Coronavirus: Effects No One Talks About? Here's What You Must Do

Hello health champions today I want to talk about the mental health side

effects of the Coronavirus not the people who are infected but everyone

else whose lives have changed because there's a lot of stress there's an

additional burden that can have side effects and we want to talk about what

those are but more so we want to talk about what we can do about it if we

understand the physiology and the mechanism behind it then we can turn it

around and use it to our advantage so if you use the things I'm going to

tell you about today and you really understand and take them to heart you

could actually come out the other end of this ordeal and be stronger and

healthier and better off then when it all started coming right up

Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if

you want to truly master health by understanding how the body really works

make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don't miss

anything the coronavirus might be the biggest

health crisis we'll experience in our lifetime and challenges can be very very

stressful but they can bring out the best in people and they can bring out

the worst when we have a crisis we tend to rally together we tend to join forces

we have solidarity within communities and within nations and across nations

but stress can also create anxiety and depression we can have fear worry

irritability and we can also get cravings as a result of this added

stress there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty we are all wondering will I

be okay how is this gonna affect me are my kids gonna be okay what about my

parents my friends and of course what about my bills if this goes on for a

while how are we all going to do financially there are lots and lots of

unknowns and the biggest one is how long is it going to last when will it all go

back to normal some people work from home so staying

home is not a big deal but for most people everything normal is gone all of

our routines are changed and for many people our self-worth our self-esteem

comes in what we can produce and what we can give to others in our job and when

we can't work a lot of that self-esteem might be reduced a lot of people get

their sense of self-worth and their feeling good from social relationship

from social interactions and now with the restrictions all of that is gone for

a lot of people there are extra chores things that we don't usually have to do

and that may not be a bad thing if we have to share in the chores like daddy

has to learn to do some dishes but the additional burden can

be quite demanding there's a learning curve for a lot of people in doing new

things so some people might be familiar with telecommuting but for others it's a

new thing and they have to learn new software and new routines there may be a

lot more cooking and cleaning than we're used to because we can't go out to eat

to restaurants we don't eat at work anymore and so forth and when all the

schools are closed now the kids are home and while some people appreciate family

time for a lot of people who are not used to so much family time it can be a

bit stressful they may have to do some home schooling and they have to watch

the kids in addition to everything else going on so all of these new

circumstances and all this additional stress has certain risks that there

could be a worsening of a chronic health problem and when people are stressed

there can also be an increased use of drugs and the drugs I'm talking about

are things like alcohol and tobacco and sugar when we're not feeling good we

often try to compensate we try to feel good through ingesting something or

doing something we do want to change how we feel but I'm going to show you how to

do that without using any stimulants or any drugs when we're stressed and we're

feeling bad it seems like it's just things happening to us like we have very

little or no control over it but we have to understand that all of this is part

of a physiological process that we're having a stress response and the body is

very well designed to have stress but it likes to have short-term intense stress

like an emergency like you're being chased by an animal you have to climb up

a tree and you have to fight something or make a quick run for something those

stresses are short-term and they actually are very good for us but

chronic stress is more emotional those are stresses that don't require

any physical exertion but we worry and with those we still have the same stress

response we get higher heart rate we get higher blood pressure we get higher

blood sugar our stress hormones with the adrenaline and the cortisol go up so all

these things happen the same or similar whether it's an acute stress or a

chronic stress but the short term is very appropriate and the chronic stress

is very inappropriate what happens as part of that stress response is we have

vasoconstriction the body starts reprioritizing as part of higher blood

pressure to get the blood to circulate faster we have vasoconstriction and in

the short term you get cold hands and cold feet if you're out running then

eventually after 15-20 minutes you get warm hands and warm feet but with

chronic stress when you're not moving that doesn't happen and one more body

part is suffering from that vasoconstriction and that's the brain

okay all the distal body parts the hands the feet and the head they're all

experiencing reduced blood flow now why does that matter for the stress response

because one of the things that the brain does one of the things especially the

frontal lobe is it turns off the stress response so when we have less blood flow

to the brain because of vasoconstriction because of the stress response we

actually have less ability to control the stress response so now we end up

with a vicious cycle that the chronic stress is causing a stress response and

the stress response is lessening our ability to deal with the stress response

and so on and this is why it's very easy to get into a rut when we worry about

the virus we worry about the news we worry about all these different things

we're having so many things to figure out and so

any chores it's easy to get in a rut but we have to understand that its

physiology and if we understand these mechanisms we can do something about it

the first thing we have to understand is that it's the stress response that's

hurting us it's what our bodies are doing in response to something which is

the stressor so the stressor is the news and the world and all the events going

on but they are not the thing hurting you it's your response to it

it's our response to it and it seems like we don't have a lot of choice in

that because it's just going on we have to respond right but we can respond

differently so if you notice that you're feeling down and then you I'm gonna give

