Let’s talk about what we CAN do to support our bodies through COVID-19. Most of the COVID-19 prevention strategies coming from mainstream sources are centered around social distancing and disinfecting (i.e.: avoidance). These measures are important. However, it’s also important to fortify our bodies with health promoting habits that help build resiliency. The more resilient we are, the more resistant we’ll be to disease in general. The idea that avoidance is all we can do is disempowering.
A research article came out recently that highlighted several diet and lifestyle factors that help protect against a severe case of COVID-19. One of the serious aspects of COVID-19 is the runaway inflammation it can cause. If your baseline inflammatory burden is high, there may be more risk for serious complications. Given that, it makes sense to work on lowering inflammation to get yourself in a better starting place should you become infected.
Here are some of the habits discussed in the research article. As many places start to re-open, these habits are more important than ever to help build a strong foundation in your body so it’s more able to successfully protect you. You’ll notice that all the habits below help lower inflammation.
Diet and Lifestyle Habits to Build Resiliency
1. Sleep: Sleep helps support your immune response and acts as an anti-inflammatory whereas lack of sleep increases inflammation and decreases immune function. Sleep, and enough of it, is critical for good health. It's recommended to give yourself a 8-9 hour sleep opportunity window each night. That means the time you go to bed (with the lights out!) is 8-9 hours before the time you need to get up the next morning. Check out my blog post for tips on getting good sleep.
2. Stress Management: Stress creates inflammation and disturbs the immune response. We can’t eliminate stress, but we can change how we relate to it and use coping strategies to help get us through hard times. Deep breathing, meditation, yoga, being in nature, using mantras, exercise, etc. are all stress management techniques to help support your resilience. If you missed my last newsletter with stress management tips, you can access it here or shoot me an email and I’ll resend it to you!
3. Balance Your Blood Sugar: Having unstable blood sugar creates inflammation in the body. Blood sugar fluctuates throughout the day but should stay within a fairly narrow range. Relying heavily on simple carbohydrates and skimping on protein, healthy fat, and fiber will cause blood sugar to fluctuate outside of this range with bigger peaks and dips. These bigger fluctuations contribute to inflammation. Simple carbohydrates are things like sugar, flours, and refined grains. These are found in abundance in processed foods which include things like desserts (cakes, cookies, pies, candies, etc.), granola bars, packaged cereals, crackers, pasta, juices, soda (note: diet soda can actually be worse for you than the real thing), sweetened yogurts, pancakes, waffles, muffins, bagels, most breads, etc. Each time you eat make sure your meal or snack includes quality protein, healthy fat, and fiber to help keep blood sugar stable.
4. Anti-Inflammatory Diet: Eat an anti-inflammatory diet rich in colorful vegetables and fruits, fiber, quality protein (grass fed/organic meats if possible), healthy fats (like extra virgin olive oil, avocados, olives, nuts, and seeds), with moderate complex (opposed to simple) carbohydrates (things like starchy vegetables like winter squash and sweet potatoes, legumes/beans, and whole grains (if tolerated and in moderation). The fewer inflammatory foods you include in your diet, the more you can reduce your overall inflammatory burden. Inflammatory foods include “junk” foods, everything listed in number 3 above, and foods with a long list of ingredients. The closer a food is to its original form, the better.
5. Improve Your Gut Health: From various pathogens, to dysbiosis, to leaky gut, to compromised digestion, the gut can be a huge source of inflammation and our overall health often tracks back to dysfunction in the gut. The microbiome (the community of bugs living in your gut) needs a variety of fiber-rich and colorful plant foods to be healthy. Switching to an anti-inflammatory diet (see #4) with an abundance of veggies and fruits (especially veggies) and other plant-based foods (like nuts, seeds, legumes) will also support a healthy microbiome. You may want to do a gut test to see what resilience boosting opportunities there are for you in that area.
All of the above are addressed in my private sessions with clients. If you need support in any of these areas, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
