How I survived, Then Thrived After Covid-19
Dear Friend,
I've got great news for you, and to be honest, I'm so compelled to share it because, still, as what I can only say is a head-scratcher, I don't hear our elected representatives or health officials remind us, besides considering vaccinations and practicing safety, there's something else that you and I can do for ourselves and for the people we love and care about, to empower us and protect ourselves, and that's to support our immune system, a topic that to me seems to have been completely bypassed by the media. If you’re interested in how I helped myself, and my children during Covid, please watch, or read below.
Sending strength, love, and support to you and your family.
Yours in health,
Peter
Video Transcript
In March of 2020 I had covid-19. I am fully recovered from it. I didn't know I had it at the time. It was relatively new. My only symptoms were a slight chill or feverish feelings for one day and I lost my sense of taste and smell for a week. Now, I did acupuncture and took herbs from an herbalist, right afterwards and I believe that helped my taste and smell return quicker than usual. So I encourage you to do that if you're struggling with those symptoms. I had covid-19. My 20 year old daughter went to college, she got covid-19,came back home, spent two weeks on the couch here with me. I did not catch it again. It was six months after I had Covid.
So one of the reasons I want to share these stories with you is, I want to give you hope, and I want to give you encouragement. Very often, I don't read stories of people that have had covid and have survived. Unfortunately, what we read about, and I hope this has not happened to you and your family, is the loss of loved one, or you've had covid-19, or a loved one has had covid-19, and now you're suffering with symptoms afterwards. If that's the case, you have my empathy support, and what I'm going to share with you can benefit you too, as well as that person in your life.
I strongly believe, because I have supported my immune system, and not because I'm amazing, but because I want to look and feel good, a byproduct is a supported immune system.
I do what the healthiest people in the world do And by the way, they're not rich. They don't drive to their fancy gyms in fancy cars. Most of them are poor or live in rural areas, and they live a very basic lifestyle that science has shown supports their immune system and protects against covid-19. Look for that research, it's out there and it's very encouraging. https://www.bluezones.com/2021/02/a-healthy-gut-microbiome-could-help-prevent-severe-covid-19/
So, number one, I eat mostly plant-based; that is organic, seasonal, local fruit, and vegetables, supplemented by really good quality animal protein like organic eggs, chicken, pork lamb, grass-fed beef, wild salmon. And I drink tea every day, one of the teas that I drink, here's my tea box, I have one at home and I have one in the office, is an herb called echinacea in the tea form. I also drink teas like ginger and turmeric that are anti-inflammatory.
By the way, I'm going to give you so much good information in this segment because I just can't help myself, like the anti-inflammatory diet, the covid-19 diet, the type 2 diabetes diet, the cancer diet. the heart disease diet, they're all the same diet and that's incredibly encouraging, again because we can just keep it simple. So, eat mostly plant-based supplemented with really good quality, animal protein. And if you want, good quality, whole grains in small amounts, and drink your tea. I drink five to seven cups every day of herbal tea. Non-caffeinated because I know when I drink caffeine or too much alcohol, my anxiety level increases and my immune system decreases. And that's a fact that's scientifically proven. Check that out. So if you're doing those things, just be mindful.
There's no judgment about anything I'm sharing with you. I'm just saying, be mindful. If you want to look and feel better, you want to be healthier, you want to support your family, try some of these strategies you might already be doing. But if you did four or five or six of them then you're totally building, like my therapist says, an armor around your body and those that you care about. So eating healthy is good nutrition, right? Keep it simple and choose delicious foods. You see me cook some of these foods on my segments here.
Move every day, don't call it to exercise. If you hate the word exercise, some people are allergic to the word exercise, call it movement, call it physical activity, call it connection, with someone you love. It's literally walking outside of your door. If you can't walk, then wheel yourself or have someone wheel you in a wheelchair, just to get outside and to move. It doesn't have to be running a marathon unless you want to run a marathon. I myself do 20 minutes a day. Research shows that 20 minutes of simple exercises a day, I use my resistance band, I do squats and lunges. If you can't do those things send me an email and I'll share strategies and exercise that you can do literally lying down. Isn't that great news? You can do exercise lying down. so nutrition and exercise supports the immune system and this is documented scientifically as well
Stress. Manage stress. I just hate that term. I don't even know why I just said it because really it's addressing and identifying stress. There are days when I wake up panicked and hopeless and depressed and not able to see the future and I know that that's just temporary and one of the things that I do when that happens, is I reach out to my friends, people that I trust ,that I can be honest with. I can be vulnerable and they're not going to hold it against me. There’s some people in our lives that we just can't share some of those very personal insecurities with, so try to surround yourself with other people. I have those people in my life from a 12-step program that I attend because of my childhood. A 12-step program might be appropriate for you. I also see my therapist every week and he is just an amazing down-to-earth checker. I don't know a better term. I'll tell him something that I'm worried about and he'll just say, that's one way to look at it Peter. How about looking at it another way, and that happens often with my children and my finances and my therapist reminds me of the good things that I'm doing because my brain automatically might be like yours, goes and finds the negative things. I could worry about lots of things, like I'm not doing enough, or I compare myself to someone else and that's not helpful.
So, nutrition, exercise, stress awareness, stay connected. All of these things support our immune system. The other thing that the healthiest people in the world do to support their immune system, is they have a purpose. They are connected to their purpose. Some of them, they're the baker for the village and they're baking the bread or they're carrying the bread, or they're doing the farming for the village. For us that live in different societies, we can have a purpose through our professional careers, or through our roles as parents or husbands, wives, partners. Connections to our religious, or spiritual centers, like churches, and synagogues. They have a purpose and they stay focused on that purpose, especially when they're feeling stressed and then that leads right into the other thing that they do to support their immune system- they have this belief in some type of a higher power.
Now a higher powere, or God, has always been a challenge for me because of the way that I was raised. But what I'm trying to do is build a relationship with a power that's greater than myself because I'm so tired of just relying on myself for everything. You might feel the same way, that's called willpower and will power is no match for dysfunction. No offense, no judgment. Many of us struggle with dysfunction, a lot of it came from childhood and connecting to a higher power and letting it go to that higher power is a way that I found to just get a few minutes of relaxation. Hopefulness, changing my mindstate, changing my state, like I shared with you in a recent segment.
Okay. So we've got nutrition. We've got exercise. We've got stress. Identification of stress. Connecting with people that you love, being connected, and spirituality. Then you could supplement, literally supplement all that by seeing an herbalist. Going to an acupuncturist, getting massage therapy, seeing your physical therapist, seeing your chiropractor. And by the way, if you're going to see those people, I always say, make sure that those people are practicing the things that you want to bring into your life, that they're practicing a healthy lifestyle themselves. They don't have to be super models or super fit or running marathons, but they should be practicing what they're going to share with you, so they have real world experience about doing that. Okay?
So rewind this, do people still do that? :-) Do they still rewind stuff. Watch this again, share it with a friend. If something I said resonates with you, share it with me. If you've had an experience with covid-19 that you want to share with me, whether it has affected you negatively, or positively, share it with me. I want to be connected with you because that's the other way that you and I can support our immune system by staying connected with like-minded people in authentic relationships like this.
Yours in service to your health & wellbeing,
PS- please leave a comment below, send me an email, or connect with me on social media.