COVID-19: How to stay physically healthy while at home

For Danlami, a civil servant, his stay at home has started to take a toll on him. He has stayed at home for close to two months. Danlami complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult sitting at home for hours on end, saying he stayed at home for five weeks during the complete lockdown ordered […]

For Danlami, a civil servant, his stay at home has started to take a toll on him. He has stayed at home for close to two months.

Danlami complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult sitting at home for hours on end, saying he stayed at home for five weeks during the complete lockdown ordered by the Federal Government and was still at home because he did not belong to the category of civil servants allowed to go to work yet.

He said, “I know that it is to protect me from COVID-19, but coping has become difficult.”

Maryam, a teacher and mother of three, has been at home since the complete lockdown. With the easing of the lockdown in Abuja, she goes to the market occasionally, but has, however, not done any physical activity since staying at home. She only does house chores and watches TV.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages, some states of the country are experiencing complete lockdown while others are experiencing restricted movement.

Experts have said physical activities and exercise were important in protecting people from COVID-19 and other ailments. They said there were ways people could keep physically healthy during the lockdown.

According to the President of the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy (NSP), Dr. Rufai Yusuf Ahmad, staying without any physical activity or exercise while at home also predisposes people to diseases.

Dr. Ahmad said: “Many researches have shown that sedentary lifestyle, that is lack of physical activities, is a risk factor for many diseases ranging from heart disease, hypertension to diabetes. People need to be active and do physical activities and therapeutic exercises.”

He said it was not only when people had illnesses that they should do exercises, adding that those who were healthy were also prone to diseases.

“So people should engage in physical activities while at home, especially those that have been shown to be effective in preventing diseases,” he added.

He further said there were physical activities and therapeutic exercises people could do to stay physically healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He explained that physical activities were the random activities people did while therapeutic exercises were prescribed by physiotherapists and other healthcare providers.

“If you are ill, you don’t just go ahead and do exercise, you need to consult your physiotherapist or other healthcare providers who will prescribe the intensity of the exercise; the timing and how long they do the exercise. It will be dangerous for you doing such type of exercise on your own, especially if you are ill,” he noted.

He further said there were exercises people without illnesses could do to stay healthy during the lockdown and that such people included those who did not have symptoms like pain in their chests when they walked or did not have pain in the muscles of their legs.

Dr. Ahmad advised them to engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least once in a day for at least four days in a week and that researches had shown that moderate exercises which were between light and heavy helped to prevent disease and were beneficial to staying healthy.

He said examples of exercise that people could do to stay physically healthy during the lockdown and restricted movement included aerobic exercises, strengthening exercises and stretching exercises.

He explained that aerobic exercises such as jogging, cycling, skipping and jumping were helpful, and that with the lockdown, people could not go out to run or jog and so could do so within the space of their environment.

“There are exercises that help you to prevent heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and to check lung problems and related other ailments. Doing them is very important as it usually helps the heart to pump more blood to the body. It also helps the lungs to provide oxygen, sometimes you have some substances deposited in the vessels and they block the blood from going to the required places, so doing exercise is to help clear such things away from the vessels,” Dr. Ahmad explained.

He said the second type of exercise was the strengthening exercise and that this type made one’s muscles and bones stronger, and that people could do this kind of exercise by getting anything heavy that they could be able to lift at least 10 times before they got fatigued.

The third type of exercise is stretching exercise, he said.

The physiotherapist said there was need for people to do stretching exercise because their bones could get stiff without doing them while staying at home.

He said, “The ligaments, that is structures that hold the bones to one another, and your tendons, that attach your muscles to bones usually get stiff and you need to stretch them.”

He explained that, “The one thing about this exercise is that if you don’t stretch them , you may get injured even after the lockdown and this can happen while you are trying to stretch to cross a gutter.”

He said stretching excise depended on what structure you wanted to stretch, for example, “You could fly your hand against the outer side of your leg, stretch your lower back among others.” He advised that whatever part people were stretching, they should not stretch for more than 30 minutes.

The expert advised people not to start with rigorous exercises like running or jogging; even if it is in one place but start with warm exercises, “Do it very gently for about two to three minutes, then you can now begin to do it faster, and by the time you are approaching the end, you should also slow down so that you don’t get to the end while doing the vigorous activity. It is important to take note.”

He explained that doing exercise while at home also helped boost immunity against COVID-19.

“If you have been engaging in regular exercises, there is what we call the immune system, and this immune system is like the fighting engine of the body; whenever there are foreign things coming into the body the immune system fights them, including the virus that causes COVID-19.

“Now, when done in a proper manner, it will help to boost the immune system. It will increase the number of fighters which will take the cell to the place where the virus is and either kill it or reduce the effect on the body,” Dr. Ahmad said.

He added that there were also exercises that physiotherapist could prescribe for people already infected with COVID-19 to help them recover such as “exercises that allow enough oxygen in the body, regulate breathing, strengthen muscles and make vessels work better to enable the patient have strength to go back home and do other activities.