It has been 19 days since I tested positive for COVID-19. The following is my experience, so be mindful that your body may have a different reaction. Be mindful of your body, preserve your energy, so if you choose to do yoga postures, do it passively.
I spent 10 days isolated at home, 7 days at the hospital, and am now back home. My energy levels are starting to improve enough so I can write about my experience. Because I am a yoga teacher, people ask me how yoga is helping me, so I have been thinking about how I can use my yoga experience to help with my recovery.
There is no one magic secret or posture that I can prescribe for this. Yoga has been part of my life for more than 13 years, so it has been shaping my body, mind, breath and making me the person I am today, so everything I do or think is influenced by these memories and past experiences.
Every day, different things helped me fight this virus.
In the first days when I was only a bit tired, coughing, and with a bit of headache, the posture shown in the picture helped me a lot. It is Adho Mukha Virasana or child’s posture as many people know.
The next few days I started to become more and more tired. It became hard to even think of what to do, so I just needed to sleep. The majority of the days after that, I had a lot of nausea and diarrhea, so I liked to do supta virasana and supta badakonasana to stretch my digestive system and also to relax my abdominal area. Sitting in virasana, even in a hospital bed, helped with leg exhaustion.
Sitting crossed legs while bending forward (adho Mukha swastikasana), and janu sirsanasa also helped to rest and stretch the back of my lungs to facilitate my breathing.
Sometimes the body positioning helped with my breath and mind. For a few days, I had no energy to move my body. My breathing was the only tool to help me get some energy, but we should approach the breath in a very subtle way, not forcefully. I had a small amount of lung damage in the base of my lungs, but luckily my oxygen levels were always good, and I found it very handy to have an oximeter with me the whole time to check my oxygen levels. It gave me some sense of security and peace of mind to know my oxygen levels. When I found my mind racing, I tried to relax my sense of perception and focus on my breath as we do in savasana.
You have to use all the resources you have: body, mind, and breath.
Yoga helps us study our mind, body, and breath to develop awareness and sensitivity. My memories of previous experiences that I’ve had exploring my body, breath, and mind, helped me deal with the different stages of the virus.
Now that I am finally at home, and using props to help do postures, my body is starting to gradually build up strength.
Thank you to all the teachers involved in putting this program together, it is a treasure and should be shared as widely as possible.
Thank you to my family and friends for the prayers and good energy.
Thank you to all the doctors and nurses, and the multidisciplinary team at Hamad Hospital Mesaieed Hospital, they took good care of me.
Book recomendation: The Path to Holistic Health: The Definitive Step-by-Step Guide - BKS Iyengar https://amzn.to/3WHebw2. #affiliatelink
Check the link here for the full program
