a daily routine to help keep your body healthy, your mind happy and BOOST your immune system to deal with these challenging times.
Now is a very easy time to feel powerless. The world is locked down. People are stuck in-doors, unable to see friends and family. There is so much uncertainty and little understanding of how long this lock down will last. It is very easy at a time like this, to self-sabotage your health with binge eating and a lack of daily movement. While summer plans of relaxing on a beach abroad might be on hold this year, getting in shape and improving your health right now is more important than ever.
Everyone, no matter your age, should be following a daily routine to help keep your body healthy, your mind happy and strengthen your immune system as much as possible to deal with these challenging times. There are some things in our life that we have no choice but to feel powerless about, but there are others where we do have the power to make a change.
COVID-19 seems to have a more detrimental effect on people’s recovery from the virus, if they are obese, have diabetes or smoke, to name a few things which can all be improved with simple lifestyle changes. Reducing stress levels, exercising regularly and getting more sleep have all been shown in multiple studies to help your body be more resilient to illness and better suited to recover from being sick. You have the power to influence your health and make sure you are in fighting shape to handle whatever is thrown at you to the best of your ability.
I put together a daily to do list for my friends, family and clients at the start of lockdown and have had a lot of positive feedback, so wanted to share it online. Please follow along and share this with any loved ones you think it might help.
: Daily exercise for 30 - 60 minutes – Even without access to a gym, there are many options of exercises to do in the house, with or without equipment. There is no excuse not to train, especially now. This will strengthen your immune system, help you improve your body composition and also help you not go crazy from being stuck in the house, as you’ll get to exert yourself by exercising, which will lower stress (cortisol) levels and boost feel good endorphins post workout.
: Avoid Overtraining – This is really only applicable to people who already exercise regularly. Although regular exercise is great for your health, it’s important to try to avoid overtraining, as this could actually temporarily make you more susceptible to illness. Overtraining occurs when people are unable to properly recover from the high volume of training that they are doing. This can happen either as a result of constantly training with too high an intensity in your workouts or training too frequently throughout the days/weeks/months and accruing excessive fatigue. The other side of the coin with overtraining, is not actually related to training with too much volume or intensity in your workouts, but instead, the lack of quality rest and recovery time in your day to day life. Usually this is due to; poor quality sleep, poor nutrition, excessive and chronic day to day stress, dehydration or an underlying health issue which could be taxing the body. However, worry not, overtraining is rare with the general population, who on average don’t exercise enough throughout their week. It will be more likely to occur in athletes or fitness addicts, who push themselves to the max every workout, all year around, all while living an already hectic lifestyle. Don’t let it put you off exercise. Just remember the saying: Don’t train harder, train smarter.
: Reduce daily stress levels – When cortisol levels are constantly high all day, your body will be a lot more susceptible to illness. Decreasing our daily stress levels is therefore top of our list right now. Try to limit the news to only once a day. Don’t be constantly bombarding yourself with scary news updates every half an hour. Fear sells, whether you believe watching the news affects you or not, it does put you into a more alert, heightened sense of worry state and increases your cortisol levels. Throughout the day, try to laugh as much as you can, watch comedy, listen to music that reminds you of good times, call/video call friends and family. Do things to make you feel relaxed and happy, not stressed and scared (especially before bed, as this can disturb your sleep). Regular exercise, meditation, getting enough sleep and good nutrition will all help lower your stress levels.
: Meditate every day - Meditation is scientifically proven to lower stress levels, which will improve your immune system by a direct result, outlined above. Aim for 20 minutes a day but start with 10 minutes. Download an app like “insight timer” or “headspace”, for guided mindfulness meditation. It’s a great way to get started, but alternatively you can set a timer for 10 minutes and just focus on following your breath for that time. Follow every inhale and exhale and when you get distracted by thought, pull your attention back to your breath; it’s that simple. Don’t get frustrated by losing your focus on the breath, every time you pull your focus back, it’s like doing a bicep curl for your brain. Stick with it, you will get better over time and start to feel the benefit. If you choose to just set a timer instead of using an app, then choose an alarm that’s not too loud or intense to let you know the time’s up. Don’t pick an annoying or loud alarm to let you know the time’s up or it will ruin your relaxed feeling, post meditating.
: Get 10 minutes of sunlight as close to when you wake up as possible to enhance your circadian rhythm – Ideally get outside in your garden or out on your balcony, but if that’s not possible, even sticking your head right by the window and looking out first thing while you drink your morning coffee will give your body the signal it needs. You will get sufficient sunlight through your eyes, even on a cloudy day, to signal to the brain that it’s morning. This will sync your circadian rhythms sleep cycle for the day and as a result you should have a better night’s sleep that night. Boosting your immunity.
: Go to your garden, balcony, or pop your head out the window for some fresh air and/or sunlight everyday – This will be good for your mental state, to help ward off the cabin fever of lockdown and also to get some vitamin D, which is synthesised in the skin from sunlight and is very important for your health and immune system. Multiple studies have shown a strong link between vitamin D and immunity.
: More movement throughout your day – Even before lockdown, most of us weren’t moving enough, I think it’s safe to say that this has only gotten worse since most of us are stuck inside the house now. There is a correlation between people’s average steps taken per day and their all-cause mortality rates. Nice and simple, try walking up and down the stairs in your home until out of breath. If you don’t have stairs, then put a study box down and step up and down on it until you are out of breath. Try this a few times throughout the day to get in more activity. Keep track of how far you go or for how long and try to beat it tomorrow.
