.
Maybe even more.
There is still the possibility that the effects are cumulative. That something subtle is building beneath the surface. That each treatment nudges the baseline upwards by a fraction.
I find myself wondering whether the temporary clarity allows me to do slightly more, and if doing slightly more creates its own momentum. A knock-on effect. I am sure there is a clinical term for that, too.
All I know is that small windows of energy are a gift.
If oxygen therapy allows me to organise one more practical thing at home. To adjust one more energy drain. To create one more system that protects tomorrow’s strength. That matters. With an unpredictable illness, the predictability of knowing when a burst of energy might occur feels wonderful.
Recently, something as simple as getting a small table positioned at sitting height beside the sofa has made a difference. Before that, I was constantly stretching, twisting, and reaching. It sounds trivial until you live inside a body where small movements cost more than they should.
These are not dramatic victories.
They are survival strategies that work.
Warm weather also has a way of reminding you what you are missing. Everyone else seems to accelerate. Gardens are tidied. Walks are longer. Evenings stretch out.
Meanwhile, your body negotiates.
But the sun also reminds me that joy and limitation can exist together. My mood genuinely is better today. There is lightness in my thoughts even if there is heaviness in my limbs.
Both are true.
Living with long Covid often means holding two realities at once. Improvement and setback. Gratitude and frustration. Hope and weariness.
Perhaps this is what long-term illness slowly teaches you: you can feel emotionally lifted while physically slower. You can be encouraged and tired in the same hour.
The sun is shining outside this chamber.
Inside, oxygen is flowing steadily.
And somewhere between the two, I am learning patience again.
Five years in, the new norm still shifts at the edges. Perhaps my baseline will change. Perhaps oxygen therapy will move the dial in ways that are not immediately obvious.
As always, I would love to hear how you are doing. Whether the sun energises you or drains you. Whether you have been able to leave the house today or are reading this from bed.
Wherever you are, you are not alone.
We are all here alongside one another, navigating this strange in-between space of light and limitation.
And sometimes, that shared understanding is its own kind of oxygen.
Life with Long Covid is more than a few articles; it is also:
A community which you can find at www.lifewithlongcovid.co.uk
A podcast which you can access through the website or through Apple and Spotify, just search for ‘Life with Long Covid’.
I have also produced a short book that details some of my podcasts in short, easily digestible chapters. You can read it when you have the energy. It’s available on Amazon here.
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