you some steps on how to deal with that but if you now break the pattern this

vicious cycle that we talked about if you know how to break it then you can

create more blood flow to the brain and now you can have more control of the

stress response and now we have separated the stressor from the stress

response and here is why it's so incredibly important to know how the

brain works because the brain doesn't just control everything about your body

it is everything about you so if we can juice up the brain if we can stimulate

it and get some more energy and some more blood going into it the benefits

are not just better stress management but everything starts working better so

one of the things that happen is when we're in a rut we might have lack of

motivation well motivation is also handled by the

frontal lobe so if we can juice up the brain then we can also get some of that

motivation back and make it easier and easier to deal with things instead of

harder and harder your digestion will improve because stress shuts off your

digestive system we have a fight flight and a feed breed system and whenever

you're stressed you're turn on the fight flight

and you turn off the feed breed which controls your digestion the fight/flight

system also turns off your immune function so by juicing up the brain and

having it control your stress responses you're also going to improve your immune

system and I think you can all agree that that would be a good thing right

now so here's what you want to do first of all you have to know that it's just

physiology it seems like it's happening to you that you're just a pawn in the

big scheme of things but you have a choice and it's just physiology you can

change it next you have to notice how you feel you have to be willing to pay

attention to how you feel and if you're feeling bad you have to know that you

can do something about it and finally you want to decide to do something

different so if you notice how you feel and you're not feeling well

then you decide to do something different and it's super simple once you

understand that it's just physiology and you can change it the absolute most

powerful way to change physiology is movement and 90% of the signals that

reach your brain that stimulate your brain that juice up the brain are

related to posture and movement and gravity so if you do something related

to movement like dancing for example then you're gonna activate these systems

tremendously and if you have a dance game for example hook up the computer

hook up the Xbox and start dancing bring the whole family and just take turns and

cheer each other on go for a walk get some fresh air fill your lungs that's

the interruption that's a pattern interrupt and I know you're not supposed

to walk out in public but I'm sure that for most people you can find secluded

areas to walk where you're not going to run into people you could do things like

jumping jacks you could do any kind of exercise

program but jumping jacks would be a very powerful pattern interrupt it's

kind of like a hit exercise it's fast movements it gets your heart rate up and

you're working pretty much like dancing you're you're really really activating

the brain Yoga is another great way to do because it calms you down and even

though it doesn't get your heart rate up like jumping jacks it's still a powerful

way to stimulate the brain because when you stretch you're also sending lots of

signals to the brain whatever you're doing don't do it too long take a break

once in a while go read a book a book can be like a mental vacation it's a way

to break the pattern and get away from things once you're feeling good now you

can share that good energy and uplift others you can call them on the phone or

you can do Skype or teleconferencing and most importantly you want to take a

break from the news and the social media yes you want to stay informed but you

don't need hour after hour after hour you don't need to know it all so if you

want to spend some time on some social media suggest that you watch this

channel right here because here you'll learn more about how the body works and

then you can make some positive changes while you're cooped up and then you want

to give yourself permission and this may sound strange but we can work kind of

funny sometimes as humans because we think that we have to feel bad if

there's something terrible going on around us but you don't have to feel

guilty you are allowed to feel good even though there's terrible things going on

it's all there okay there's nothing that you can undo by feeling bad and even if

there's a lot of people suffering there suffering is not going to go away

because you feel bad you can't get sick enough to make anybody else healthier

you can't feel bad enough so that anyone else will have more

happiness alright obviously you don't want to laugh in someone's face if

they're having a hard time but the best thing that you can do is to build

yourself up and feel good so that you can be uplifting to others we're

experiencing a health crisis of historical proportion but it is what it

is and you can't undo it at this point so use this time as best you can and

take it as a challenge to yourself to build yourself up use it in a positive

way so that you come out stronger and healthier and better off because of it

if you enjoy this video make sure that you also check out that video thank you

so much for watching I'll see you in the next one