Cleaning Lab

Zondra Wilson - Blu Skin Care

This is what I’ve been doing to protect my home:

• Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially before you eat.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
• Cover your cough and sneezes with a tissue and discard it in a closed container.
• Clean frequently touched surfaces and objects.

For people who are sick:

• Stay home.
• If you have a fever, stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone without the use of fever-reducing medicines, such as acetaminophen.
• Keep sick household members away from others. If you have a separate room that is best.
• Use soap and water, a bleach and water solution, or EPA-approved household products. You can make your own cleanser with a mixture of 1 cup of liquid unscented chlorine bleach in 5 gallons of water.
• Avoid sharing personal items.
• Anyone at high risk for complications should talk to their healthcare provider for more information.

 

Eva Bowker - Fantastic Handyman

Covid-19 definitely changed the way we look at public health and safety. We currently fight an invisible enemy that endangers our entire way of life. The current focus is on protecting our elders, which is understandable and very important.

However, what we may underestimate is the protection of our children. I’ve seen multiple times small children without masks or any protection in the stores.

While kids are resilient, they can still carry the virus and spread it, so no matter how hard it is, we need to explain the importance of wearing a mask to them and help them develop the habit of wearing one.

A few other useful habits you should develop to protect your entire family from Covid-19 include:

1. Place a small protective kit in every family member’s bag. This kit should include – masks, gloves, antibacterial wet wipes and some antibacterial gel. These are now the essentials we need when we go outside.

2. Make it a rule to wash your hands right after the following events – before and after eating, after sneezing and blowing your nose, after using the bathroom, after spending time in public indoor spaces, like the supermarket or a bus. Also, make sure nobody touches their face before their hands are washed.

3. Maintain impeccable hygiene at home. Everything new that comes inside has to go through the washer or you need to wipe it with a disinfectant. You can place disinfecting towels and gels in each room, to make sure you have some at hand when you need them.

The same rule applies for your clothes and any bags or school materials that spend time outside. Teach your children to avoid placing their items on surfaces without disinfecting them first.

4. Wash towels and bed linen a little more often, especially if any of your family members spend time outside and in close proximity to other people. It may seem too much, but touch is what spreads the disease, so you need to be vigilant.

Adam Kemp

During this coronavirus time my family and I have taken the risk very seriously and we have been fully committed to staying healthy and virus-free.

My family and I have spent this coronavirus time in a relatively isolated way, and we have done our best to stay healthy by avoiding exposure as much as possible.

Throughout this time my wife and I have been working at home, and we have done hardly any traveling and avoided social interactions as much as possible.

We do not go shopping more than once or twice per week, and we are very careful about wearing masks when in public. We have also avoided restaurants and other indoor venues that could increase exposure. When we do go to a store or out anywhere, we always use masks, and we also travel with hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes.

Furthermore, we have a UV sanitizer that we use for sanitizing items we purchase and bring into our home.

Along with that, we have been avoiding extended-family and friends outside of two or three outdoor interactions that involved distance.

Overall, our goal has been to avoid contact and limit exposure as much as possible. When we have been in situations with an increased amount of people, we have been very diligent about wearing masks and sanitizing.

Nikola Djordjevic - Health Careers

The best way to protect your family during this time is not only social distancing but social isolation if possible.

As a practicing doctor, I was fully aware of the implications of Covid-19 right from the outset around March. I was traveling with my family in my home country of Serbia to visit relatives when the pandemic rapidly progressed in Europe.

Since the government issued a full-lockdown, we only had a couple of days to pack our things and head to our little house in the village in the southeast of Serbia.

We chose to do this to avoid the big crowds and shortages, stocking up on basic necessities before heading out to a more peaceful location. Waiting out the lockdown took longer than anticipated, but we were able to stay safe in a remote location surrounded by nature.

Most of the Covid-19 infections in the country were happening in the big cities, especially those with airports such as Belgrade.

So I think the key to protecting your family during these times of pandemic is social isolation, preferably in a remote location, taking social distancing to the next level.

As it stands now, the pandemic is far from over, and avoiding human contact continues to be the best way to avoid contagion until a vaccine is developed.

