Dr Gireesh Naik: I wanted to share my experience of fighting my COVID illness with the hope that it inspires people and conveys the usefulness of doing kriyas.

I have been a regular practitioner of Shambhavi Mahamudra, Shoonya meditation and Shakti Chalana Kriya for the last two years. I also do Surya Kriya on the weekdays and Yogasanas during weekends. Apart from that, I do my Samyama practice. To support these practices, my diet is also vegetarian and I eat pranic food as much as possible. For the last eighteen months, I have been working as a respiratory physician in Luton, London, UK.

Catching the Virus

As the COVID outbreak occurred in the UK around the middle of February, two of my relatively young, energetic colleagues and I went to work as frontline COVID respiratory physicians. We worked enthusiastically and as effectively as possible and took care of COVID patients. Unfortunately, despite the best precautions, all three of us developed the COVID infection. One of my colleagues is still recovering, while the other one recovered in three weeks, but I was able to recover in just three days!

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At that time, I developed a general body ache, a hot and cold feeling, decreased sense of taste and dehydration. When I went to our hospital ward for the COVID swab testing, I collapsed and lost consciousness for a minute. This was mostly due to dehydration and postural hypotension. My clinical director wanted me to get admitted and to do CT chest scans and extensive investigations, but on my request, he allowed me to rest at home and continued to monitor my health through the phone 3-4 times a day.

I never developed any coughing, shortness of breath, very high fever or low oxygen saturations. I did lose around 4 kg in weight and my muscle strength did decrease, but respiratory-wise I was fit throughout the duration of my illness. On the other hand, my two colleagues were very ill with significant respiratory symptoms. 

My Sadhana Kept Me Strong

I continued to do most of my practices though I could not do Yogasanas, Surya Kriya and Nadi Vibhajan effectively because of my physical weakness. What I felt was that my regular practice of kriyas and my pranic diet had an enormous effect on my health, especially on my breathing and, to some extent, on my immunity. By Sadhguru’s grace, I was lucky to have a very mild disease and fast recovery without many complications.

As a respiratory physician, I have seen and am still seeing many patients dying in front of me every day, not to mention the numerous patients struggling very hard to recover. In this type of situation, I wish that everyone do some kind of kriya or Yogic practice. It will have long lasting effects on health and fitness apart, from the main benefit – spirituality.

Editor’s Note: Try this simple 3 minute sadhana that you can learn online for free: Simha Kriya