Here are some health tips that can help your family stave off the Coronavirus.
#1 - Stay Calm
Of my list of helpful tips, this is the most important. Studies show that worrying increases stress which in turn weakens your immune system and makes you more susceptible to illnesses. Excessive worrying can be combated by thinking and doing other things rather than being glued to the radio or TV. Zeroing in on every word about the thing that makes you worried. Replace anxiety by reading a good book, engaging in a hobby, gardening, or putting puzzles together. In this day and age, you can even use your computer to play interactive games like chess, backgammon cards, etc. When my mother relocated south one of the ways that we stayed in touch was to play scrabble together on the computer. The key is to find some way to distract you from sitting around and worrying.
#2 Exercise
Exercise is the number one way to keep yourself healthy and strong, and it does more. When you exercise your body’s ability to fight off illness increases. (Think of exercise like an invisible force field that stops the disease from entering your body.) Exercise comes primarily in three forms: mental, physical and cardiovascular. When exercising try to concentrate on all three as a deficiency in one can compromise the other two. Mental exercise can consist of board games like cards, checkers and puzzles; physical exercises can consist of things like push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and calf raises ( keep it simple); cardio exercises can be creative and fun. If you own a home with a basement or second floor, for example, you can get a great cardio workout by walking up and down the stair for ten to fifteen minutes. Another simple way to get a cardio workout is to turn on a radio or CD player and dance for fifteen minutes. This is not the time to be self-absorbed, make your kids exercise also by practicing. Karate exercises will give them the benefit of all three exercise groups: mental, physical and cardio plus it will keep their skills up for when we can have the tournament.
#3 - Rest
Rest and sleep are the ways that our bodies rejuvenate and replace lost energy. It is something that we do naturally approximately every sixteen hours. Studies show that lack of rest, like stress, makes you vulnerable to disease and illness. Here are three easy ways that you can re-energize your mind and body:
A: Take a ten-minute nap - According to a study done by the “Sleep Research Society” ten-minute naps came in first place for benefits received in a test of five, ten, twenty and thirty minutes nap times. Five minutes proved not enough, and twenty and thirty minutes triggered something called sleep inertia that hard to focus feeling that we have after just waking up. The ten-minute nap produced immediate improvements in all outcome measures (including sleep latency, subjective sleepiness, fatigue, vigor, and cognitive performance) with some benefits maintained for as long as 155 minutes.
B: Meditate – Meditating is not as hard as one would think, all you need is a quiet place. It can be done sitting or lying down. Here is how you can do it:
Lay down on a sofa or bed and close your eyes
Concentrate on you breathing
Breath into the count of four and out to the count of four
As you breathe in imaging that your breath has a luminous glow that relaxes your body when it comes into contact with it.
Mentally follow your breath as it passes through five parts of your body one at a time relaxing it: your left leg, and arm; your right leg and arm; and your back and shoulders.
Make a conscious effort to let all of the tension out of these areas as your breath passes through them.
Remain in a state of deep relaxation for about three or four minutes and then slowly reverse the process bringing your body back to full alertness.
C: Deep breathing exercises – Deep breathing exercises are an easy way to release tension from the body and doesn’t take more than a minute to do. Unlike meditating though you don’t need to close your eyes or think of your breath as a luminous glow. You do it by inhaling and exhaling slowly and deeply for one minute. What this exercise does is carries oxygen to the muscles consciously and efficiently which gives them energy and vigor.
additional preventive step that can be taken are:
Wear long-sleeve shirts. The sleeve can be used to open doors, hold handrails, etc.
Don’t bump elbows (elbows are what everyone is sneezing and coughing into), instead avoid contacting others.
Have your children change the clothing they have been coughing and sneezing into and wash their hands regularly and face twice a day.
Keep tissue paper available in your car and home. Sneezing into tissue paper is safer than sneezing into your sleeve because you can throw it away.
Carry a handkerchief with you to open doors.
If you’re on the road and have an emergency bathroom situation where you have to sit on the toilet use the hand towel paper and soap to wash the seat and place toilet paper on it before you sit down, and remember to use toilet paper or your sleeve to flush the toilet and let yourself out.