Nate Battle

Living in the current epicenter of Southeast Florida, we use a system when venturing outside our home to protect us from COVID-19. It begins with a thorough hand washing using Hibiclens Antiseptic Skin Cleanser. This is used as a pre-scrub wash before surgery by some surgeons. It can also provide up to 24 hours of protection and is far better than antibacterial soap.

From there, we are careful to wear correctly fitting masks, either cloth or disposable, and one glove. We use hand sanitizer on both hands, including on the gloved hand before exiting the vehicle. We then only use the gloved hand to touch doors, pick up products, and touch keypads, etc.

We try to bring our own bag, pretreated with Lysol spray, to put the items we intend to purchase instead of using a cart. We try to strictly adhere to at least a six-foot distance from others while out.

We discard the glove when leaving the store and put our purchases in the trunk until we get home. Since only one of us goes into the store, the other remains in the vehicle and dispenses hand sanitizer to the other before reentering it.

The one who waited in the car will spray the other one down with Lysol spray if they came into close contact while in the store, was sneezed or coughed on. We retrieve our mail using a glove or plastic bag.

We have a staging area in the garage where anything brought in from the outside (groceries, deliveries, mail, etc.) is wiped down with Lysol/Clorox wipes before bringing into the house. Finally, we thoroughly wash our hands after returning home using the same process and change clothing.

Will all of this effort guarantee we won't contract the virus? No. But if for no other reason, we do them in support of the CDC recommendation that says "wear face coverings when in a public setting to slow the spread of the virus, since this will help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.

In short, you shouldn't count on earloop masks to protect you from COVID-19 — you should wear them mainly as a public service to help protect others from you.

Ivy Skifstad - Livin’ The Life Of Ivy

I am a pharmacist who works in a hospital. So, we are taking a lot of precautions during this time. Here are a few ways I’ve been taking precautions during this time.

First, I keep two pairs of shoes in ziplock bags in my car. They pretty much stay in the trunk of the car. In the morning, I wear my flip flops out to the car and get one pair of my shoes out of the trunk and put it on the passenger’s side.

I will drive to work in my flip flop. Upon arriving at work, I will then change into my pair of shoes, being careful not to let the shoes have any contact with the interior of my car.

I will also wear a mask and have gloves on (the gloves are for pushing elevator buttons and opening doors) when walking from the parking lot into the hospital.

At the hospital, temperatures are taken, and a new mask is issued. It is at this time that I put my personal mask away and put on the mask supplied by my hospital.

Likewise, when leaving work, I will then change back into my flip flops and put my work shoes into the zip lock bags.

It isn’t until I get home that I will put my work shoes into the trunk of my car.

Notice, my flip flops never touch the ground at my workplace. They stay inside my car until I get home.

When I get home, I will then go into my unattached garage and change into my “house clothes”. The laundry basket is in the garage. I will then proceed to wipe down my purse with an alcohol wipe before entering my house.

I immediately wash my hands upon entering my house, and then I will take a shower.

At least once a day, my daughter will wipe down high traffic surfaces with a disinfectant such as Lysol.

We even have a pad of sticky mats in front of both the front and back door.

We have not been inside a market since April. We do our shopping online and have the food delivered. When the food gets here, everything gets wiped down or washed before it gets put away. ( My daughter has a system for doing this.)

Shelley Meche’tte

My family and I have always taken measures to remain as germ-free as possible. We have always been conscious of keeping our hands clean and the usage of hand sanitizer.

With the Coronavirus outbreak, we have taken even more precautionary actions to not only protect ourselves and our family but even those whom we come into contact with outside of our home. Some of those things include:

Using the bathroom before we leave the house. By doing this, it reduces the need of using public restrooms, where there could possibly be a large number of germs.

Washing our hands immediately once returning home from outdoors. No matter how careful we are...just being outdoors or touching the surface of your doorknob, can put you at risk for Covid. Washing your hands immediately once entering the home can help reduce this.

Limit outside contact. One of the ways that my family shows our love for one another, is to limit contact with other people. Not going out with friends. Limiting family visits. Many people carry the virus without knowing that they have it. By limiting contact with others, we limit our chances of contracting Covid-19.

Ben Soreff – House to Home Organizing

My wife, who is very crafty, sewed two-layer fabric face masks for me, herself, and our two young boys. She also sewed around one hundred masks for our local hospital to use during the height of demand.

I am the only person in the household who goes grocery shopping at the physical store. We have a homemade alcohol spray that we use to disinfect surfaces after a repair person etc visits our home.

