‘Engage mind in healthy activities’

Keep your mind busy and positive and don't let negative thoughts creep into it, says Sarabjit Singh, a human rights activist, who got infected with the virus in May. His wife Jasbir Kaur also got infected through him.

I have a lot of public dealing and couldn’t know my source of infection. Due to reports of oxygen shortage and scarcity of medical essentials leading to deaths, there was some fear among my family members. But we decided to keep ourselves positive during the quarantine period and engaged our selves in various positive activities to avoid depressing thoughts. — Sarabjit Singh

“I have a lot of public dealing and couldn’t know my source of infection. Due to reports of oxygen shortage and scarcity of medical essentials leading to deaths, there was some fear among my family members. But we decided to keep ourselves positive during the quarantine period,” he said.

“During this period, it is likely that negative thoughts creep in your mind leading to depression but one needs to control his thoughts. My wife and I remained in positive frame of mind by reading books and watching encouraging and entertaining programmes on TV. We didn't watch news channels reporting news related to Covid fatality and chaos. I followed the guidelines, increased fruits intake, took steam and had ‘Kahva’,” he said.

Jasbir remained asymptomatic during the period. He said: “Interestingly, the quarantine period turned out to be ‘happy times’ as we spent some quality time together. “Owing to my public life, I have to visit various parts of Punjab such as Mohali and Chandigarh often. During quarantine period, we spent a lot of time together sharing our routine and past experiences,” he quipped.”

“I think it is more difficult to deal with the complications that arise after you have recovered. I feel that post-Covid, my memory has reduced and also experienced physical weakness,” he said.