: Heat acclimation - Hyperthermic Conditioning has a host of good health and longevity benefits. The most effective way of doing this is with a sauna, but sadly with gyms all across the country closed, that’s something we can’t take advantage of right now. However, we can get some of the health benefits of the sauna and heat acclimation, but on a smaller scale, with a long really hot bath. Hyperthermic conditioning can improve your cardiac function, boost red blood cell count and increase growth hormone levels. This is achieved by increasing your core temperature for short bursts. Stay in the hot bath for as long as you can tolerate, hydrate before and during, avoid alcohol and be safe. If you want to read more, scientist Rhonda Patrick has outlined various studies on the benefits of heat acclimation in this article: https://tim.blog/2014/04/10/saunas-hyperthermic-conditioning-2/
: Cold showers – Hyopthermic Conditioning is another way you can use extreme temperatures to positively stress the body and make it stronger and better adapted to stress, through the process of hormesis. Not for the faint hearted, start by ending your regular hot shower with some tepid water and overtime decrease the temperature as you get used to it. Probably best to avoid if you have any heart problems or are already sick, as it could be too intense for the body. Just like the sauna, there are a host of health benefits to cold exposure and its cheap and easy to do at home.
: Maximise your sleep – Enhance your sleep to boost your immune system, by following a few rules before bed to get the best quality sleep:
No food or drink, except for water, 2 hours before bed (ideally try to leave out the water as well, so you are less likely to be woken up in the middle of the night needing to pee).
No TV, phone or computer for at least 30 minutes before bed, but aim for 1 hour before bed. Also try to dim the lights in the rooms you are relaxing in an hour before bed. Light exposure close to bedtime signals to the brain that the light your eyes are taking in is sunlight, tricking the mind into thinking that it’s daytime. The result is a reduction in your melatonin (sleep hormone) production and consequently a reduction in your sleep quality. Sunlight at the start of your day, when you wake up, will also help sync your circadian rhythm sleep cycle for the day and help improve your sleep at night.
Try to sleep in a cool, quiet, fully dark room. Blackout blinds, eye masks, ear plugs, heating off / fan on, could all help improve your sleep.
For more tips on better quality sleep, read my article : http://www.catalystcompletefitness.co.uk/post/top-tips-for-better-quality-sleep
: Nutrition’s link with immunity - Try to avoid excessive consumption of sugar / refined carbohydrates / processed foods / excessive alcohol, as these all weaken your body’s immune system. If the body is battling the inflammation in your gut caused by over consumption of poor-quality pro-inflammatory foods, then it is diverting finite resources away from protecting your body from new viruses, instead protecting the gut from the perceived attack of these pro-inflammatory foods and the subsequent endotoxins being produced by digestion. Instead of these immune suppressing foods, aim for good quality, whole foods and lots of water throughout your day to stay hydrated. Try to make sure you are getting some protein with each meal and lots of fruit and veg and healthy fats. To help boost your immune system, make sure you are consuming foods high in vitamin c, such as berries, oranges and broccoli and foods high in zinc such as nuts, seeds, eggs. If you are trying to improve your diet then adding some fermented probiotic foods, such as kefir, yoghurt, kimchee to your day to day diet will help to keep your gut happy and healthy.
It’s also worth mentioning the link between Obesity and systemic inflammation and the reduced immunity this creates. Studies also show that obese people respond less well to some vaccines, so on top of the fact that COVID-19 is more deadly if you are overweight. Once a vaccine is in place, it could be less effective if you are overweight, so now really is a time to focus on being honest with yourself and trying to lose some of the extra body fat that you or a loved one might be carrying.
Try to avoid binge eating, it is a lot easier to do so with food stockpiled in your house and also to do out of boredom at the moment. Hide your food supplies in draws, so they are not starting you in the face every time you walk into the kitchen. If you’re working from home at the moment, try not to work in the kitchen, as you’ll likely snack more. Something that most people won’t take into account is that if you are in the house and are less active day to day, your body needs less calories, as it is burning less calories than usual on the day to day, due to your reduced activity levels. Keep this in mind and adjust your day to day food intake accordingly, while trying to exercise regularly and after quarantine is finished you could be in better shape than before it, or on the flip side, you could be in worse shape. The choice is yours, so think carefully about your day to day actions at home. If you need some accountability start tracking your food in a food diary or food tracking app like “myfittnesspal”.
: Quit smoking/vaping – At the very least cut down, if quitting seems too much of a challenge right now. COVID-19 affects your respiratory system and smokers who contract the virus seem to get more health complications. Also giving up smoking will benefit your health in a host of other ways, so now is a great time to quit. I’ve seen a few studies showing that Nicotine seems to suppress the immune system in some way, so it might be a good idea to go cold turkey when quitting and avoid the nicotine sprays or gums if you can.
: Looking after your mental health - If you are self-isolating and not working at the moment, then it would be a great idea to do some brain training each day to keep yourself challenged mentally. This could be a cross word, Sudoku, card games, chess, video games, reading books, learning a new skill or subject that you’re unfamiliar with, or leaning a new language on a free app like “duo lingo”. Challenge yourself, it’s a great time to learn something new and the challenge of learning something new should help you feel less bored, more engaged and hopefully less depressed.
This time is yours to better yourself. On top of this, please follow all of the Government’s advice. Stay happy, stay healthy and stay positive… the rest is out of our hands.
References:
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Painter, S.D., Ovsyannikova, I.G. and Poland, G.A. (2015). The weight of obesity on the human immune response to vaccination. Vaccine, [online] 33(36), pp.4422–4429. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4547886/.
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