If you were one of those with more time to spend at home and reflect on previous habits, you may have been including self-care practices that reconnected you with your body and nature. There has been some ‘official’ talk of the importance of supporting immunity through diet and exercise, but with the focus on ‘fighting the virus’ has in many ways taken the focus away from this opportunity to understand the nature and needs of our innate immune system.

Viruses are always part of the world we live in and how we support our innate immunity is part of the call to eat, move and breathe as close to our natural design as possible. That means tuning into health not as an action (something ‘to do’), but rather an opportunity to focus inwards and find the rhythm and flow of how all of our natural defences work.

From our oral, lung, skin and gut microbiome, to our emotional states to bring down inflammatory tendencies; we can have a profound involvement with our immune expression. Cultivating c...

For those of you reading this blog during the coronavirus outbreak, my aim is to give you some useful information to help your support your optimal health. This applies during this time, but is also important on a daily basis – our respiratory and immune health can determine our quality of life. Self-care is a key part of the kind attention and self-compassion that gives us the resources to be able to care and look out for others.

It can also provide reassurance that you are taking the self-protective action that can help quell a sense of fear that can come from feeling out of control. It is important to be able to sit with and meet feelings of vulnerability (please see Brene Brown’s work on this!); we can notice what we can control, so we can develop some ease and adaptability around that which we cannot.

This ease and calm within the nervous system (and therefore the whole mind-body) is a crucial part of immune and respiratory health. This calm parasympathetic tone of the nervous s...