Finally! Power of rest gets the royal seal of approval
Have you had a cold yet? and I don’t mean Covid. I mean a proper, oldfashioned, knockyou-out cold. about four weeks ago, I started coughing. Of course, I took several Covid tests — all negative. The cough continued. More tests, still negative. I felt so ill, I even took a PCR test.
No, said my GP, this is a cold. But it can’t be, I explained perfectly rationally. I feel like I’m going to die.
even now, nearly a month later, I’m still having coughing fits. as if 18 months of Covid haven’t been enough, apparently there are now ‘super-colds’ thanks to a combination of more than a year spent indoors, wearing masks and keeping away from one another. Without our usual exposure to germs, a cold we’d normally brush off is laying us low.
Figures from the UK Health Security agency showed that calls to 111 about colds and flu, a cough or difficulty breathing are on the rise, with a particular increase from patients aged 15 to 44.
But maybe some good will come of this. Maybe one of the things the pandemic has forced us to
do is convalesce.
BeCaUSe of the Covid rules, last year we had to stay in, look after ourselves, rest up. Forcing yourself to go to work, soldier on, as we used to do when ill, was out of the question. The law specifically told you to stay at home. Hopefully this approach will continue with other illnesses, even the common cold.
This has to be a good thing. Just look at the Queen, who last week was advised to cancel her trip to Northern Ireland. She went on to spend a night in hospital before returning to Windsor to recover.
Yes, Ma’am, at 95, even you need to learn to slow down a bit, take it easy, watch some black-and-white films and demolish a bowl of oranges — doctor’s orders.
Like Her Majesty, for years we have tried to keep calm and carry on, even when feeling a bit peaky. How many of us have gone into work with a cough or a cold when really we should have been tucked up in bed at home?
I think this behaviour stems from our frenetic, fast-paced modern lives. We refuse to believe that recovering from common illnesses, such as colds, takes as long as it actually does.
a few days and that should be it, we tell ourselves.
Not so long ago, getting better was part of being ill. Then it was just assumed that after a few Lemsips you’d be right as rain. People seem to be genuinely perplexed when it takes longer to recover, yet most coughs and colds aren’t gone in a few days, it’s more like a week.
Skipping this part of illness does nobody any favours — it means we often feel unwell for longer, and also risk spreading the lurgy to others.
Thanks to Covid, it has become very clear how serious that can be, especially for the old.
and it’s not just coughs and colds. We frequently underestimate how long it takes to recover from all sorts of things.
EaRLIeR this month, comedian Robert Webb had to quit Strictly after he realised his body simply hadn’t recovered from the open-heart surgery he’d had two years ago. He needed longer to recuperate. all credit to him for recognising this.
We all need to relearn the lost art of convalescence; take time to allow our bodies to heal and recover. Covid has given us permission to stop and care for ourselves.
all of a sudden, we have been forced to self-isolate for days on end and, I hope, learn the value of recovering completely.
That old-fashioned ‘period of convalescence’ helps the body heal and the mind rest.
Generations ago, before we had antibiotics, people had to keep a keener eye on their health. They knew it would take a fortnight to recover from a cold, and the risk of developing pneumonia meant people would stay in and take time to rest.
Before the pandemic, we had learnt to view this as almost quaint and certainly not something a busy professional would consider doing.
But we owe it to ourselves — and to those around us — to recuperate when unwell.
There is nothing heroic about soldiering on.