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RANDY CROUCH

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — Look, pretty much everyone gets it.

COVID-19 has been omnipresent in our day-to-day lives for close to two years now. Every time you turn on the television it’s there. Every morning when you sit down with a cup of coffee to open up your newspaper, you see it. You login to Facebook to see what your eccentric uncle and members of your high school graduating class are up to and you are immediately buried beneath an avalanche of arguing about vaccines.

It’s a lot. We all feel it. We are all done with COVID.

Unfortunately, COVID isn’t done with us.

The holiday season comes at a precarious time this year. Sporting events are being postponed. Hospital beds are full. Yet another variant is making its way around the world. The United States recently reached a grim milestone as we’ve topped 800,000 coronavirus deaths. As much as we hate to admit it, COVID-19 has staying power.

So what now?

By now, you’ve heard it all before. Get vaccinated. Get your booster. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Social distance. You’re sick of hearing these things because you’ve been hearing them for what feels like an eternity.

For many of us, it’s been easy to lapse into a false sense of security or numbness about the very real threat that faces us, letting many of us to fall out of the habits which have kept us and others around us safe throughout the pandemic. Looking at the increasing infections in the U.P. and the difficult situations that many local hospitals face should probably tell us it’s time to get back into masking up in public, making sure our hand sanitizer is at the ready and scheduling a booster appointment.

So, how about the rest of us who have been diligently, washing, masking, distancing and boosting? We’ve done the best we can to keep those around us protected but what else can we do to make sure that we are healthy both physically and mentally?

Recently a group of Michigan Tech University students turned a class project into a YouTube video filled with a lot of solid ideas about how to keep healthy in the time of COVID.

While the video does touch on the standard precautions discussed above, it also provides a lot of great tips to help you avoid getting sick, to help you recover more quickly if you do get sick and to help you stay informed.

Here are some of the tips that the video suggests:

≤Get tested – Getting tested regularly can help slow the spread of COVID. A big thing here is to make sure that if you are traveling you are tested both when you leave and when you arrive at your destination.

≥Getting at least 20 minutes of exercise everyday – Making sure that you are active for at least 20 minutes daily will not only help you avoid or recover from COVID, it can help pretty much every aspect of your physical and mental well-being.

≥Limit time spent sitting – Easier said than done for those of us who work at a desk but it is a vital part of keeping you healthy.

≥Take breaks from the news – This may seem to be a strange suggestion coming from, well, the news, but it can be very overwhelming to be inundated with worrying statistics and all of the bad news in our society. Unplugging from the news can help keep you refreshed and can allow you to focus more on what is going well in your life.

≥Stretch or meditate – Simply stretching for a few minutes can keep you physically healthy and mentally calm, as well as improving breathing and keeping your circulation at an optimal level during the cold winter months.

≥Set goals and priorities – This can be a good tip for your mental health. By planning and breaking larger problems into smaller pieces, it can help to keep you on task and ready for whatever life throws at you.

≥Stay connected with family and friends – While many people are getting together again for the holidays after taking last year off due to social distancing, many of us don’t have the option due to friends and family members who have compromised immune systems. Staying connected with loved ones, especially this time of year, can make all the difference in our mental health.

≥Make sure you’re getting information from credible sources – There is a lot of information out there. For every piece of solid, factual information there are 20 pieces of misinformation. It can be hard to figure out which is which but a good rule of thumb is to stick with sources that are based in science and fact. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be your first stop for factual information. If you have any questions or help figuring out fact from fiction, check in with your doctor.

Search UP & Moving on YouTube to access the video titled “Staying Healthy & Safe During COVID-19” or access the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc4vi-vDAG8&t=1s

Randy Crouch can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242. His email address is rcrouch@miningjournal.net.