While rubbing alcohol is more valuable than gold right now we have a local distillery that gives small bottles away with a purchase.

We have curtailed our travel and in the process of exploring what outdoor activities are safe. Unfortunately, all the popular places to hike or walk around are very crowded.

Dave Pedley – Your Cub

After becoming a stay-at-home dad and entrepreneur, my kids' health became even more important to me. I started seeing first-hand how our daily decisions as a family affected them, more so than before.

During corona, this, of course, became a big topic of conversation. Some of the hygiene measures we employed, and still are to some extent, include:

- Mask wearing at all times in public
- Washing of hands/using sanitizer more frequently
- Sanitizing groceries and other items bought from the store.
- Lots of kid-friendly discussions about not touching things in public.

Christina Nicholson – Christina All Day

We are staying at home as much as we can. Thankfully, we have a pool, we have TV, we have internet, we have books, and the kids have lots of toys and games.

Since we started quarantine, the kids have understood why we're doing it. Because they recognize it's not safe to be out and about, they have not asked to go out to a restaurant or take our usual weekly trips to the library.

Instead, we order carryout or have food delivered. We even set up a restaurant and created menus to serve them.

Once, we rented a newly released movie and made our home into a movie theater with movie tickets and a concession stand.

In addition to keeping the kids home, us parents are very mindful when we go out. We are always social-distancing and wearing masks.

When my husband gets home from work, he takes a shower. When we need groceries, we order them online and pick them up curbside.

Michele Lefler – Living Moon Meditation

My family is small so it’s easier for us to take precautions than it may be for larger families.

There are just two of us- myself and my husband. We stay home as much as possible and go out only when necessary. I don’t go shopping and leave that to my husband so that only one of us goes out at a time.

We are diligent about wearing face coverings when we do go out. If we eat out, it’s usually from a drive through and brought home.

I have had a few business lunches that were inside of restaurants, but make sure to choose those that adhere to physical distancing and patrons and staff wearing face coverings.

We both also try to get out in our yard or with friends in very small groups of 2-3 for mental health but tend to stay away from larger gatherings where possible.

Dr.Giuseppe Aragona - Prescription Doctor

There are some great ways that you can protect you and your family from the coronavirus. The first one is to not leave the house as much as possible. Get groceries delivered, get your children to play in the garden rather than outside.

Engage in more online activities or activities you can do at home.

Of course go for walks, but do so in masks and in areas that will not be crowded. I would also make sure that you are cleaning surfaces as many times as you can, especially handles, handrails and surfaces you eat from.

If you have packages come to the house, wash your hands after handling the outside of the package, and remove immediately, feel free to wipe the item for an added layer of safety.

I would also suggest that you find masks that fit comfortably. Especially with small children, they need a more specific fit than adults, as their face is smaller and more susceptible to not fit in the more generically sized masks.

Using filters will help, and these can be bought online in packs for ease.

All of these combined with common sense will keep you and your family safe during these uncertain times.

Christina Cay - C'MON MAMA

We are staying home. I am a Stay at Home Mom, so we are able to keep our children home during the Covid crisis and my husband and I have decided to do just that. Cases are surging in our area and as enticing as a play date or restaurant or even the playground sounds, we are steering clear of virtually all public settings.

Many of our friends have made the opposite decision than us, but we would rather freely see our family since we have several family members who live close than jump back on the date night or summer camp train.

By continuing to quarantine, we have formed a quaranTEAM with our family members (grandparents, siblings, etc) who are doing the same. So while we may be confined to our homes, we move freely between each other's homes and that has been refreshing.

If we were to reintegrate into the world right now, we'd lose our ability to see our family in close proximity like we've now been spoiled to. We get grocery delivery (and have decided we are Team Grocery Delivery for life now) and so far have had no essential things to attend to.

My husband is a surgeon so he is our only "weak link." He still has to go into the hospital, but he also thinks the OR is one of the safest places to be because of all the extra precautions that are being enforced.

And truthfully, as I see him suit up & walk into a workplace he has no choice but to walk into, it puts things in perspective—if he can do that then we can certainly stay home to inhibit the spread and not add to the hospitalization pileup.

As with most things in life, a lot of making it through this with your sanity intact boils down to perspective. Sometimes we have to force a perspective shift.

