You Can Boost Your Covid Vaccination

2 years ago we were blissfully unaware of Covid-19 and had no clue how much it would take over the lives of just about everyone on the planet. A dreadful price has been paid across the world in terms of economic shutdowns with their devastating effects on jobs, incomes, and family relationships.

This does not take into account the number of people who have actually died as a direct result of contracting an illness as a result of becoming infected by the virus itself. Some of those who recover are still affected many months later through the loss of energy being the most common lasting effect.

Of course, all of this news has had a terrible effect on the mental health of many people. Some were already struggling before the pandemic with heavy workloads and stressful working environments.

Undoubtedly you too have been affected in some way by the pandemic. These effects may have increased the stress you were already suffering under.

The good news, at last, you may say, is that vaccines have been developed that should help the world to come out of lockdowns and return to normality of life. The economies can reopen, jobs restarted and incomes regained.

I know some of you may be wary that the vaccines seem to have been created very quickly this time. Normally, a new vaccine is announced followed by a statement that “several years” of clinical trials lie ahead to check the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. This time though, governments had pressured medical companies to “come up with a vaccine” quickly.

It has been my concern too. However, this time the virus is not a new one. Versions have been around already and have been studied by laboratories across the world. You may remember SARS from a few years ago. This is related to Covid in enough ways to give scientists ways to adapt existing vaccines to have confidence that they will work now as well.

Over the years many studies have been carried out to see what factors affect the speed at which medication in general, and vaccines in particular, take effect in the body. Are there actions the recipient can take that will help or hinder their effectiveness?

Actions You Can Take.

It turns out there are actions you can take to increase the effectiveness of vaccines. Studies have been carried out by researchers in America, Australia, Russia, and the United Kingdom over several years.

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, Anna Whittaker, Anna Popova, Alexander Gintsburg, Christopher Thompson, Kate Edwards are just a few who have contributed to the sum of knowledge about what we can do as individuals to increase the effectiveness of medications.

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser (Ohio State University) discovered that there “are psychological, social and behavioral strategies that can substantially impact the immune’s system’s response to any vaccine”

Anna Whittaker (University of Stirling, UK), looks at the effects of lifestyle factors on immune health.

Anna Popova (head of the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing – the Russians really love long titles don’t they?) advised against the consumption of alcohol two weeks before their first Covid vaccination.

This was also backed up by Alexander Gintsburg (head of the Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow. He said that “drinking alcohol after getting a coronavirus jab can impair the immune response and could even render the vaccine ineffectiveness.

Christopher Thompson (Loyola University, Maryland) says “it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how drinking might impact your immune system”.

Kate Edwards (Expert in Physical Exercise Effects at the University of Sydney, Australia) found that exercise and fitness, in general, helped to reduce the pain at the site of the injection and helped the body to have a stronger immune response, quicker.

Steps you can take to help your immune response to the vaccine include:

• De-stress – listening to mild music can really help here SOOTHING MUSIC CHANNEL
• Sleep well 7hrs +. It was found that 6hrs or below had no effect.
• Be sociable. Isolation often increases negative feelings of aloneness (or even loneliness) which have a depressing effect on the body’s response to medication in general.
• Quit alcohol. Binge drinking will almost certainly decrease the vaccine’s efficacy. Should be avoided for at least 4 weeks prior to receiving the injection and 2 weeks following it.
• Even a 15-minute workout prior to receiving the flu jab was found to increase its effectiveness, especially in women.

However, there are some factors you cannot control, so don’t worry about them.

These include:

1) Sex. For some reason, men are more likely to suffer more seriously than women if they develop the full illness.

2) Age. It has been the experience across the world that the older a person is the more likely they are to develop the most serious symptoms and even go on to death as a direct result of Covid infection.

3) Microbiome – Your gut bacteria has been shown to affect the value of vaccinations for diphtheria, hepatitis A and flu. It’s too early to see if they have the same effect on the Covid jab.

4) Prior infection. EVEN if you have come down with Covid and have made a recovery, you are strongly advised to get the vaccine.

One issue that is facing researchers is that vaccine manufacturers are using new technology for the mass production of vaccines. They are based on mRNA. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are using this technology for the first time in widespread vaccine production.

(mRNA – Messenger RiboNucleuc Acid  – this is a single-stranded molecule. It carries genetic information from DNA in a cell’s nucleus to its ribosomes, the cell’s protein-making machinery).

More research is needed, which will take time, to see how this factor affects the effectiveness of the new vaccines. However, the general advice is that you are better to be vaccinated than not at this time.