Here in London the panic over Coronavirus is picking up and probably going to explode. I had to step in while travelling on the tube the other day to help a Chinese woman who was getting abused by some idiot bloke. As someone who enjoys statistics the panic and perception of the virus over the facts is a little baffling but that is a topic for another day. So What Can You DO?

 

Primarily this is an issue of your immune system being as strong as it could be alongside minimising your chances of contracting it. Make sure you read to the end on transmission as the last point no one is talking about. 

 

1) Maximising Your Immune System –

 

So when it comes to maximising your own immune power and ability to withstand this or any infection then you can do a few things.

 

Stop Drinking – The  liver is up at the top of the list for powering your immune system so why would you waste its time and power in having to deal with alcohol? If you are serious about Corona then stop drinking. This irony wasn’t lost on me as the guy abusing the girl on the underground was of course drunk.

 

Cut Out Sensitive Foods – If you know you have mild irritations to foods or food groups then now would be the time to cut them out. Eating foods that irritate your body can cause minor to serious immune function impairment. The most common are wheat, dairy and gluten but may also include eggs, nuts and fish. The only thing to worry about with food irritants is if they apply to you. Therefore, if you know certain foods affect you negatively, replace them with a better option.

 

Give The Body A Full Nutrient Profile – With the irritants taken out of your environment your next job is to make sure you are giving the body all that it needs from food. While great debate exists on what that means, good advice still doesn’t fall far from ensuring you are eating the full nutrient profile of your daily vitamin and mineral needs. My favourite counting app for this is Cronometer which I used for the various “All your nutrients in one day” meal plans I have posted here before such as this one>>.  

 

This is a level above just eating fruit and veg or getting your greens. If you are that worried about corona then this should be the kind of level you are raising your behaviour to. It is also great to do if you are a just trying to be healthier.

 

Eat Enough Calories – Your body needs food to energise you and to run its system at full power. This is not the time to be under eating to any great extent or losing fat really quickly. While fat loss is great and being at the right BMI range is linked to a whole host of long term health benefits in the short term under eating slightly reduces your immune function. The one exception to this is if you simply cut out a lot of food irritants and junk food while reducing your food intake. In this case you will feel much better and be stronger than before. However, if you were to stick to those same new foods but eat at the top of your calorie intake threshold (the point just before gaining fat) you will max out your immune system to its best.

 

Support the Digestive Tract – The digestive tract is where your immune system starts and a powerful digestive system can transform how you respond to any attack on your body. Support can come in many forms, heavier doses of pro-biotics (using a bottle over a shorter time period) can give immediate help as does taking other supplements to support the mucosal barrier, e.g. L-Glutamine. Perhaps the biggest thing you can do is to remove sensitive foods as described above as the gut quickly regenerates but you need to remove the stressors for it to help.

 

Sleep – The body restores itself during sleep, it is the time the body can fight infections, rebuild the digestive track and maximise health within the body. The two important elements of sleep are getting to bed early enough to be in sync with your daily hormone cycles and then sleep for enough time, ideally 7.5 – 8 hours. This was covered in the book Why We Sleep Which I reviewed here>>>

 

Reduce Stress – Anything that comes under the term stress has the ability to engage your fight or flight response which therefore takes away energy from the Parasympathetic side of your nervous system, which does the health fighting bit for you. Stress includes obvious arguments and worry etc but also includes things such as overly vigorous exercise, environmental or chemical irritants and things such as low blood sugar.

 

Stop Smoking – I put this at the end because it is so obvious. A respiratory affecting virus and you are still smoking. That is not the best idea obviously but I also understand the problems people have with giving it up. However, thousands upon thousands of people just like you stop smoking every single day, just like that and without even knowing how they did it. They just stop! Maybe try Allen Carr ‘s Book – Easy way To Give Up Smoking, I have bought it for five people over the years and three gave up!!!

 

2) Minimising Transmission –

 

The above information is about maximising your immune system, If you were to focus on all the above things you would be feeling so great you wouldn’t even be thinking about the virus. When it comes to minimising transmission there are two things you can do outside of locking yourself in a cave and generally feeling miserable because you are so bored and isolated.

 

Wash Your Hands – Our PM Boris has been all over the TV telling us to wash our hands and so forth. I haven’t much to add to this except washing your hands like most people do and washing your hands like medical workers do is not the same thing. Try out the techniques they use which can be seen here >>>

 

Nasal Breathing – The other way to catch a virus is through airborne particles. The literature on face masks shows it is a long way from being 100% effective (read here>>>). However, mother nature comes with a natural virus defence in Nitric Oxide (NO). We produce this when we are breathing through our noses. While obviously no studies have been done on Coronavirus itself, it is part of the same virus type as the flu which has been shown to be inhibited by Nitric Oxide (Read more here>>>). This means if you are out in public spaces breathing through your nose you should minimise the potential for catching the virus via airborne transmission. 

 

The effect of Nitric Oxide is one of the benefits of Butekyo Breathing which I have been practising for many years and discussed in videos such as this one here>>>

 

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Photo – Random Coronavirus type themed photo off Unsplash thanks to CDC and Portuguese Gravity.

 

 

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