Covid 19 daily tip #4 - Breathing & Exercising

Covid 19 is not a tornado that appears in the darkness of night to take you away without warning. You have time! You choose when you go in public, who you allow in your house, etc. So while quarantining, why not get in shape?

Run, swim, jump rope, play sports, work out or take walks. They all help prepare your body for the Covid 19 battle.

Covid 19 will take away your breath. That is what is does. It attacks the respiratory system. Covid 19 will block your airway passages in both the chest and head and makes it hard to breath. You might find yourself trying to peel your face off so you can breath through your nose or you might feel like you have a sack of potatoes on your chest.

For those of you who find it difficult to exercise, start with this simple technique to help breathing which if you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night gasping for air follow these steps.

1) Sit up straight or stand. Raise and expand shoulders /arms outward to stretch out your chest. This allows for efficient breathing, allowing every capillary to process oxygen.

2) Look up. The air pipe bends at the back of the mouth. By looking straight up, it clear the air pipe providing the most amount of Oxygen intake with the least amount of restriction.

3) Push/extend your jaw out as far as possible. The mandible (lower jaw) is the heaviest piece of the face and does collapse the airway. The diagram below represents how the airways are both blocked by the mandible during rest. What we are not taught is we can create the opposite effect by following the 3 simple steps above and within minutes should be breathing better.

Covid 19 is scary, but as long as we get in the best shape possible we give ourselves the best fighting chance. Death rates are dropping below 1% so we all have a great chance to beat this virus, but we all need to take responsibility and get into better shape.

Come on people. This one is easy. We all can do better.

Be safe, be vigilant, be prepared!