First off I just want to say that fortunately if you’re young and healthy, there is no need to be overly worried for your personal health, BUT that doesn’t mean that you’re immune or completely out of the woods.
No matter your age and health status, you still want to put yourself in the best position possible from an immune function standpoint, so I’m going to be outlining exactly how to do that here!
Movement:
Gyms are closed, formal workouts with weights aren’t feasible unless you’re lucky enough to have your own personal home gym, so we’re not going to focus on what we can’t do…because what’s the point in that, we’re going to focus on what we can do.
Walking…get it! You know me, I’m a big walking guy, hit your 8-10 thousand steps daily.
This is going to be a great stress reduction tool, you’ll get some daylight exposure and as a result you’ll sleep better at night…wins all around.
Also, if your body is sore in any way for example your back, staying consistent with your 8-10k steps per day should clear it up over time, walking is the ultimate body balancer in my opinion.
It’s not the gym, it’s not physio, it’s not yoga, it’s not pilates it’s walking, we’ve been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years so your body expects it.
Now if you’re nailing your step counts and you’d still like to move more and go above and beyond, you can get some at-home workouts in. Even if you’ve got no equipment at all there is a ton of stuff you can still do…
Squats
Split squats
Plie squats
Regular Push-ups
Close grip pushups
Feet elevated pushups
Lunges
Steps ups Stairs
Triceps dips
Planks
Glute bridges
Feet elevated glute bridges
Single leg glute bridges
Leg raises
Crunches
Calf Raises
CLICK HERE to visit my YouTube channel where I demonstrate how to do a bunch of these movements.
Tons of stuff and if you have something like a suitcase or a jug of milk or a bucket full of rocks you can add resistance to any movement you want.
You can also do things like ride your bike or run, so again the point I want to drive home on the movement front is instead of focusing on what you can’t do, implement what you can do!
Nutrition:
Single ingredient whole foods baby!
They’re the most healthful, super filling, low calorie, digestion friendly and they make you feel incredible!
Examples of single ingredient whole foods…
A potato is a potato, it only contains potatoes.
A cookie on the other hand is technically not actually a food, it’s a combination of 20 or so ingredients…flour, sugar, butter etc.
Another way to think about this is to eat foods that don’t have a nutrition label on them, as a general rule those are the most healthful foods.
Calorie-wise your needs are likely going to decrease right now being that you’re going to be spending a fair bit of time indoors not moving as much as you typically do. However, the drive to eat is going to be increased because again, you’re going to be spending a lot of time indoors with the fridge 10 steps away!
This is definitely something to be aware of because you could easily put on a fair bit of weight right now, so pay close attention to your intake and if anything reduce it due to the shift in your day to day lifestyle.
Besides eating out of boredom for something to do, you also want to be aware of eating for comfort. Instead ideally find a more productive way to provide yourself with that comfort, for example you can call a family member and have a good chat, curl up on the couch and dig into a good book or whatever provides you with that warm feeling.
Now it’s also worth mentioning that digestion is extremely important and very closely linked with immune function meaning, you want to be sure you’re digesting the foods you’re eating super well because the small intestine (heavily involved in digestion) has the highest density of immune cells in the entire body, so you want to keep that thing functioning at full capacity!
This is one of the reasons why nutrition is such a powerful tool in folks with autoimmune disease. I’ve had quite a few clients put their autoimmune conditions into complete remission just by shifting their nutrition and of course paying attention to their movement, sleep and stress management habits as well.
Sleep:
Essentially everyone falls in the 7-9 hour per night range.
Something to take notice of right now is how much light exposure you’re getting on the daily because light entering your eye is the primary input letting your body know what time of day it is.
So for example, if you were to stay inside all day and not get much if any light in your eyes, it’s probably going to be hard to fall asleep that night because you didn’t give your body the signal of daytime, so it throws off your circadian rhythm/body clock.
So even if you don’t get your steps in, be sure to at least sit outside for a bit so you can keep your body clock on track which will help you sleep at night. The earlier in the day you can get your light exposure the better, so ideally before noon if possible.