We're embracing a slow summer with our children. We may be losing our sanity bit by bit, but if we can keep our health, we're calling that a win.

Milana Perepyolkina - Gypsy Energy Secrets

My daughter and I are working from home, my daughter is also studying from home.

We wear masks when grocery shopping and use an antiviral spray for shopping carts and an antiviral hand sanitizer.

When we come home, we wash our hands with an antiviral soap.

When we notice that we don't feel well, we take vitamin C.

We have not been sick in a very long time.

Katie Riddell

My family is just following the rules which are often changing given that Victoria is now in stage 4 lockdown.

We have face masks handy as we now have to wear them when we leave our home.

We have hand sanitizer in the car. I even try to carry my own pen with me.

We don’t go to the shops more than we need to and make do with what’s in the pantry.

When we get a delivery at home, I make sure we wash our hands.

Dmitri Kara - Fantastic Cleaners

Be it Coronavirus or any other virus or germ, regular cleaning and disinfecting are of crucial importance to the health and wellbeing of your family and while there are low to medium measures, I will walk you through the very best and most professional thing we do.

As a high-end professional cleaning company, we devised a specialised antiviral cleaning service focused at exactly that - tackle hygiene with Using BS EN 1276 certified non-toxic antiviral detergents so no virus can thrive.

First, we spray through all surfaces through a domestic property. Then we wipe surfaces such as light switches, doorknobs, kitchen tops.

We also advise all family members or roommates in the premises to clean their phones every time we come back home. This is actually a good practice even when there’s no pandemic because smartphones carry an enormous amount of bacteria.

Since we buy fruits and vegetables without packaging, advice people to place them in a large bowl, add one part vinegar and three parts water. After 10-15 minutes, you can rinse the produce and it’s ready for consumption.

When coming home, leave a sprayer bottle at the entrance and spray your shoes, bottom clothing and upper clothing.

Keep a pair of gloves, a sponge and detergent mixed with water so you can wipe your shoes prior to leaving the home.

Renata Trebing - Nourish with Renata

We are a family with 3 young children, and it has been a rollercoaster of emotions during COVID-19 lockdown. With work and school shutdowns, as well as uncertainty if schools will reopen, it is easy to get overwhelmed and anxious.

The most important thing I can do as a parent is to show my children how to respond to uncertain times and potential medical risks. Here are the top three things we are doing to protect our family from COVID-19.

1) Have open communication: having open dialogue with your family can help everyone to share their emotions and discuss what they feel like the next right step is. With young kids, we explain things in more general terms.

We also emphasize that there are many unknowns right now, but as we learn more, we will discuss it and make new plans forward.

2) Practice personal hygiene: Doing things like counting how long to wash hands for and practicing how to dry hands properly are all important skills to practice at home before heading out into the world.

In addition, teaching kids how to put on and remove face masks properly, and making face masks with their favorite toy characters on them, can make personal hygiene practice more interesting.

3) Preventative health and wellness: during this time at home, we have the unexpected opportunity to focus on our health and wellness.

Getting adequate sleep, eating mostly whole foods, drinking water, exercise and taking extra vitamins like C, Zinc, D3, have been shown to help improve overall wellness and boost the immune system.

If we can look after our health now, and teach those habits to our kids, we can potentially reduce symptoms and duration of any sickness that we may get.

Shelly Wilson

During this time of uncertainty, there is a lot of fear, and our emotions are running high. It is essential to become aware of the heavy, fear-based energies, while also being in tune with our inner knowingness.

The measures I am actively taking to protect myself and my family, primarily involve limiting my excursions except for necessities, physical distancing when those excursions are necessary and refraining from feeding the fear.

Since we do not have the answers as to when these health concerns will subside or even who is more susceptible to contracting the virus, each one of us must do our part to limit our exposure.

Taking care of our physical health, which also involves boosting our immune system, and mental/emotional well-being is a must. Finding solace within and becoming more at peace with our current state of being is essential.

The best advice I can offer is to be present, be adaptable, and be flexible. Allow yourself the opportunity to listen to what is right for you in any given moment and trust the guidance that is flowing to you. Then, take action as you feel led.

Awareness, understanding, and compassion are key components that all of us will benefit from at this time.

