There’s an in-joke among chronically ill people, and it always has the same punchline: “Have you tried yoga?”

Because, no matter what ails us, there’s a certain kind of able-bodied jerk who can’t resist offering unsolicited advice. Even when they’ve just met us. Even when our diseases are complex, dynamic and poorly understood. Even when we’ve seen every medical specialist in the land.

Nah – yoga’ll fix it.

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It’s touching, in a way. The innocent assumption that something like yoga – or vitamins, or essential oils – can cure all is a lovely one. But it can only be held by people with essentially healthy bodies; people who’ve never been chronically sick. The kind of sick where “Get well soon” doesn’t apply because there is no “well” to look forward to – only managing symptoms and crafting a life around various levels of pain, immobility and fatigue.

That’s what I think when I’m feeling charitable. When I’m punchy, I’m appalled. The audacity of the wellness zealot! To believe they know my body better than I do, better than the collective medical establishment! To think that WE HAVEN’T ALL TRIED YOGA ALREADY, WELLNESS KAREN! And, yes, sometimes it’s nice if we have the energy, and child’s pose is always an option, but it’s not a magic bullet.

I was diagnosed with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) just before my 30th birthday. The first specialist I saw warned, “There will be a lot of people trying to sell you a lot of expensive things now.” And he was right.

The kind of illness I have – with no identified cure and no established treatment protocols – tends to attract the grift-y end of the Wellness Industrial Complex. My algorithm is full of pills and tinctures and gadgets promising to banish my fatigue for the low, low price of more than I can sustainably afford. There’s an infinite amount of bullshit “cures” out there. An infinite number of ways to say, “Have you tried yoga?”

For a long time, this turned me off the idea of “wellness” altogether. After all, wasn’t wellness just a bizarro-world version of my own health struggles? An endless round of specialist appointments and new protocols and variables to measure and pills to take – fuelled by hope and out-of-pocket gap payments? If wellness was merely “healing the healthy”, what did it have to offer me?

I’ve lived in this sick body for a long time now, and I’m a little less reflexively cynical, a little more open to the nebulous world of wellness. I take advice from credentialled experts and fellow sickos, I try out protocols and treatments, I keep what works and chuck the rest.

I have a standing appointment with a myotherapist and one with a clinical Pilates instructor. I take regular infrared saunas, I do contrast water therapy when I can. Between them, these things can help ease muscle pain, keep my joints working and improve mobility. I take magnesium and curcumin and vitamin D supplements on my doctor's advice, along with a daily handful of prescription drugs.

I do all of this, because they’re the things that happen to work for me. And then I shut up about it until someone asks.

This story is part of Broadsheet’s special Wellness Issue, which explores what it means to feel good in 2025.