Three Tips to Surviving Quarantine
Stressed about being in quarantine? Don’t know what to do with all the new time on your hands, or have the changes resulted in extra work and no time? Do you find yourself foraging in the pantry? Dr. Hayden and Dr. Horsley share three tips to help you stay healthy and sane during this trying and unexpected time.
Stay tuned over the next few days as we continue to send out short videos to help inform and inspire you to take control of your health during this time of uncertainty.
Transcript of Video:
Dr Hayden: We’re from the Hayden Institute. We all know that we are under quarantine right now, so we just wanted to share three quick things we can do to help our lives be healthier during this time of isolation.
Dr. Hayden: People can’t leave their homes, they can’t go talk to people, they can’t be within 6 feet of each other… like we are right now… What do you think is the the first thing they can do to improve their level of health?
Dr. Horsley: The first thing you can do to improve your level of health is to be active. I know maybe you can’t go out- you can’t go meet the neighbors. However, you can go in the back yard. I encourage you to throw a ball, toss a frisbee, or make an obstacle course for the kiddos – make it fun.
Dr. Horsley: Just be active- because that is going to stimulate blood flow, stimulate your immune system, and help to really balance healing at this time.
Dr. Hayden: A lot of gyms, yoga studios, etc. are posting free videos that you can do. I know my sister works up in Idaho, she has a studio called Shine Fitness for kids – they do an online PE class every day. They just broadcast it through facebook and the internet and the kids do it in the living room.
Dr. Horsley: I do YogaGlo myself, it is an online interface that has over 5000 classes for yoga, meditation, pilates, and things like that. There are countless studios in the area that are offering free or discounted classes online. I know one that is in our local area is Evolution Fitness and Wellness, they really gear toward age 60 or better. They are truly interested in helping people age functionally well.
Dr. Hayden: Needless to say, there are several options out there – just do a google search and see what’s out there. The last thing we want everyone to do is plop on the couch and just netflix and chill for the next three weeks. So do something, get out there, and be more active. So, step one: be active…
Dr. Horsley: So for step two… as Dr. Hayden was mentioning about vegginging on the couch, what do you do between the vegging and netflix… the pantry. Am I right? It is often going to be frequent trips between the couch and pantry… couch and pantry, because what else are we going to do during quarantine. So what we want to talk about for that second this is – what can you do to avoid foraging for junk food and chips and things like that. Dr. Hayden had a really good idea about this…
Dr. Hayden: Well its interesting that we talk about foraging, because I saw a funny meme on facebook the other day that talked about the new quarantine schedule: 7 am- breakfast, 7: 30 am- dessert for breakfast, 9:00 am- brunch, 9:30 am- dessert for brunch… then going all the way throughout the day. Because obviously while we are under quarantine in home we’re off doing things a little different than our normal routine. Normally, we’re distracted with work or our other events during the day. However, now we often find ourselves going back and forth between the pantry.
Dr. Hayden: One of the easiest things you can do to help prevent going back and forth between the pantry looking for junk food is potentially to try and make something on your own. Now that might sound scary for some of us – I’m not a very good cook myself – but something simple like getting sweet potatoes and making your own sweet potato fries. It can be a healthy alternative to the prepackaged variety. – You just cut up the sweet potatoes, drizzle them in olive oil, add salt on top, bake them for a while, and you’re good to go. Get the kids involved and eat something a little healthier. It takes a little more time to prepare, rather than just going to the chip basket.
Dr. Horsley: I would suggest spiralizing some zucchini, trying some recipes that you’ve always seen to on that cooking channel or wanted to try from your favorite paleo blog. I encourage you to take this time to try things that you haven’t felt you had the time or energy to do in the past.
Dr Hayden: So it sounds like if we’re trying to be healthier and we’re looking for three things we can do – the first thing would be active, the second thing would be watching what we’re doing with the diet or with the pantry and try some experimentation with healthier options. What do you think the third thing someone could do to try to improve their health while they’re on quarantine would be?
Dr. Horsley: The third thing is to make sure that we are still taking our supplements. I know that’s one of the biggest things that drops off whenever we are super stressed. So many of us now are going through new challenges – kids being home, concerned about job loss, and being concerned about the changes that this brings. When it feels like our schedule is so crazy, sometimes it seems like supplements are the first thing that gets dropped off. However, that will often create an unfortunate tailspin, since supplements are some of the things that you should be doing to optimize your health. Therefore, they should be the thing that is constant, no matter what is going on. This is especially true if you have supplements that have been helping your hormones and overall metabolism, since these are often key to helping your immune and nervous systems to stay healthy and active during this time.
Dr. Hayden: So would you say that the next time I’m running to the grocery store, standing in line to get the toilet paper and eggs, that I should grab a multivitamin off the shelf too, or is there something a little bit more that I should look for?
Dr. Horsley: So there is no specific protocol that I’m going to say for anyone. I would encourage everyone to come into the office so we can see what is the best option for each individually. However, another really good thing to do is to get a lot of good quality fats in your life, such as DHA and EPA, which would be found in something like a fish oil.
Dr. Horsley: When you are looking at those you want to make sure that they’re not the cheapest one that you find or the one you find a the bottom of the barrel, because often these are going to sacrifice quality of product for price. Poor quality fish oils may be sourced from fish that are full of things such as, synthetic hormones and antibiotics.
Dr. Hayden: So if we’re looking for a good cod liver oil, I would suggest something like Nordic Naturals or Carlson’s. If you are looking at multivitamins, if your fourth grader can read along with you that’s probably a good bet as something that’s whole food based and not synthetically derived. Whole food based supplements are probably going to be better tolerated from a blanket standpoint. If you’re looking at the ingredient label and all the ingredients are really fancy chemical words like D-alpha tocopherol or calcium bicarbonate, or something like that – they are probably synthetically derived and may not be the best option at this time. It may not necessarily be a bad option, but for a general recommendation something food-based, such as: pears, beets, carrots, buckwheat – something like that inside of it, probably would be a better option.
Dr. Horsley: What’s great about those food-based supplements, that are based on things such as pears, beets, and buckwheat – is that they are going to be much easier available to your body. Foods have enzymes, chemicals, and synergists that are going to make the vitamins and minerals in those foods much stronger. A good way to look at this is to compare it to building a house. If you were wanting to get vitamin C, but only took ascorbic acid, that would be equivalent to trying to build a house with only lumbar, but no nails. You would be able to set up the wood, but it wouldn’t be able to hold together without the nails. Therefore, to truly be able to use vitamin C, the best variation is going to be found in whole foods, and not just ascorbic acid, since the food source will have the different flavanoids and other nutrients to make the Vitamin C better used by the body.
Dr. Hayden: Alright, so just like Dr. Horsley said, if something was rich in vitamin C as a whole complex, it would have the ascorbic acid, but it would also have rutin, vitamin P, vitamin J, and things of that nature. Buckwheat by volume has some of the highest vitamin C content inside of it, moreso than is even found in an orange.
Dr. Hayden: Needless to say, those are three quick tips that you can do while on quarantine in order to maintain your level of health and possibly even improve it. Step one – be active, step two – stop foraging in the pantry, and step three – make sure you’re taking all your supplements to optimize your health.
Dr. Hayden: Thank you for joining us today, we’ll see you all next time.