Before you run screaming to the delete button this is not a blog on what you should be doing. Social media is drenched with those. This is a plea to those that usually exercise to keep on going. And to those that don’t please start. We all want to emerge from lockdown alive and well. Mentally and physically.

We all know what we should be doing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week. Plus two strength sessions per week. So 30 or 15 minutes per day plus a few push ups and squats. Not much.

We all know why we should be doing it. Particularly if you are of a certain age. I’ve droned on about this in previous blogs so I won’t bore you with it now. But in lockdown it becomes even more important.

Lockdown for most of us means a smaller, more limited life. Not for me those 10,00O commuter steps. The run up the escalator at Oxford Street station. The gym.

But this isn’t the Christmas break where we can justify a few days of immobility and gluttony. This may go on for weeks even months. Most of us will come out of it alive but to what cost to our physical and mental health? We need to exercise now more than ever.

One benefit of exercise that I often overlook and therefore haven’t droned on about, is the impact it can have on your immune system. Even though I have an autoimmune condition (psoriatic arthritis) my immune system is strong. I can’t remember my last cold and I’ve only had flu once in my life. Thirty-five years ago when I was a midwife working in the antenatal clinic. I remember it well. I felt so ill.

Of course it probably is the exercise I do that has strengthened my immune system. But there may be another reason which I will come onto later. These two things may, I hope, protect me for the foreseeable future. Not from the coronavirus. I’ve no immunity to a new virus (who has) but hopefully to the secondary infection (pneumonia) that may follow. That is the killer.

Last week I read a fascinating article in the New Scientist ‘you’re only as young as your immune system’. I often buy this magazine if it has something health or fitness related on the front cover. The mystery of dark matter not so much. It makes a change from the women’s fitness magazine’s I usually buy whose account of any research is usually very cut and dried even where the research is very limited. Not so in the New Scientist which can be rather frustrating if you just want to know how to stop ageing.

Anyway this article was about how your immune system may be older or younger that your chronological age. Sometimes by 20 years either way. But like most things it will weaken with age. One change is that the white cells which hunt down the invading bacteria lose their sat-nav. Scientists have been experimenting with a fairly common drug with amazing results. This drug can reset the sat-nav. What is even more amazing is that the drug are statins. I’m on statins.

At last my GP may have done something for me instead of trying to kill me. Although when he put me on them, 4 years ago, he failed to tell me that they would interact with my warfarin putting me at risk of a bleed.

The other thing that can reduce the age of your immune system? No surprise. Exercise. I’m just living the dream.

So back to my plea. Do what ever you can to get in that exercise. It will only take up a few minutes of your day. But make it count. A gentle stroll through the park may be very pleasant but it is not moderate exercise. You need to get your heart rate up and those muscles working.

Let’s get through this.