The infection ends and the tiredness doesn't. Three weeks after COVID or a bad flu you're back at work, technically recovered, and hollow — flat by 3 pm, foggy, sleeping ten hours and waking unrested, a body that feels like it's running on half a battery. Doctors call it post-viral fatigue. People I see in Cannes call it "I'm not myself yet."

Reiki doesn't treat post-viral fatigue; nothing external does, and the honest answer from medicine is that it resolves with time and rest. What sessions do is make the rest real. Post-viral bodies often can't rest properly — the nervous system has been through an illness and is still on alert — and a session gets it to stand down long enough for the repair to happen.

What post-viral fatigue actually is

An illness is a threat, and the body treats it like one. The alert system runs high throughout, and it doesn't always come down when the virus is gone. So you're left with a body that's no longer sick but still braced — poor sleep, a heart that races on the stairs, brain fog, exhaustion out of proportion to what you did. The repair the body needs happens in the parasympathetic state, and that state is exactly what a braced system can't enter.

What sessions do

Forty-five minutes, lying down, fully clothed, at your home — post-viral bodies shouldn't be travelling anyway. Hands resting lightly on the body. Nothing asked. Most people are asleep within minutes; post-viral fatigue makes that easy. What people describe afterwards is sleep that night that finally feels like sleep, and a day after that has a little more in it.

Mandana, a client, wrote to me after a session that she hadn't felt so active since she got sick. Her words: it felt like her energy had been restored. I don't claim to have restored anything. I think her body finally had an hour where it could stop bracing and start repairing, and the difference showed the next day.

Pacing, honestly

The mistake nearly everyone makes with post-viral fatigue is doing too much on a good day and paying for it for three. Sessions help with this in an unexpected way: an hour of enforced stillness once a week is an hour you can't overdo. Four over a month — The Renewal — gives the body four guaranteed rests, at a time when it's hard to make yourself take them.

Where the doctor is

If fatigue is severe, lasting beyond two or three months, or comes with breathlessness, chest pain, or a racing heart at rest — doctor. Post-viral conditions sometimes need medical management, and I'm not it. Sessions sit alongside whatever your doctor does, for the rest and the settling. That's the right order and I'll say so before we book.

What people tell me in the second week

The first session is usually sleep — most post-viral bodies fall asleep on the table within minutes and stay there. The second, a week later, is where people start to notice the daytime. "I made it to 5 pm before the wall." "I walked to the boulangerie and didn't need to sit down." Small, honest markers. I'd rather you tracked those than waited for a dramatic morning; post-viral recovery is a slope, not a switch, and the slope steepens when the body is resting properly between efforts.

FAQ

Can Reiki help with fatigue after COVID or flu? It helps a body that's still braced after an illness to rest properly, which is what post-viral recovery needs. One client said she hadn't felt so active since she got sick. It's complementary — alongside your doctor, never instead.

How long does post-viral fatigue last? Usually a few weeks; sometimes two or three months. If it's severe or lasting longer, see a doctor.

Should I have Reiki at home when recovering from illness? Yes. Post-viral bodies shouldn't be travelling. I come to you; you lie down; you don't have to do anything.

If you're recovered but not yourself

Message me on WhatsApp. One session, €180, or four over a month, €640, at your home. If anything you describe needs a doctor first, I'll tell you.