 Hello, I'm Caitlin and I'm a physical therapist and a health promotion specialist for the Army Public Health Center. I wanted to reach out to our community today to talk about the importance of physical resilience and today I have Yusenia who is a member of our community who has tested positive for the coronavirus and is currently on isolation. Hello Caitlin, thanks for having me. It's been nine days since I tested positive and naturally I'm feeling pretty good and everyone excited to share my own personal experience with the leader I'm sure a lot of people are really excited to hear what your experience has been like. Speaking of that, what have your symptoms been since you were diagnosed with having that coronavirus? So initially the first two days I had some tickling in the throat and then after that and some soreness in the throat but then after that I just followed with an extreme cough. I did not have a fever at all but the cough in my chest was really tight so I had to have a difficult time breathing so yeah those were my initial symptoms and really the most symptom that I had was the cough. What I did realize about four days ago, five days ago is that I lost some sense of smell too so yeah but those were my symptoms. Very interesting. Well today I wanted to talk about three important aspects that people should be thinking about with their health while they are on quarantine or isolation. We have nutrition, physical activity and sleep. So I want to start with nutrition because a lot of people are hyper focused on just the caloric value of food and they're not really looking at the nutrient base of what they're eating so how has your diet changed with being on isolation? So basically so I have not had to change any way of eating my diet so I've been able to maintain my healthy eating habits but really thanks to the community that's been mentioning out to me and asking me what I need and dropping it off at the door and that's been awesome. But I haven't been able to continue to eat my fruit, my yogurt and oatmeal for breakfast and also I've gotten a lot of avocados and I've been making such great music for them. I've been using them on toast, making an avocado dip and using them in my salads but in my dinners I've consisted of things such as baked stuff, zucchini, stuffed bell peppers, sweet potatoes and pretty much like throwing the date on a snack on carrots and celery just with some type of dip but yeah. I'm so glad you're incorporating all those fruits and veggies in your diet because they can really help to boost your immune system and there's another resource on APHC's website it's called Meals in 15 Minutes or Less. It can just help other people meal plan healthy meals and especially if they're on a tight budget for time. Yeah, I feel like my nutrition habit has allowed me to become a bit faster. I have more energy and I've definitely built a difference in how I feel when I eat healthy versus not, especially during this time of recovery I think it's important. Yeah, well now I want to move on to my favorite topic, the importance of exercise. Right here. So you can do resistance training to improve your muscle and bone strength and there's also cardio activities that you can do for improvement of muscle strength and endurance in your cardiovascular system. Breathing heavy too can also help bring that gunk up and out from your lungs. So what have you been doing for exercise? Well you know I especially care about the immune function of exercise but I begin my day by just opening the doors and breathing fresh air whether it's cold or hot. I mean cold here and it hasn't been lately but I have a bio trainer here at home that I've been able to utilize and initially I had a hard time breathing so I can only ride up to like five miles. So I had a little bit of difficulty breathing but I was able to maintain my daily routine and I can ride a little bit longer now. Thanks to technology I've also been able to conduct a routine exercise every day that there are so many occupations out there that people can use that provide such great workouts. I completely agree and I would also recommend community members looking at our Garrison's website for further resources on home programs. And APHC has an article called Homemade Fitness and it gives people some ideas of things that they can do at home without any equipment for exercise. As much as I would love to continue talking about exercise though we'll move on to the importance of getting a good night's sleep. Because this is the time our body has to focus and make repairs, do some maintenance. How's your sleep been? So honestly my sleep has always been difficult. I've always had my time sleeping but it almost seems probably my mind always wants to go but it almost seems like since I've been on quarantine I've been able to get up to eight hours of sleep or even more. So prior to going to bed I usually take a warm shower that relaxes me and then I have this calm app that I play that normally just puts me out completely. So what I found is that sleep has helped me get on my way to recovery. I think I can recover a little bit faster and in the morning I feel so much more refreshed. It's like in the morning I'm not dragging it so it's awesome. And I think those are some great tips our community members can use to help get a good night's sleep. And I also just love how positive you've been throughout this whole process. Because I think just having a positive attitude is really going to help with dealing with the stress of everything going on right now. I love seeing your Facebook videos of your journey with the coronavirus and I look forward to seeing more. Thanks Katelyn, thanks for talking to me.