I can’t say there’s been a lot of joy having long Covid, but something rather wonderful is happening at the London Coliseum. As part of the English National Opera (ENO) Breathe programme, more than 2,500 of us across England have been meeting in groups on Zoom to do various breathing and vocal exercises, and sing lullabies. This is not a choir, but a social prescribing intervention that uses singing techniques for breathing retraining to aid recovery from Covid-19.
Many patients with long Covid have reported that they permanently feel in “flight or fight” mode and struggle to “rest and digest” as the body should. Research shows that this is because of an imbalance in our autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for subconscious processes such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and temperature regulation. Using breathing and other techniques has been shown to help engage a key nerve, the vagus, which can calm an overstimulated system to address this imbalance and put on the brakes.
