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As the fall season brings us cooler air, more time indoors, and more sniffles, Our 360 News is excited to launch a new health and wellness series, "Ask Dr. Lori," featuring Dr. Lori Amertil, M.D.
Dr. Amertil is a Detroit-based medical professional specializing in anesthesiology. Her work in medicine has spanned southeastern Michigan as well as Haiti.
Dr. Lori has been recognized for her outstanding performance during residency and she is passionate about increasing access to public health services, especially in under-served communities. Her work also includes advocacy for recruiting minority students into the field of anesthesiology.
Each month, we invite our readers to submit their health and wellness related queries and Dr. Amertil will join us via podcast to read your submissions and share her expertise. Readers can submit questions via the Our 360 News Twitter and Facebook pages.
To kick off our new series, we asked Dr. Lori to share the five simplest things that every person can do to stay healthy and help combat the global pandemic.
Here are Dr. Lori's "Top 5 Tips for Pandemic Health"
1. Get Moving! Exercise!: Everyone should do their best to get in at least 30 minutes of physical activity each day. And by "physical activity," I mean getting your heart rate "up" through some form of exertion. That could be walking outside or on a treadmill, taking the stairs (going upstairs is better), or doing repetitions of simple movements like side bends, toe touches, or marching in place. If you can't get a half hour of physical activity each day, you should at least try to get your heart rate up 4 times each week.
2. More Fresh Fruit & Veggies: It's important to understand that our ability to fight infection depends on the fuel we give our bodies. And a poor diet decreases the effectiveness of our immune response. A quick way to charge up our defense against infection is adding more fruits and vegetables to our diet. If you eat 3 meals per day, try making one of them vegetarian. If that's "too much, too soon," try making one or two of your weekend meals vegetarian. I also recommend eating veggies and fruits raw, so apple pie and banana pudding do not count.
3. Stay Hydrated: Everyone should drink at least 8 cups of water each day. This can be a challenge for some. One easy way to meet your daily hydration goals is to fill up a large container of water each morning and sipand refill as needed throughout the day. None of the body'ss systems work well when we are dehydrated and water is one of most readily available "medicines" we have in the fight against illness.
4. Get Some Sleep: Between balancing work and home life, we put our bodies through a lot, and the pandemic has especially taken a toll on our mental and physical well-being. Many of us are worried and stressed so much that rest is hard to come by; this is especially true for those of you who have given birth during the pandemic. No matter the difficulty, we have to take the time to SLEEP and allow our bodies to re-charge and repair. A well rested body is better suited to fight off infection or anything else for that matter. SLEEP IS CRUCIAL TO COMBATING THIS VIRUS!
5. WEAR YOUR MASK AND GET VACCINATED: Everyone has a role to play in keeping our families and our communities safe. Getting vaccinated and wearing a mask minimizes your risk of contracting the coronavirus and passing it on to others.
Stay safe and stay healthy!
Love,
Dr. Lori Amertil, M.D.