We are officially under a 21-day national lockdown with an unprecedented overflow of information on the Internet on the extent COVID-19 is wreaking havoc worldwide. Some of us have become insecure, panic-stricken and downright depressed. But, we cannot do much about it. The best thing we can do now to fight this pandemic is keeping ourselves locked in our homes.

Lockdown Insomnia on the Rise

These unforeseen situations have several fallouts, both social and personal. One such fallout is sleep deprivation. Many have been continuously complaining about the bouts of insomnia they are dealing with. Indeed, these sleep deprivations are making us doubly vulnerable in this crisis. Even those who have managed to remain positive are also reporting cases of insomnia.

Many of us are working from home in this lock down period which primarily means working on the computer. This has, consequently, severely restricted all kinds of physical movement. Since we cannot go for a walk, or go to gym, all we are left with is staying on our beds and couches dealing with work stress as well as the additional stress that the pandemic and the lock down has brought upon us. Since physical movement have been completely restricted, the free time we have is almost entirely spent in front of screens. Stress, unhinged screen-time, and a lack of physical movement, together have formed a deadly combination that has made many of us sleep deprived. Today I shall explain why this is enormously counterproductive, especially now.

Let’s Begin with The Immune System

What exactly is an immune system and where is it located in our body? Well, as the name suggests, it’s a system- a complex network of organs, cells and chemicals. Since it isn’t a particular thing, all its components are present all across your body. It’s similar to a country’s defense system. They have different functions and operate in different arenas, but all with a singular objective: to protect and defend. The white blood cells, antibodies, complement system, bone marrow, spleen, thymus and the lymphatic system are the main parts of our immune system and they have a memory. Yes, you read it right! According to experts, the immune system keeps a record of all the microbes they have ever defeated and is recorded in types of white blood cells also known as memory cells. If a known microbe attacks you, it readily identifies and destroys before you even feel sick. Needless to say, the stronger your immune system is, the stronger equipped you are at fighting diseases. However, there is one caveat: developing immunity against one virus does not protect you from others.

Immunity & Sleep?

Your immune system secretes large group of proteins, peptides and glycoproteins known as cytokines that are your weapons targeting infection and inflammation, thereby creating an effective immune response. These cytokines are both produced and released during sleep, thus making your sleep one of the most significant ways of boosting your immunity and fighting infections. Chronic insomnia even makes a flu vaccine that you have already taken, less effective.

The Sleep Foundation recommends 7 to 8 hours of sleep during night and if somehow you don’t get an uninterrupted sound sleep they recommend taking two naps of not longer than 30 minutes each- one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Of course, there are other factors that contribute to boosting your immunity and keeping you healthy, but very few are as significantly important as sleeping well.

Now that we have established how important sleeping is for boosting your immunity and for your overall well being, let’s talk about how you can improve your sleep.

A Good Sleep Matters

Remain positive: Like I said before, nothing is more important in this period of crisis than remaining positive. If you are a doctor, nurse or a healthcare worker, your battle might be at the forefront, but for the rest of us, we need to stay home. There are things we can do and there are things we cannot do, and there is absolutely no value in ruing over things that we cannot do. We need to accept this basic fact of life. While researching on the Internet about things that we can and should do is enormously important, we should immediately get rid of the obsession over following bad news across the world that we can absolutely do nothing about. We need to follow the news but overdoing it and bringing unnecessary stress doesn’t help anyone. Staying positive and relieving yourself of unnecessary stress will significantly enhance your chance of getting a good night of sleep.

Reduce screen-time: While watching a series or a couple of movies that you have always wanted to watch is fine, but unnecessary browsing should be avoided. The work that you have to do from home will already put you in front of the screen, but other than that, try to reduce screen-time as much as possible. Read a book instead. We all have a pending reading list that we couldn’t finish. Use your free time to finish a book. Reading a book before sleep will also help you calm down which is a necessary precursor to a sound sleep.

Household chores: Many of us don’t have our domestic help to reduce our household chores in this lockdown period. Instead of mourning at the impending workload, revel at the opportunity of getting some physical exercise done. With walking, jogging and going to gymare out of the picture, household chores might be the only instance where you can have some significant physical movement. The more you do physical work, the easier it gets to sleep.

Foods: Drink a full glass of lukewarm milk before going to bed. This may help you with a sound sleep. Also, you should reduce drinking too much coffee and other caffeinated beverages. I would also recommend you to dial down on fried foods as indigestion often leads to sleep deprivation.

In this influenza season, we need to stay healthy and a robust immune system fostered by sound sleep will help us achieve just that.

About the author- Shampa Banerjee, Senior Dietitian, SastaSundar YANA Diet Clinic