Dr. Christopher Stepien - Barefoot Rehab

Unconventional, I know. With a partner, a 2-year-old son, and a baby coming in 2 months, our focus to stay healthy has been focusing on our immune system health.

- Eat an anti-inflammatory diet loaded with nutrients and minimizing toxic foods such as gluten, dairy, sugar, and alcohol.

- Wim Hof method (consisting of cold water immersion and breathing) to fight off bacteria and viruses.

- Heart Math meditations to double the release of IgA, a potent secret service agent for our bodies.

- Lots of time in nature and grounding in the grass.

And, as a chronic pain doctor, we haven't quarantined at all and none of us have gotten sick.

Kerrie Kelly

Personal hygiene is top of mind as we navigate the coronavirus pandemic. While we understand the most effective steps to slow the transmission of airborne pathogens like the coronavirus, we also know bacteria, mildew, and mold can also live on surfaces in our homes for several days.

Luckily, when it comes to specifying interior home finishes, certain materials offer antimicrobial protection, killing microorganisms or stopping their growth completely.

The products we have been specifying prior to and even more so during the “great pause” for our clients and personal homes include quartz countertops, antimicrobial paint, motion sensing, and voice-activated faucets.

Shin-Di Cynthia Lai

Having conversations and checking in with my family about basic needs are a common topic that comes up nowadays

My mother is in healthcare so I make sure to check in and see that the hospital is giving her proper PPE and testing. I make sure to check in with my family about having masks and gloves. I make sure that hand washing is a consistent practice.

I also make sure that immune-boosting supplements and foods are implemented. Some of these supplements include Vitamin D, Vitamin B, Zinc, Vitamin C, Multi-Vitamins, Echinacea.

Food-wise, I make green smoothies to make sure that vitamins and minerals are incorporated into our daily diet. And adequate hydration and sleep.

Hydration, I check in and encourage everyone to drink 2-3 liters per day.

With sleep, I encourage everyone to be asleep between 11 PM and 3 AM to make sure the liver and endocrine system can sufficiently detox and flush out to give our bodies a good reboot every day.

Laura Cerrano - FengShuiManhattan

Living in the time of COVID-19 requires an adjustment to the social norms in how we interact with one another personally and professionally. Once stay at home was imposed, my family and I began to take new measures in doing our best to protect ourselves, while adapting to this new lifestyle.

Boost the Immune System:
For starters, because we live in a vessel (our body) that requires tangible care, we began educating ourselves about how we could better maintain good physical hygiene and boost our immune system.

Speaking with friends who are doctors and conducting careful research online, we found a few common threads with certain recommended supplements to help improve and maintain a stronger foundation of internal health.

Some of the recommendations included vitamin D3, magnesium, elderberry and huckleberry, probiotics, and vitamin C as to name a few. Naturally, there is a whole science behind choosing the type of supplements and from whom you purchase them.

Essentially, you do not want to buy from companies that are known to just put fillers into your vitamins. It's best to conduct your own research and ask your primary physician, naturopathic doctor or whomever you intrust for guidance with health protocols.

Eat Cleaner and Drink Plenty of Water:
My family and I also shifted our diet to promote even more cleaner eating by upping our intake of veggies and fruits. We have also made sure to drink plenty of filtered water throughout the day to stay hydrated and make it easier for our bodies to flush out toxins.

Set Up Safety Protocols for Your Family When Leaving and Returning Home:
The world has opened up again, some places more so than others. With that said, we’ve put some key protocols in place when we step out of our home and when returning. Below are some of the precautions and new habits we have now adopted into our lifestyle.

We clean our phone and computer surfaces more often, especially if they have been used in public spaces.

In our family, when we step out into the world, especially in any public space, wearing a mask is a must for us!

We’ve adopted the habit to wash our hands often and when in public, either wear gloves or sanitize our hands often. Especially after touching door knobs and making in-store purchases.

In terms of shopping for food, many of the items are now ordered online and are delivered to the house. While some shopping is still done in-person, mindfully choosing off-peak hours as to reduce shopping in large crowds.

Any food or product that is brought into our home, it all must go through a sanitization process. We even had a section within the kitchen that is specifically set up to allow things to ‘air’ out and not be used until it's been properly cleaned.

I personally have refrained from taking public transportation and now walk, bike and when I truly need to, drive to locations of necessity.

