5 Things to Cut Down on During the COVID19 Pandemic
The widespread COVID-19 has become a threat to our health, not only physical, but mental and emotional too. Despite constant efforts, we do not have a cure for it yet. Besides practicing social distancing, maintaining good health and strong immunity seems like the need of the hour. Here are five things you should cut down on to maintain good health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
1) Sugar: Sugar is one of the major contributors to suppression of the immune system. A large dose of refined sugar at a time attacks your white blood cells that are responsible for fighting against any harmful bacteria and viruses. Overdose of sugar decreases the effectiveness of white blood cells by 50% and this effect lasts for 5–6 hours leading to compromised immunity. Sugar also causes the bad bacteria in the gut to thrive, allowing them to grow and outnumber the good gut bacteria. This imbalance produces toxins in the body affecting the mood, blood sugars, hormones, metabolism and most importantly the immune system.
2) Alcohol: Excessive alcohol consumption can trigger inflammation in the gut and destroy the healthy gut microbiome that promote health and reduce the risk of infection. This can curb the body’s ability to fight infections, thereby weakening the immune system and increasing the susceptibility to illness. Research shows that alcohol consumption can also make you more vulnerable to lung diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis and other respiratory disorders. Since COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, it is advisable to cut down on alcohol intake to eliminate any chances of contraction.
3) Processed Food: Processed and packaged food is heavily refined in order to increase its shelf life. The refining process eliminates the fiber and some important vitamins and mineral declining the food’s nutrient density to a large extent. More often, what’s left behind is only a calorie dense food with minuscule nutrient value. To keep up the immunity and ward off the coronavirus, it is extremely important to maintain healthy levels of vitamins and minerals and therefore replace processed foods with home cooked, nutrient dense whole foods.
4) Fatty Food: Besides leading to weight gain, fried and fatty food increase inflammation, stress hormone production and alter the good gut bacteria in the body. Consuming high fat diet can also impair the functioning of white blood cells that deal with bacteria in the blood. All these factors contribute to an impaired immune function.
5) Media: Even though it’s important to stay well informed about the happenings around, staying glued to media all the time can create havoc in your mind. Listening to upsetting media coverage, a murder, a bankruptcy first thing in the morning or last thing in the night can leave you stressed throughout the day/night eventually leading to sleeplessness. Stress and compromised sleep can impact body’s fighting mechanism.
COVID-19 is here to stay and we must do everything in our power to fight this pandemic. The wiser we act, individually and collectively, the more we will be able to protect our families and ourselves from the suffering. It’s never too late to start changing things and create a newfound health baseline and build greater resilience to situations like this.