Also getting adequate daylight exposure actually minimizes the negative impacts of bright light via your phone, television or computer later in the day. You still want to limit blue light exposure via your devices at night however, they’re going to impact you less in the evening if you get outside for 20-30 minutes earlier in the day.
Reading a good ol’ fashioned paperback book before bed is an awesome way to wind down, you don’t get any blue light exposure that may keep you up and I don’t know about you, but my head starts to bob after a page or two so reading pre-bed sets me up for an awesome sleep!
*It takes me about a year to get through a book these days ;)
If you experience a bit of busy brain, keeping a little pen and notepad next to your bed and doing some writing can be highly conducive to quality sleep. This is something I’ve implemented with plenty of my clients with GREAT success. The point here isn’t to think a lot, it doesn’t even matter if what you write is legible or even makes sense…just get it out, whatever you happen to be feeling!
You can think about it like taking out the garbage or going to bathroom mentally and emotionally. It’s pretty hard to fall asleep if you need to pee right, so you hit the bathroom and then you can clear the way for a restful sleep.
Stress Management:
I’ve said this before and I’ll mention it again, when we sort out our nutrition, movement and sleep habits, that often handles the stress management side of things quite well however…we are in a bit of a unique situation here so I think additional stress management strategies could be super useful.
1. Monitor your news and social media time. I don’t think watching or having the news on 24/7 is a good idea, right now or ever really. Also take note of how you feel after not having used social for say 3, 4 or 5 hours vs. checking it quite frequently. You definitely want to stay informed, however informed is very much different than reading all sorts of niche articles, conspiracy theories and just overdoing that stuff in general.
2. Stay connected with friends and family via text, phone calls, facetime, skype etc. Fortunately we have amazing technology at our fingertips right now that can keep us connected without actually being physically in the same place, it’s incredible.
3. Learn. Dive into a topic that you’re curious about…that isn’t coronavirus haha! Humans need purpose and so if you’re not working right now, learning something new can provide you with that purpose that we all crave. Also it just feels good to learn new things, it’s incredibly healthy and not to mention…you’ll action sleep better at night because learning taxes the brain in a good way that actually makes you tired. If you think about the last time you did a weekend long seminar or something like it, you likely slept like a baby because it’s incredibly energy intensive to learn all day long.
4. Do that thing…whatever just popped into your mind, that! It might be learn a new language, it might be start painting again, drawing or writing. Whatever you think you haven’t had enough time for you’ve got it now, so fire something up and it’ll fill that purpose bucket along with having you feel creative which is a bonus!
5. Let’s be honest, Netflix can be a great stress management tool too, so I’ve got a couple recommendations for ya. Comedy, we need a good laugh right now so watching some stand-up would be awesome as a bit of a break from the seriousness, a funny movie works too.
If you’re into documentaries I just watched one called ‘Qball’ which is really good, it’s about a basketball program in San Quinten maximum security prison that the Golden State Warriors are involved in, highly recommend!
Formula 1: Drive To Survive. Incredible series…I’ve never watched a Formula 1 race in my life and I absolutely crushed this series, it was amazing.
Last recommendation, Cuba and the Cameraman. This is a great documentary about Cuba’s history and Fidel Castro, but what I loved most about it was how they profiled specific people, especially these 3 super cute Cuban brothers that worked on their farm well into their 90’s I believe…awesome watch!
I think the key right now is to focus on what you can do vs. what you can’t do and use this time to potentially better yourself, learn and grow if you’d like.
I feel like this experience is already showing us just how connected we are, the thought of provinces, states and countries is essentially just an idea at this point.
Humans are incredible and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that we’re going to learn from this and come out of the other end better off and with more insight across the board.
I’ve been doing a lot of research on the coronavirus over the last week and a half I’ve got to say I feel a lot better about our situation today than I did 2 weeks ago, so things are looking up assuming we all continue to play our part and implement social and physical distancing.
I hope you implement these ideas and tips to gain as much as possible from this experience as you can not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well :)
