Colds Flus & Covid Recovery: How We Get In Our Own Way

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Welcome back to the intentionally unaffordable dystopian hellscape of new york city. Where we are expected to to literally sacrifice our health in the name of the almighty dollar.

For a lot of people, there's a tug of war that happens when we get sick.

We need to rest in order to recover, but we often push ourselves to keep working, to be productive, or to keep workout out. I think part of it is grind culture or whatever you call that now, but I have observed a lot of it comes from beliefs we don't even realize we have. Those are called unconscious.

Many of us believe unconsciously that our worth is coupled with - or depends on - our work, our earnings, or our fitness. This why most of us don't deal with resting and recovering very well, because we believe that we cannot stop. If we do, we are lazy pieces of shit who will get fat and loose our financial footing that allows us to live in said hellscape.

What I'm going to do in this video is break down some of the most common choices I've seen people make when they get sick with colds, flus, covid, strep, viruses or bacteria that affect the upper respiratory tract. I'm also going to talk about some of the consequences people suffer, and what it takes for them to truly recover once they realize they can't keep going at the pace they want to. My hope is that I'll be providing support for those of you who may be struggling with this, so that you can heal more completely and avoid suffering altogether.

Ironically, the reason so many people do not allow themselves to recover is because of they are trying to practice self-preservation, and I'll get more into that as we go.

My name is Kim Soo, I've been treating respiratory conditions for over 15 years as an acupuncturist, and I also run a coaching practice where I help people do the inner work needed to unlearn the cultural beliefs that are put on us at the expense of our health, and our happiness.

If you're interested in clearing out the unconscious drivers that slow down your recovery, or that actually harm you, I hope you will subscribe to my channel, give a thumbs up and leave a comment, and book a consultation to find out how I can help you. You can contact me through my webiste or through Instagram - links in description below.

I've seen individuals suffer from colds and flus for months - sometimes a year or more. I have seen people keep working through illness, or keep exercising, or other make dangerous public health decisions like going out in public without a mask on while you know you're sick, or getting on a plane when you know you have covid, and being dishonest about it because if you don't get that flight, you're gonna loose $1500 on the return flight home from Ireland. About that last example, I would say no judgement, but I would be lying.

And speaking of judgement, self-judgement is the single biggest factor in people's decisions to keep working rather than rest. For some it's the fear of looking bad, but for many it's the fear that they will not earn enough or somehow let down everyone at work, and in so doing will reveal themselves to be a piece of shit. This is a entirely human reaction that is a self-preservation effort. You see, in the prehistoric, lower, unconscous part of the brain, we generate and feel fear whenever we might be perceived as unworthy to the tribe. Or evern worse, as a liability. This part of the brain also catastrophizes - what will happen if we stay home and rest today? Will we end up staying home indefinitely until our coworkers loose confidence in us, we get fired and then end up homeless because we couldn't pay our unreasonably priced rent?

$5,500 is the average price for an apartment in Manahattan now, are you nuts? It's the pits, you can have it!

But I digress...This negativity bias is unfortunately automatic, unconscious, and therefore unstoppable. We couldn't turn off that background noise even if we wanted to - so here is what I suggest when you are afraid not to go to work.

Acknowledge how you are feeling - it might be something like, I'm really afraid not to go to work. I feel afraid or worried about what people might think, or that I might not have enough sick days or hours at work, or that something else may lead me to a place of scarcity.

Often just saying out loud how you feel is enough to start processing these fears, but you may need to take it one or two steps further. What I recommend is almost always Acceptance as te second step, and Investigating as the third.



Acceptance sounds like, "It's ok that I feel this way. This is how the human brain works, anyone in my position would feel as I do." You may need to dig a little deeper, and this is where Investigation comes in - this is where you explore in your memory for examples you learned this behavior from. You might have had others around you model the behavior of coming to work even when sick - which in America is considered normal so it's a good chance you're impacted by that. The studies I've seen say that between 75 & 90% of people who are sick, show up at the office. These are pre-pandemic numbers. Post pandemic, it's not much better- 2/3rd of hour works who KNOW they have COVID still go to work. And why? you guessed it - fear. Fear of scarcity, fear of not earning enough, fear of loosing their jobs or wages or worse in the case of people whos job sponsors their visa or supplies health insurance for a chronically ill kid or family member. True story. And Capitalism knows this fear is a driver, and they take advantage of it. Which is why not everyone gets paid sick leave, and why when they do, it's so god damned stingy. But that's a different channel.

OK so a lot of us may learn it from the culture around us, or because it's implied that if we don't show up to our part time job or wage job, we'll be fired, or maybe none of those things are true but we feel afraid that this is what's going to happen. We also learn this belief from those closest to us, and from our own experiences. Did you have a parent or partner or sibling, or a teacher in school, who was knows for showing up to work no matter what? Or did you once loose a job or a place in school, or a place on a team because you had to stay home to recover from an illness? These types of negative lessons are extremely powerful because they are deeply person, hit right in the home, and have an impact that looks undeniable.

I'm not going to get further into how to fight or work the system when you're sick. That's another video. But, if you're wrestling with the fear of scarcity on one hand, and the feeling that you really want to stay home and rest, I hope these steps will help you dig a little deeper so that process becomes less stressful for you.

