Staying Positive When You Are Diagnosed with COVID-19

I almost skipped my weekly blog post this week. I didn’t want to, but my body felt so weak and my mind was fogged. Yup…unfortunately, I tested positive for and had contracted the COVID-19 virus. In a time when many people are getting the vaccine and a lot of us are hopeful that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, it is a bit surreal. However, I decided that the show must go on…and I can write about my experience with COVID and how to keep a positive mentality throughout it all.

I do want to preface it wasn’t through an act of carelessness that this happened. I wear my mask everywhere I go; Travel? Not since COVID hit. I’ve taken all the safety precautions recommended by the CDC. Heck, I barely leave my house. A member of my immediate family got COVID and from there it spread to me.

Second preface: This article was written with covid brain. Read at your own risk!

My Experience with COVID-19

The following is just my experience. Everybody’s experience is different. Results may vary.

When I first experienced symptoms, they hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like I had got beat up by Mike Tyson quite honestly. Luckily, I had no fever, although my temperature was high at 99.8. My head felt extremely heavy and was constantly thumping. I was coughing, had some shortness of breath, nausea, loss of appetite, and my entire body felt weak. Most of all, and to this day, I am very exhausted and constantly tired.

For anybody wondering, COVID is 10x worse than the flu.

I slept that entire first day. From 11 am to 6 am the following day I was only awake for one hour. The next day, I did still feel sick, but I felt a lot better than the previous day. In retrospect, almost anything would have been better than that first day. That was one of the worst feelings of sickness I have ever had in my life.

I actually ended up working, which in hindsight may have been a mistake. I was able to get a decent amount of work done, but I felt so exhausted in doing so. It may have been smarter to just take an extra day to rest. To put it in context, a simple task such as doing the dishes had me extremely exhausted and even winded.

Overall, I still feel extremely tired all of the time. I sleep 12+ hours at night with naps during the day. I probably spend 2/3rds of my days sleeping. My body just does not feel like itself yet. However, I feel confident that things will go back to normal soon.

Staying Positive During COVID-19

How do you stay positive when you tested positive?

Okay, that was just a little play on words. But let’s talk about why it is so important to stay positive during times of sickness. In fact, let’s take illness out of the equation for a moment. If you believe something about yourself it will usually become a self-fulfilling prophecy:

The words you tell yourself and the thoughts you believe are extremely important and correlate directly to the results you will achieve.

This is no different when you are sick. If you keep telling yourself how sick you are, how miserable you feel, how awful, unfair, annoying, crappy it is…. You will continue to feel sick and continue to feel awful.

If you keep telling yourself that you are okay, that you will get better soon, that you can overcome this… you will start to get better. Your thoughts let your mind know, and your mind tells your body that you are starting to feel better.

Don’t think this is true? Then try it. But really try it. Fully delve into the positive mindset 100% of the time and see how much better you feel afterward. After all, what do you have to lose?

And yes, I acknowledge this can be difficult. Especially when you truly feel terrible. The first day I got sick I was not holding a positive mentality by any means. I can’t really tell you what my mindset was… I just felt like crap. Even now, it is hard to say “I am fine” when I don’t feel fine; I feel sick. However, I can tell myself that I am going to be fine. I can tell myself that this will pass, and I will get better soon. When you get a second to re-adjust and become aware of what you are thinking, do yourself a huge favor and think positive thoughts.

Positive thoughts are important, but that alone will not help you get better. Self-care is extremely important as well:

Rest

Arguably the most important thing to do is rest. If you don’t rest, your body will not have the strength to fight off the virus. Personally, I feel it is better to over rest as you don’t want to hop back into the swing of things too early and feel even weaker.

The more you rest, the better your body will feel and the easier it will become to think positively and feel good.

If you don’t rest, you will continue to feel sick, and probably even start to feel worse as you exert yourself.

So, lay in bed with a movie. Close your eyes. Sleep 12-16 hours a day if that’s what your body needs. Don’t worry about anything else, just focus on healing.

COVID Related Anxiety

A lot of anxiety can come with COVID-19. Media hype, missing work, infecting others. All of these can cause anxiety which will only prolong your getting better. If you are constantly worried about these things, it will make you feel worse. It can prolong your symptoms and prevent you from sleeping when that is the best way for your body to fight off the virus. I am guilty of getting anxiety when I was diagnosed with COVID as well.

Media Hype Anxiety

The way the media has talked about covid has been scary. The death rates, the people hooked up to ventilators in hospitals, and so on. It is normal to feel a sense of anxiety from this. However, try to remember that probably 1% of cases are that severe. Most cases will get better with just rest and proper self-care. My doctor said to treat the symptoms. So, for example, if you are coughing like me, take cough syrup. There really is no magic to it. It just takes rest and time. The best thing you can do during this time is not listening to the news or anything else that will bring you additional stress and anxiety. Just take care of yourself.

Missing Work Anxiety

You might get anxious about missing work and falling behind. Especially if your job is WFH (work from home). But remember, every employer has heard of COVID. We have had a year of this pandemic by now. Every single person has altered their lives to varying degrees. COVID-19 is a very serious issue. Any reasonable person will be more than understanding if you receive a positive COVID test and need to take time off to heal.

Anxiety of Infecting Others

If you live with others, make sure you are following safety protocols, taking the proper precautions, and quarantining. All you can do from here on out is be as diligent and careful as possible not to infect those you live with. And even so, it might still happen. Be careful, but don’t let things out of your control overwhelm you.

Remember, you already got sick. As long as you were taking proper precautions before and after, there is nothing more you can really do. Make sure you quarantine and continue to take the correct safety measures. It might be lonely, but it is worth it to protect your family and peers. What you cannot do however is get caught up in the fear of possibly infecting others.

“Do not let what is out of your control interfere with all the things you can control.” -Anonymous

COVID-19 is definitely serious and needs to be treated as such. Its symptoms can really kick your ass. If you haven’t gotten the virus, hopefully, this encourages you to continue following safety protocols. If you have, understand that you are not alone and that through proper self-care, rest, and positive thinking we can overcome this!

Best,

Eric