I bet you’re wondering what I am about to tell you. The truth is, what I’m about to write here is something you already know.
I got my first covid infection in January 2022 in Australia. Locals will understand that this occurred during a certain prime-ministerial induced lag-time before accessing covid immunisation boosters from what we delightfully call ‘overseas’ [this means ‘other countries’].
At the time of contraction, I had received my two miraculous AZ shots but was awaiting the arrival of the much touted (and required) mRNA booster. This means I was more at risk of developing long covid than I would have been had I received an mRNA booster in good time. Lookin’ at you, Scomo.
You may or may not remember that Australia had been relatively COVID-sans up until the end of 2021, due to ‘the closure of the borders’. And truly we were living it up like people inexplicably safe from a pandemic, for a while, but still, I can’t help but think that a prime minister in that situation should have kept their guard up a little on this matter and arranged for a quality booster to be available as soon as it was OK’ed by the good folks of the Northern Hemisphere.
Anyway, I’m over the injustice of it all now and barely mention it even to my friends.
So I got the little covids living in me and recovered fairly OK at least I think I did, but I soon developed problems exerting myself – the nadir of which involved my husband and sister-in-law pushing me around Brisbane in a wheelchair.
I no longer need this wheelchair, but I have been able to lend it out on occasion to other long covid aficionados within my friendship group. It has not been wasted.
I had covid again since then, but that time received the miraculous oral drugs that changed my medical condition from ‘I think I’ll need an ambulance soon’ to ‘hmm, how shall I amuse myself in the coming week wherein I will be confined to my bedroom?’ within, oh, I don’t know, maybe 20 minutes. (What I did was write a book review which was even published, see previous blog post.)
I cannot recommend these oral drugs enough.
It was after recovering from this second bout of covid that it became fashionable to diagnose long covid sufferers with autonomic disregulation. And since all is fair in love and pandemic, I state to you now that I truly believe autonomic disregulation had been the trouble after my initial infection as well.
You’d be best to look up autonomic disregulation on the mayo website or something, since to be truthful I am sitting here typing this up with my thumbs, but my understanding of AD is that upon exertion your brain fails to inform your heart and blood pressure that it should be working harder in order to get more oxygen to your legs and arms via your lungs. And so when you move to do something like walk or carry groceries, you find your heart rate and BP are on holidays somewhere in the Bahamas and before long you have to sit down and say something like ‘ I just…I just can’t do it anymore.’
And this is where I start telling you of the Ancient Ways and how they are helping me recover.
But first I need to say, even though I LOVE these healing techniques of the ancient ways, I am not at all about to say that I have eschewed modern medicine. No way! In fact, I am currently taking half a tablet of cardiac medication each morning and I tell you I can FEEL it supporting my heart rate and blood pressure. In fact, I love this med SO HARD my GP will have to pry it out of my cold dead fingers if he wants me to ever stop taking it. These beta-blockers are MY BABIES for ever and ever, amen.
But anyway let me get onto the gist of the material here. I want to tell you the things I have been doing to recover my brain and my body after my two rounds with this absolute menace of a virus. So here we go:
Wait no just before I begin, I wanted to say that everything in this list is there because it has a relationship with the way humans have lived their lives for, I dunno, millennia. These things are not new or smart or high tech, they are really just ways of engaging with the world in the sorts of ways humans have always lived in their environment. They are basic elements in the soup of brain development and ongoing use, and as such I think they deserve a second look for the way they might help us recover our covid addled little brains as well. So here we go:
Knitting
Knitting involves both sides of the brain working together, which is a skill that goes way back to when we were learning to crawl. Also to when our ancestors were learning to crawl. There is something very powerful about having both sides of our brain being coordinated and complementary, and the simple act of knitting is one way that we can sit quietly and literally knit our brain back together. Look, this isn’t medical advice but I am a big fan of the idea. You don’t even need to be good at knitting. Knit badly! Knit simply! What do your neurons care, as long as they are firing away, remembering long lost pathways. I started this recovery method doing rows and rows of ‘knit’ stitch (that is the most basic stitch over and over again) and I didn’t branch out into anything harder until I felt like I was ready for a further challenge. Currently I am onto my third beanie of the fading Australian summer.
Stories
Humans have shared stories with each other for thousands and thousands of years. In fact, before the invention of Europe, and before Enlightenment’s love affair with science, stories were the chief means of sharing truth. And they still are in all areas of the world. So what I am suggesting you should do is ENGAGE WITH NARRATIVE, as they say at university. I always have a book on the go. But I make sure it is a story, real or fiction, because we have storied our existence since forever. Human thought has been bathed in stories. I really believe that returning to this ancient pastime is a way to repair our covid-addled brains. If you are not up for reading just yet, try to watch a movie. A good story makes you feel so good afterwards, and I’m sure that’s not unrelated to the ways your brain has been firing off while it plays on the screen.
Listen to Music
Whether it is the early-heard lullaby or the melody of birdsong (no idea where cockatoos come into this) or the rhythm of raindrops, our brains are witness to (and participants in) a worldwide symphony of natural sound. On vacation at the moment I’m listening to waves crash into a beach, the drone of cicadas and the early evening bedtime call of birds to their paired mates. And for so very long, the human brain has bathed in our own cultural music. Singing. Instruments. Individuals and groups. Humans love music and human brains have developed to enjoy it. So I’ve decided to spend some time each day listening to music as a way to put my brain back together, reminding it of connections and relationships between sounds that it once took for granted.
Spiritual Meditation
I’m not telling you what to do here (yes I have been) but I am finding enormous help in a Christian meditation app called Lectio 365. It provides a guided scripture meditation for a few minutes at the beginning and end of the day. I think of engaging with the deity as an ancient practice of stretching our mind to engage with something not within our immediate control or full understanding. It is helpful to step out of our own spotlight now and then, to remember the greater things.
Exertion
I absolutely love the title I have given this one. I like to make sure I have done some exertion in the day. But what that exertion is will depend on how I’m feeling each day. I’m not talking about only things you would traditionally call ‘exercise’. Goodness knows I have needed to sit for a short spell on the side of the bathtub after the arduous task of brushing my teeth, and maybe you also can say ‘preach it sister’ to that. So it is not exercise, but perhaps exertion on one day is an extra walk with the dog, and on another it might be losing my sense of calm and rearranging a shelf in the kitchen. If, at the end of the show I feel like my body has worked quite hard, I give myself a tick for exertion that day. I once read in an article on dementia that “what’s good for the heart is good for the brain”. What they meant was the brain is nurtured by activity and healthy food (and no smoking, ofc).
The other side of the coin of this enthusiasm for exertion is a friend of mine who was told to engage in ‘radical resting’ to help his long covid. So I guess what I need to say here is know your own situation, which must be a stupid thing to hear since the situation we are in here with this pandemic and it’s effects is unfolding and a surprise quite a lot of the time!
That’s it
OK, so that’s it for now. Five ancient things that I do to retrain my brain and body to recover from long covid. If you have any other good suggestions throw them at me and I’ll see if they stick. xx
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