Another thing I see is peoples fear of letting their bodies go. This is particularly the case for those body conscious, who don't wanna get fat, or loose their gains, or loose progress in their training, and I get all that. Been there. But what I want to point out is that we think we have to maintain our appearance at a minimum, or our fitness at a minimum. Many people tell me that after 2-3 days of bed rest, they feel fat, disgusting, flabby, gross, or a pile of gooey smelly shit - these are actual words people have related to me, just listen to the tremendous self-judgement in those words. Our relationship with our bodies is so adversarial, so sad, and so dysfunctional, that when we bump up against having to stop maintaining our good looks and turn into a a disgusting fat slob, the struggle is a loosing battle before it even started. Now, I know firsthand about negative body image. I used to be fat, and was bullied mercilessly for it. And I still carry what I like to call my "too much and not enough" on my frame. So I get it, to not control how I look to a minimum usually feels like if I have to give up that control, I am going to cease to be - like die. And this again, is the negativity bias and the catastrophizing of the unconscious part of the mind - and the same process can help you with that, the process of Acknowledging, Allowing, and Curiosity. But there's a bigger point here I want to make, and that is that to go from judgement to acceptance of our bodies is usually a life long one. It feels therefore, also unfair. Unfair that when we get sick, our fitness and appearance get derailed, and that we have to suddenly deal with all that baggage immediately, with little preparation, and our choices are between two really uncomfortable ones.

But mark my words - working out while you are sick is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Even more dangerous than working while sick. I mean they both wear you down, but working out comes with the added detriment that it challenges your body to regulate it temperature. When were are sick, we often run a fever - sometimes it's only a mild one, one that medical doctors in their lack of wisdom and perspective will say doesn't even qualify as a fever - but your body is still monitoring, raising, and lowering your body's temperature. And is an immense hormonal, and metabolic flex. It is the kind of invisible process that drains energy and leaves you more exhausted. So, anything that heats the body and makes it more difficult for your body to regulate. That also includes spices, hot n spicy food, fried foods, for some people coffee or tea, and definitely cannabis. And there's another challenge working out presents to the body in that it makes you sweat - and this is particularly problematic from a chinese mediicne perspective beacuse sometimes sweating is a thing that prevents healing in someone who has a respiratory illness. The body does benefit from sweating, but it has to bo moderate, and preferably all over the body. When we work out, the sweating is neither the fine mist that is therapeutic, nor is it even disrtubuted over the whole body. Those types of sweating are very different.

Now, the process of Acknowledging and Accepting these feelings and drives deserves its own video, so I'm going to make a separate video just for that, and put the link in the description. It'll be called, Meditation to Reduce Anxiety When Sick, or Process to Acknowledge and Accept the need for Rest, or Working with the Fear of Scarcity when we can't Work/Out, or something like that. Anyway link below.

And no video on recovering from a respiratory illness would be complete without attempting to answer the question "When is it safe for me to go back to work or workout?" Well, there's no black and white but I'll give it a shot:

The best answer is, when all your symptoms are gone.

And this brings up ANOTHER mental hurdle to deal with - which is that most of us really really really have an aversion to honoring every little symptom as a sign that we still need rest. Well, it doesn't have to mean that, but it depends on the person and on the illness. If you're younger and healthier, it may be ok for you to have a residual cough or scratchy throat after our fever has resolved and your energy has returned. But, if you are still getting cold easily, or hot easily, this is not a good time to mess with your body temperature. Don't workout.

If you're older, or if you have a challenged digestive or immune system, or you are pregnant, or just have a sensitive body, it might be more draining for you to return to working while you still have said tickle in the throat but no fever or other symptoms. Will work be so demanding that you get a little worse? Or maybe a lot worse? You have to decide.

The trick to keeping yourself safe is, not to find out the hard way. Which is why I always recommend people to be more cautious and conservative. I mean, conservatism and fear do go hand in hand, but again that's another video.

So to recap, here are my metabolic recommendations on allowing yourself to heal, or at least not getting yourself sicker -

1. sleep as much as you need. Be in bed into the double digits.

2. Eat easy to digest foods - that means mostly cooked, warm foods.

3. Don't heat yourself up - stay way from spicy or hot foods, stimulating foods like garlic or caffein, and don't exercise.

4. Don't let yourself get cold - better to be the freak wrapped up in too many scarves than cold and shivering on your way home and not have a choice.

5. And finally - work with your feelings, generously, whenever you need. Acknowledge, Allow, and be Curious.

Alright my friends, that's it for now, I hope you found something in this video useful, if you did please drop a comment down below, subscribe and recommend this video to a friend of loved one, and if you'd like to enlist my help as your guide on letting go unhelpful unconscious patterns, or to manage a difficult recovery more skillfully, you can find me through my website or DM me on instagram. Stay safe everyone, I love you all - byeeeeee

Full video w searchable chapbers and better res on YouTube:
Colds Flus & Covid Recovery: How We Get In Our Own Way


0:00 intro
0:37 welcome! + overview & purpose
2:54 I've seen ppl suffer for months or more
3:31 Judgement & Scarcity
3:49 Entirely human reaction: negativity bias
4:44 Acknowledging
5:40 Allowing ("Acceptance" on video)
5:52 Curiosity
7:58 The 1 to 5 ratio
8:34 Fear of getting fat: negative body image
10:43 The dangers of working out while sick
11:49 Heat: Foods to avoid
12:19 The dangers of different types of sweating
13:18 When is it safe to return to work or exercise?
15:12 Recommendations to support metabolism & immunity
16:16 Deadly or Catastrophic colds & flus
19:41 Taking the wrong Chinese Medicine formula can be deadly
21:00 Chinese medicine herbalists who I trust in NYC


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