What ‘steps’ did you take?
What an unprecedented time in living history? I experienced emotions similar to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I felt it was extremely important to know what steps to take! I’m sure you felt the same.
We immediately read the guidance and established a thorough policy on hygiene and limited our patient visits to only the urgent. Then after the PM’s announcement on March 23rd, we closed. The advice from our professional association and Royal College followed the next day.
In my home, with my wife and son David, we established steps toward a daily and weekly routine involving: continued learning, exercise, walking our Border Terrier Charlie, grocery shopping, making meals and a focus on arts, education and entertainment. We washed our hands a lot and practiced social distancing and kept in touch with family and friends.
We turned our dining room into a studio and hosted a live music evening featuring David playing his original music while I filmed him. David invited me play the last song while Jacqui took over as camera operator!:
The following week David and Jacqui made a film for The Larder, a social enterprise in Preston promoting food that’s healthy, local, seasonal and waste-free. Their profits go to communities in need. They work through a catering business, training academy and network of Lancashire farmers and producers. Jacqui demonstrated how to safely make delicious scone based pizza!: https://youtu.be/FjRWuM8olG4
I posted a song I performed for solidarity with John Prine, musician, suffering in hospital with COVID-19: https://youtu.be/GvjtO9iWWCU
Then ‘steps’ took on a new meaning. In my daily learning, I read a post by Professor David Byfield, Welsh Institute of Chiropractic, University of South Wales:
‘Just read a paper in JAMA online which basically indicated that a higher step count is linked to lower annual risk of death. 8000 steps was associated with 51% lower risk and 12000 steps resulted in a 65% lower risk and anything more than this didn’t show a further reduction of mortality risk and there was no difference regardless of sex, education, health condition and whether a person smoked or drank alcohol (best finding!). The intensity of steps didn’t seem to matter. Achieving this level of activity is going to be a challenge under the current lockdown so being innovative will prevail to maintain this level of protective activity(JAMA. 2020;323(12):1151-1160).’
Wishing you all the best during these times,
Jeff
