Reduce The Risk Of Long Haul COVID | Ashok Gupta | Gupta Program |

I want to share our experience of how you might be able to reduce the chances of developing long haul Covid based on our clinic's experience. My name is Ashok Gupta and I'm the founder of the Gupta program. And as you may know, a percentage of COVID patients go on to develop long haul Covid where symptoms like fatigue, exhaustion, headaches and breathlessness may persist for many months even after someone no longer tests positive. These post viral symptoms of COVID 19 seem to be very similar to those experienced by patients with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome, which is our clinic specialism. Now please do share this video with anyone you know who has contracted COVID 19 or is suffering with long haul Covid. Already, to introduce ourselves, we're a global neuroplasticity clinic that has spent the last 20 years researching and successfully treating patients. We've treated over 10,000 patients and published peer reviewed clinical studies showing that our treatment is effective. And I'd like to share our experience of the risk factors that we think may increase the chances of developing long haul Covid based upon the risk factors that we've seen in other similar conditions like me, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, as well as long haul COVID patients that we're already supporting. Now of course this video is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or care. So please speak to your doctor about any symptoms you're experiencing or any changes that you make to your lifestyle. And bear in mind that because long haul Covid is a brand new condition, there aren't any studies as yet to to confirm what we're saying. We're simply sharing our experience of treating similar conditions. Now firstly, there are physical risk factors of developing long haul Covid that are already confirmed in recent clinical studies. So for instance, if a person is overweight or has high blood pressure, then there's a higher chance of developing long haul Covid and the older someone is, the higher the risk. Finally, women are around 50% more likely to develop long haul Covid, just as is with the case with me and chronic fatigue syndrome. And we also believe that there are emotional and behavioural factors that may increase the risk of long haul Covid. Now, in our experience, the main risk factor is when a patient does not fully rest whilst they have the infection or they don't fully rest in the period after the infection. They may not allow enough time for themselves to make a full recovery from the after effects of the virus before getting back into a busy life, you know, getting back to work or stress. If we don't fully rest during or just after the COVID 19 infection, then our immune system feels it can't fully fight off the virus. And this also fits in with why patients who are overweight or have high blood pressure are more prone to long haul Covid, as both of these factors reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. So these risk factors together, we believe may trigger a traumatic conditioning event in the brain. Our system becomes traumatized because it's so concerned about the immune system's ability to fight off the virus because of a weakness from stress or a busy life. So the immune system stays stuck in the on position. Our research concludes that this may specifically occur in the two parts of the brain, the insula and the amygdala. And you can read our published hypothesis on the website. This process may cause the brain and the body to go into extreme survival mode, chronically retriggering our immune system and our nervous system in the background, creating ongoing inflammation and these severe chronic symptoms. And we hypothesize that this is the reason for long haul Covid. Now let's get practical. So on a practical level, if you have Covid or just recovering, it's tempting to brush off the illness and try to get back to work as quickly as possible. Especially if we're a conscientious person or an achiever type, we may feel guilty or bad for taking time off. But our experience tells us that it's really, really important to take deep physical, mental and emotional rest both during COVID 19 and afterwards, and to only get back to work or a busy life once you feel as close to 100% recovery as possible. And even then, it's best to err on the side of caution. Now you may have noticed that I said mental and emotional rest as well as physical rest. It's not enough to just be physically resting, it's also about calming the mind just as important. So let's not worry about getting back to work quickly or feeling bad about it. That doesn't make us a weak person. Perhaps you could tell your employer that you need more time before getting back to work so that you can fully recover and not have long term effects. Perhaps you can get your family to take over more responsibilities for you. Please give yourself permission to be as lazy as you want to be as carefree. And this is real self care and ultimately self love until you make that 100% recovery from the COVID 19 infection and you feel that strength coming back into your system. Now, in addition to deeply resting during and after COVID 19, there are some supporting processes and tools that we think may help you make a full recovery and hopefully this may reduce the chances of long haul Covid I'd like to introduce the Gupta MEND Protocol. M stands for mind, E stands for exercise, N stands for nighttime routine or sleep and D stands for diet. And we've set all of this out in detail in a free not for profit video course based on the latest science of how to boost our immune system against COVID 19 and you can find this all at the coronaviruschallenge.com where we go through these proven techniques to reduce the chances of infection by up to a factor of five. Let's briefly share an overview of the MEND protocol to potentially reduce the chances of long haul Covid Firstly, M stands for mind. You might be experiencing anxiety about your illness, which is totally understandable, especially hearing all the media reports. This can increase our sense of dread about your symptoms or what might happen in the future. And this can compromise our immune system. I suggest for us to stop watching and reading the news on the latest situation, but instead focus on uplifting positive content. Additionally, what has been clinically shown to decrease anxiety are breathing and meditation techniques. These also have been shown to reduce inflammation and to boost our immune system. And you can find some free tools on our website or you can take some fantastic online breathing courses from a charity called the Art of Living foundation@artofliving.org so let's reduce our anxiety about the illness as much as possible through deep relaxation techniques and staying positive. E from the Men's protocol stands for exercise. Now many of us assume that exercise is good for the immune system, and that's definitely true. Before you get an infection, it reduces your chances of getting an infection. But after an infection or during a period of post viral fatigue, it's important to pace yourself. Don't push too hard or increase your activity levels too quickly. Let's pace. Let's pace according to how you feel on a particular day. Now studies have shown that something called graded exercise therapy or get, can actually make patients with chronic fatigue syndrome even worse. So pacing is far more conducive to gradually getting back to a normal life. Let's take our time before rushing back into exercise or activity. Only increase activity when you feel ready. You can't push through this condition. You can't force yourself. Let's get in touch with what our bodies really need, which is that deep physical, emotional and mental rest. Let's give ourselves permission for that. N from MEND stands for nighttime routine and sleep during the infection and afterwards we recommend getting more sleep than you think. You need to really strengthen and rebalance your immune system. And even once you recover from COVID have some lions until you get towards 100% recovery you feel the strength coming back. Give yourself time and space to fully heal. And finally D stands for diet. There are plenty of tips on our website about how you can boost your immune system through changes in your diet based on the latest science. Once again you can find all of this information in depth@the coronaviruschallenge.com and if you do develop long haul Covid, please visit our main website@guptoprogram.com for an explanation and more support with what you're going through. And we're also recruiting right now for a large scale trial. Please email us@infouptaprogram.com so that we can do whatever we can together to reduce the chances of patients contracting long haul Covid. Now I wish you all the best of luck with your recovery. Thank you.