How To Recover Fast From Covid- 19: Here’s A Guide By DoctorVee

DoctorVee’s 6-Point Plan envisages a complete recovery from COVID-19. The integrated approach focuses on reducing inflammation in the entire body, not just one organ or system, and focuses on six important aspects:

Diet: What you eat matters. So eat right to recover faster from COVID-19.

Make the right food choices while recovering from COVID-19. 

The aim is to opt for anti-inflammatory nourishment. Natural home remedies like turmeric and black pepper (consume together to increase absorption), cinnamon (to lower blood sugars), and garlic (which is a known anti-viral) should be part of your diet. Don’t miss the anti-inflammatory powers of bitter vegetables and herbs such as bitter gourd, ginger, holy basil, kalonji, ginger, and more.

Gut health: Listen to your gut instinct. It won’t fail you!

A whopping 70 per cent of our immune system is in our gut. That’s makes taking care of gut health vital. The gut is home to good and bad bacteria, and what we eat decides which of these two will dominate the gut.

Good bacteria strengthen immunity by aiding in the fight against pathogens such as COVID-19. They also release toxins to counter the effects of the pathogens and send signals to the rest of the immune system, to mobilize an appropriate response. A healthy gut is also where 90 per cent of serotonin, the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter, is produced. This can alleviate depression.

How can you keep your gut healthy? Eat prebiotics, probiotics, good fats, and rainbow-colored fruits and veggies. And skip sugar as much as you can. Each and every day!

Sleep: Don’t let lack of sleep delay your body’s immune response and COVID recovery.

Sleep plays a vital role in immune response. Research has shown that people who are sleep deprived are not only less able to resist and fight an infection after being exposed to a virus, but also take longer to recover from it.

Lack of sleep leads the body to produce fewer proteins required to fight an infection and reduces natural killer (NK) cell activity in the body. NK cells are the immune system’s first line of defense against pathogens, and lack of sleep hits their functioning. Sleep deprivation also affects the gut by decreasing the number of good bacteria.

Put your sleep cycle right to ensure you don’t skip any corners when it comes to rest.  Get morning sunlight and exercise and try and follow a sleeptime routine. Put away all gadgets an hour before bed time, take a warm bath, and keep the temperature comfortable. A magnesium and melatonin supplement an hour before hitting the bed may also help.

Exercise: You may have recovered from COVID-19, but are you ready to get back to exercise? The six-minute walk test can tell.

The six-minute walk test may tell a recovering COVID patient if s/he is ready to exercise by unmasking hypoxia (oxygen deprivation) and checking lung capacity. It is recommended for people under the age of 60, who are fully mobile, not breathless at, rest and without comorbidities.

How? Walk six minutes and use a pulse oximeter to check oxygen saturation before and after the walk. If the saturation drops more than 3 per cent after the walk, contact your doctor immediately. This is a significant drop in oxygen level and means you are desaturating.

The test also helps check lung capacity. If a patient is able to walk 500 metres non-stop in six minutes, without experiencing breathlessness or fatigue, chances are that s/he has recovered and can resume exercise. However, being unable to walk more than 200 metres indicates the patient isn’t ready to exercise and must contact the doctor immediately.

Stress management: When in doubt, meditate it out. Meditation can help calm the mind and body, and help you feel much better amidst COVID stress.

Meditate your stress away.

Stress puts the sympathetic nervous system in overdrive. This is the body’s fight-or-flight state, and the physical response is the same for everyone: the heart pumps faster, breathing quickens, blood sugar rises, immune system is compromised, and blood supply to the digestive system is reduced.

Mediation can help calm the mind and body. It helps reduce heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, and inflammation. It also releases feel-good neurotransmitters (serotonin and dopamine) and promotes relaxation and sleep – all of these boost immunity.

Enhanced healing with supplements: Take a Vitamin D supplement or get your daily dose of the sun to take the fight to COVID-19.

Don’t skip the sunshine vitamin in the fight against COVID-19.

Vital for proper functioning of the immune system, Vitamin D is a steroid hormone made when UVB radiation from the sun hits the skin. An antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and an immune modulator, it helps the body combat COVID-19. How? It activates T-cells and macrophages that are important in the fight against pathogens. Deficiency of the vitamin has been linked to decreased lung function and can impact the body’s ability to fight off respiratory infections, a common complication with COVID-19.

To learn more, get your copy of Covid and Post-Covid Recovery: DoctorVee’s 6-Point Plan.

Note: The information and knowledge provided here is for the general education and guidance of the reader. It does not take into account any person’s individual situation and health needs and is not a substitute of the advice given by their doctors/healthcare providers.