The novel Coronavirus pandemic shattered the whole world with its damage. Years 2020 and 2021 have changed the lives of so many people. Health has been a major concern amid this pandemic. Wearing masks, using hand sanitisers, keeping social distancing is the new normal. To break the chain of transmission, lockdown is very crucial. But is lockdown actually helping you out completely? Is our immunity fine?
It is true that staying at home will decrease your chances of catching covid, but when it comes to our immune system, things might go a bit wrong. Immunity refers to the capability of multicellular organisms to detect and fight harmful bacteria in the body. The immune system consists of tissues, cells, organs, and proteins. These substances come together and perform body processes that fight pathogens. Pathogens are viruses, bacteria, and foreign bodies that cause infections or diseases. When the immune system meets the pathogen, it releases antibodies that attach themselves to the antigens on the pathogen and kill them. The immune system plays a vital role in supporting your body to fight any disease. Hence, taking care of your immunity is crucial.
Even a strong immune system is much needed to prevent covid to react harshly on your body. A strong immune system will help you out to fight covid in a much effective way. Even, to some extent, it can help you in not getting any symptoms. But as the lockdown is important to break the chain of the covid transmission, on the other hand, it is degrading our immunity.
How lockdown is degrading our immune system?
There are many ways through which lockdown is degrading our immune system without us noticing. Our immune system’s age is not equal to our original age. Immune cells start getting weak as we grow up. That is the reason why old people catch infections easily. But a lot of different activities such as an increase in screen timing, lack of sleep, mental trauma degrades our immune system before our age.
Financial issues: Lockdown has been very harsh on all sections of our society. People lost their jobs or got cut off in their pays. This led to a great economic crisis. People are even facing problems in fulfilling their family’s basic needs. Due to this the level of mental stress, extra work, and less nutritional intake is taking place. All these things ultimately result in degrading our immune system. Lockdown has brought a huge financial crisis in our country.
Difficulty in balancing work and childcare: Lockdown has normalized the concept of work from home. Many companies have given their employees a facility to work from home which is a good way of continuing your job while staying at home. But the married couple, especially female partners are expected to take care of their children while working. Doing both tasks at the same time can be quite hectic and tiring. Hence, it is important to not categorize the gender roles. Both the partners are responsible for childcare and household work.
Anxiety and Depression: When we talk about healthcare, it includes your mental health too. According to “Rebooting 2020: A Story of COVID-19, and Shifting Perceptions” survey by Mavericks India, 61 percent of Indians had mental health issues after last year’s lockdown. Sometimes, any sort of mental stress can cause anxiety and depression. Even sometimes it doesn’t need to have a specific reason too. Anxiety and Depression affect our immune system. This is because it increases the level of stress hormones such as cortisol or adrenaline in our bodies. Due to this, our body tends to catch different viruses or infections.
Increased screen time: As there are no outdoor activities to do, people especially children are engaging more and more in electronic gadgets. Also, work from home plays an important role in increasing your screen time. The light from the screen can decrease sleep controlling hormone “melatonin”. Lack of sleep has a great negative effect on your immune system. Lack of sleep can reduce the ability of our body to fight infections. Research shows that lack of sleep results in reducing the effect of any vaccination on our body too.
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What to do?
Above mentioned problems are very common and almost everyone in this lockdown can relate to them. In order to keep ourselves healthy, it is very important to concentrate on the well-being of our immunity. In order to keep our immune system healthy, we can take some very basic steps.
Exercise.
Lockdown surely decreased our mobility and physical activities. Having no physical activity in your daily routine can have a worse impact on your immune system. Hence exercise can be a good way to increase physical movement amid lockdown. Research shows that exercise reduces our ability to catch infections and viruses etc. Not only this, but research states that exercise can also reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and can even uplift your mood.
Exercise benefits our immune system in many ways. It can increase blood flow, helps in clearing out bacteria through breathing, and raise body temperature. A small rise in body temperature can protect and strengthen antibodies to fight infections ad diseases. Exercise also reduces stress hormones. Hence, it can relieve your anxiety and boost up your immunity. You need not have strict exercise sessions. some minutes of exercise or cardio will do their job. There are many cardio activities such as bicycling, dancing, walking that you can adopt in order to keep your immune system strong.
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Get Proper Sleep.
As mentioned above, sleep plays a crucial part in keeping your immunity boost up. Lack of sleep has both, short-term and long-term consequences on your health. . Lack of sleep can reduce the ability of our body to fight infections. Research shows that lack of sleep results in reducing the effect of any vaccination on our body too. A study was conducted in which the sleep of participants was restricted to 4 hours a night for 6 days and then increased to 12 hours a day for the next week. The results concluded that people made fewer antibodies with less sleep when compared to the week when they got more sleep.
Don’t Stress Yourself.
Times might not be good, but taking a lot of stress will only increase your problems. Other issues may come and go, but it’s very important to take care of your health during a health pandemic. An increase in stress hormones can increase the chances to catch infections.
Remember, it’s okay to feel anxious, stressed, depressed or lonely. Always try to share it with any of your close ones. Sharing helps in reducing the level of stress. Try to avoid taking stress on things that can be solved later on. Stress affects your sleeping pattern as well. Excessive consumption of alcohol or caffeine can also result in increased anxiety. Above mentioned problems can surely make a room for anxiety, but it is very important to focus on your health and well-being. In case you feel like being overstressed, visit a doctor or take telephonic counselling for better results. Meditation may help you out in bringing positivity and calmness to your daily life. Also, try to have a good sleeping schedule as sleeping schedule and stress are inter dependable.
Lockdown is a challenge to our mental health and immune system surely. So, try to do a bit for your health, as that’s all we can do. stay healthy and stay positive!