However, when I was traveling on the Long Island Railroad and NYC subways during the very early stages of COVID-19, I made it a habit of taking a shower immediately after returning home and even washed whatever articles of clothing I wore out that day, thinking this would remove any COVID-19 particles from me.

Is that proven to be of true benefit? I don’t know, yet I do know it made me feel better and gave me a sense of being proactive to protect myself, family and home environment.

Most of my family is now working from home and as for me, at times when I do venture out to conduct in-person feng shui consultations, all safety protocols as recommended by New York State Health and Safety are put into place. However, I am limiting how many in-person sessions I conduct a week for the time being.

Making More Time for Self:
COVID-19 literally shut down the world and when it did, we all had the gift of more time for self. Some loved this, while others hated it. Either way, when shelter at home really went into effect, it allowed many of us to step into a period of reflection.

Or in other words, re-evaluating what is of true value in our lives; health, family, overall relationships with others and lifestyle choices.

By embarking on this inner journey, we found it to allow us to embrace even more gratitude for what we do have vs focusing on the uncertainty of the economy 24/7 and the spiraling decline of humanity’s health. It left space for what is possible, and that was and still is, huge for uplifting the mind and emotions.

Adopted Daily / Weekly Practices of Mental and Emotional Self-care:
My family and I have also stepped up our meditation practice, interchanging between guided visualization and breathwork exercises. We've found this to be extremely helpful in managing anxiety, stress, worry and really allowing us to navigate these uncertain times with better clarity, ease and more flexibility.

All gyms are currently closed, so, with that option not being available, we’ve moved into more natural ways of enhancing cardio and strength building.

We’ve adopted the habit of taking at least 10,0000 steps each day or aiming for that amount, with walks outside around the neighborhood and hiking at NY state parks.

To offer some variety, we’ll also ride our bikes and go kayaking. We’ve even ordered some weights and invested in a punching bag, which has been a lot of fun!

We’ve also made sure to stay connected with friends and family through other platforms, such as with zoom. This is by far the safest way, in terms of mitigating COVID-19.

If we do meet up in-person, the number we gather in is still very small, usually ranging between 2 - 4 at most, or I’ll personally prefer one to one meetings. Naturally, we’ll all wear our masks and social distance.

Another big one is to tone down how much news and social media we watch.Yes, this is protecting ourselves from being filled with fear.

It's good to be informed, yet if we check out any news broadcast, we’re also mindful of the source that is reporting and for how long we watch. We just need the facts and move on.

Every morning, we have also made it a habit of allowing natural light to filter into our home. Some of this natural light can kill bacteria, but this is more to symbolize not being afraid.

The body, mind and emotions are all linked together. We can’t just shut out the world, we still need to live in it and learn to adapt as needed.

Arwen Bardsley - Evenstar Wellbeing

I am a mum of two teenage boys. To protect my family from COVID-19 we do the following things.

1. We eat whole foods - a lot of veggies and fruit, most of them organic, biodynamic meat, whole grains. We enjoy sweet treats that we make ourselves and we all drink lots of water.

2. We move our bodies every day. Both my boys are very serious about their sport - boxing - and train a couple of hours a day. I do pilates, yoga, weights, and lots of walking!

3. We prioritize sleep by having regular sleep-wake patterns and we turn off our wifi every night. My 14yo and I both use essential oils to help us sleep.

4. We keep our surroundings as toxin-free as possible - we filter our water, we only use natural products for cleaning our home and ourselves, we open windows and doors to let in the fresh air as often as possible.

5. We make sure we have some downtime each day to just enjoy being (not doing!) - we take walks, we cook together, we always eat dinner together, we love watching comedy tv shows and action movies and playing board games.

Tiffany Ascensio - Always In High Heels

In order to protect my family from coronavirus, I start by taking care of myself first. You're at a higher risk of getting sick if you're unhealthy, over stressed, or have a weakened immune system.

So I do my best to eat healthy meals including fresh fruits and vegetables and refreshing smoothies, wash my hands often, go for walks, stretch and do deep breathing exercises before bed, and try to avoid stress and anxiety triggers.

Another thing I do for my mental health is to pick up fresh flowers when I go to the grocery store to brighten up my house and make things feel fresh and alive. I also send “thinking of you” letters to friends and family members as little mid week surprises to keep everyone smiling.

