Double Down Now

In the world we’re living in now, it is vitally important to pay attention to what we are doing to, putting in, and doing with our bodies. To prepare our bodies and minds for next few months, and, if and when you are encountering problems like sickness and pain, then double down now, and triage your overall situation.
In order of importance (top=more important):
1. Sleep (Stress Management/Breathing): Quality and Quantity
2. Hydration/Electrolyte Balance: Quality and Quantity
3. Nutrition: Quality and Quantity
4. Movement: Quality and Quantity

Sleep Quality - Ideally sleeping soundly throughout your whole sleep
Sleep Quantity - More is better
Stress Management/Breathing - Ideally breathing in and out of your nose all the time, except when you are speaking or eating, especially; breathing well helps you keep your stress level down and focus up. By breathing through your nose more, your parasympathetic nervous system (rest/digest) is operating more. This is key when encountering and dealing with multiple stressors. If your baseline is already experiencing low stress levels, then anything that comes your way, you might be able to respond and make effective decisions. If you are not experiencing lower stress levels as a result of “mouth breathing” and breathing shallow into your chest, then it will be harder to handle some more stressful situations, e.g. holidays, family, etc. Breathing through your nose also helps you burn more (body) fat and keeps your hydration level higher, since you’re not using carbohydrates for energy and exhaling carbon dioxide as much. By also not exhaling as much carbon dioxide, you are improving breathing efficiency. Since carbon dioxide is key in letting our red blood cells and the hemoglobin they contain to disassociate with the oxygen they’re carrying to the rest of our bodies (to be absorbed by the rest of our bodies’ cells), then we definitely need carbon dioxide around. This is due to what’s called the Bohr Effect. There is no sense in blowing out all the carbon dioxide (through “big breaths” using our mouths) that we need to fully absorb the oxygen that we need to use in our bodies’ cells. Overall, breathing slowly and less frequently through the nose should be the way to practice and train your body to be more calm and more efficient with breathing.

Hydration/Electrolyte Balance
Drink when you’re thirsty; don’t when you’re not. There’s no need to overhydrate and have a certain targeted amount of water to drink everyday (unless you’ve tested and found an “optimal” amount based on what you’re doing throughout your day). One risk of overhydration is hyponatremia. Our days and tasks, weather conditions, and hydration level needs vary day-to-day (even hour-by-hour), so you should be constantly experimenting to figure out much water is too little and too much. Keep electrolytes like sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium in your nutrition intake daily. If you find that you’re not taking in as much salt in your daily nutrition, then you can try supplementing. Again, by breathing through your nose more, you will be exhaling less water into the air around you, so you are retaining water.

Nutrition Quality - Eat Meats and Vegetables, Nuts and Seeds, Some Fruit, Little Starch, and No Sugar.
Nutrition Quantity - Keep intake levels that support exercise, but not body fat.
We have to stay disciplined, and remember our “why(‘s)” throughout these next couple of months. The better amount of quality food we’re eating will help our bodies not only recover from training well, but also provide all the right nutrients for our bodies’ defenses to be boosted to take on any foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. Eating better will keep our overall inflammation levels down in our bodies, so that when we encounter an infection, then our bodies will be better able to mount a defense. If our bodies are at a baseline highly inflamed from ingesting highly-processed, nutrient-deficient, and sugar-laden products, then our bodies will be overwhelmed in having to deal with a novel bacterium or virus.

Movement Quality - Functional Movements
Movement Quantity - Stay as active as possible and move around as much as possible everyday.
Vary the intensities (speed, load/weight) you’re doing from day-to-day. Everything from basic and simple walking (with, and without weight, slow, and fast, short and long distances, on different surfaces), to running (same variables as walking), jumping (height, distance, number of jumps, with, and without weight, on and off different surfaces), to more advanced and complex (bi)cycling, rowing, skiing, any boarding, squatting, pressing, deadlifting, and moving around like animals, are just a few examples.

Try looking at each of the four factors above as light dimmer switches. Turn the switch one way, then the light dims; turn the switch the other way, then the light brightens. Each of those factors above in terms of both quality and quantity can be adjusted to the levels you desire. It just depends on you to determine what levels you want them all to be at, to help you live not only an optimal, but also more adaptable life. Finding what levels of each of those should be at depending on the situation or day, is up to you to experiment with. When you are dealing with some kind of sickness or disease, especially in the next couple of months, then try to triage your situation by looking at those four factors listed above and their levels you’re operating them at, and make adjustments to those to obtain the results you want (like better fitness and health and successfully fighting sickness and disease).