Learning to feel tired: A learning trajectory towards chronic fatigue, 2018, Lenaert et al.

Individuals suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy controls watched a series of 30s video-clips previously selected to induce fatigue (e.g., a person carrying home heavy grocery bags), anxiety, or relaxation. Participants received the instruction to imagine themselves in that situation (e.g., “imagine yourself doing your shopping at the supermarket and then carrying home heavy bags”). Results showed that participants reported higher levels of fatigue after having imagined a fatiguing situation, compared with an anxiety provoking or relaxing situation. Although this effect was found in both groups, individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome reported higher levels of fatigue than controls. This study demonstrates that observing an effortful task while merely forming a mental image of performing that task may be sufficient to provoke fatigue.
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Uh, guess what... this is the basis of all drama. You see characters on stage or in a film and you empathize with them. You feel their joy, their suffering, and, in this case, their fatigue. The more you can personally relate to their experience, the more you will empathize. It is not startling to discover that people with a fatiguing illness relate to, empathize with and "feel" the depictions of fatigue in others more strongly than healthier people might.

Another example of this is in contagious yawning. I suspect nearly everyone has experienced this. You see someone yawn and you can not help but yawn yourself. In studies, the people who contagiously yawned the most easily were the people who were rated to have the highest empathy.
 
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Blueskytoo said:
But healthy people never actually stop to consider all the steps that are necessary to achieve something they see as easy and everyday because they’re simply focused on the activity itself. And to them it is easy - the activity is what’s important to them. But we have to focus on everything else because, quite often, the actual activity is the least exhausting part of the entire process - it’s the preparation and completion parts that cause us the issues. And no one who doesn’t have to consider that, unlike patients and their family member and friends who see what this costs us every day, understands that.
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This is a really excellent point, and I'm saving your post for later reference! :)
 
Blueskytoo said:
In principle, of course, this is sensible advice for someone without ME, but I told him it would be too exhausting for me. He looked at me a little strangely and asked me why, when I didn’t have to do a lot, I could just swim for ten minutes or so maybe three times a week until I got stronger and fitter. So I had to explain to him exactly what “going swimming” involves for someone with limited energy.
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Some docs ask this kind of thing out of ignorance but I am equally sure that the more experienced ones ask this sort of thing in this sort of way deliberately. It's one way of working out if you're being truthful and how badly impaired you are. If you weren't living with, or living with someone with ME, then you wouldn't know this.

In some ways this is a lot fairer than the WCA assessment (UK benefits test). Unfortunately, it doesn't take into account cognitive problems that might prevent the patient from giving an accurate picture of the problems they experience. Especially when they've been put on the spot with an unexpected question requiring a detailed answer.
 
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