When I finally contracted COVID-19 for the first time, earlier this summer, I deluded myself into thinking I could work through the first few days of illness. After all, I perceived my symptoms to be impressively mild. I’d experienced worse colds and flus that laid me out for days. My version of COVID, which ultimately gripped my body for weeks, began with lethargy and barely noticeable congestion.
Continuing to work wasn’t about proving my productivity. Instead, I faced a timely deadline that I preferred to meet than delay. But COVID had other plans. Within three days, I crashed. When I wasn’t watching TV, I could do nothing but lie in bed, fatigued by the simplest tasks.
That’s when I started meditating multiple times a day. As a Ten Percent Happier app user, I turned to several guided meditations, most of them emphasizing gratitude, self-compassion, deep rest, and coping with difficult emotions. I’m convinced that it helped transform the physical and mental toll of my extended illness from an exhausting, isolating burden into a still challenging experience that I could observe with calm and empathy.
I can’t be certain that meditating improved my physical health, but some studies suggest the practice can have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. If nothing else, it helped alleviate the anxiety that surfaced along with unusual and unexpected symptoms, like nerve pain and tingling in my hands and feet that is consistent with neuropathy, as well as an aching twitch in the muscles near my heart, relentless insomnia, and a whole-body vibration I’d never felt before.