If I have to run to pick up groceries or encounter other people, I make sure to wear a mask, don't touch my face, and always use hand sanitizer and wipe down my keys and credit card with wipes when I get back into the car.

I’ve also picked up groceries and dropped them off for higher risk family members as an extra step to keep my loved ones safe.

In order to stay social and see my family, I’ve kept my circle small and have “driveway dates” with friends and family. That way we can still see each other and hang out, but not in large groups or in too close proximity. This pandemic has been stressful for everyone.

But it is extra hard on people with mental health struggles. We have to remember to look out for our mental health as well as our physical health in order to stay safe and live our best lives.

Melissa Eboli - Chef Via Melissa

I have taken a few different approaches to keep my family and I safe from contracting the Coronavirus. We all take vitamins on a regular basis to keep immunity boosted, and I made an extra emphasis to stay on that regimen since the outbreak.

Some of the immune-boosting supplements we take include vitamin C, D, Zinc, and magnesium. We also take silver biotics, which is great for both boosting immunity and fighting the disease as it kills both the virus and bacteria.

Another thing I did during quarantine was limiting my trips to the grocery store. I compiled many of my healthy, immune-boosting recipes that are easily made using mostly shelf-stable ingredients. This made cooking much easier having a pantry and freezer full of items I can whip up on demand.

I was so excited with this project that I wanted to share this info with more than just friends and family, so I created a cookbook called “Let’s Dine IN: Healthy Recipes & Tip To Minimize Your Shopping Trips.” Not only are many of the recipes immune-boosting, but they are also great for mental wellness.

Being we are living in extraordinary times, keeping good mental wellness plays just as important of a role as keeping your immunity boosted.

If you’d like to check out my book, it can be found on my website, link above.

Hannah Faulkner - Half Moon Yoga and Art

My family strives to live our life without fear; we trust in the Universe that whatever happens to us is meant to happen (according to the physics law of attraction, cause and affect, the thoughts we’ve entertained and the choices we’ve made).

There are a multitude of ways that we could die: from car accidents to cancer to infectious disease. Hundreds of thousands of people (who have preexisting conditions) die each year of influenza and pneumonia, etc.

However, the reality is that we will all die (our soul will leave our physical body), someday, when it is our time to go. Accepting that reality is the first step towards living freely.

The best thing to do now is focus on being healthy. Sleep is often underrated. The physical body, intellect, emotions, and immune system begin to breakdown when we are too tired. Therefore, I aim to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night, staying away from caffeine or late meals.

My family drinks plenty of distilled water and eats a plant-based diet with very little sugar or alcohol. We do daily exercises like the Tibetan Rites or Sun Salutations with other yoga poses afterwards to build flexibility and strength.

We go outside for walks (avoiding large crowds) in the neighborhood, beach, and park without wearing a mask. We believe that the fresh air does more good for us than the harm created by inhaling our own carbon dioxide.

Finally, I do a 24-hour water fast once a week to cleanse the internal systems and boost my immunity.

Elise Marie Collins

As a Gerontologist and yoga teacher, I want all generations of my family from age 21 to 91 to stay healthy and happy during this tumultuous and unprecedented time in history.

Before you go outside of your home, dab some coconut oil around your nose and eyes. Known for its antiviral properties, coconut oil is being studied in the Philippines for its ability to fight Covid-19.

Mask wearing has become the norm for good reason. Masks protect us and others from spreading the virus. Make your mask more pleasant and effective by adding a few drops of essential oil. Start with one or two drops, as some oils can be overpowering. Try essential oils that have demonstrated antiviral activity such as, lavender, cinnamon, lemongrass or bergamot,

Mental and emotional health have a powerful effect on immunity, so take extra care in keeping your spirits up. Keep a daily routine that includes meditation, brusque walking or running(with social distancing of course.)

Expose your eyes and skin to short periods of sunlight daily to regulate circadian rhythms. Work out your feelings through creativity, journal, draw, sing, or play an instrument. Don’t worry about doing it “right,” instead engage in activities that bring you joy.

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Thank you so much to everyone that contributed to this expert roundup! Please stay safe and take the necessary precautions. Boost your immune system, wear a mask, wash your hands often, social distance yourself as much as possible.

Share this post with your friends and followers on social media so they can learn how to protect themselves from COVID-19.