Our health has become the most focused subject of the past few months. Because of the behavior and uncertainty of the pandemic, most of us are running afraid of getting infected. COVID-19 affects every person differently. While there are a lucky few who are asymptomatic, many more must get hospitalized once they get infected. Being an intensive care unit patient is not an uncommon sight for those with comorbidities and health vulnerabilities.
It is even more important to know how to care for our own bodies properly. As a side effect of the pandemic, millions are suffering from anxiety and depression. The mental health of various communities has taken a nosedive since the lockdowns began. Besides the emergency rooms, clinics, and triage, wellness centers try their best to help despite filling up. Both physical health and mental health are taking a lot of heat these past few months. It is crucial that we all take care of our minds and bodies.
A lot of people are not getting the treatment they need amidst the pandemic. Unfortunately, many hospitals cannot accommodate the consulting public because of the intense number of victims the pandemic brings. Only towards the end of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has pushed hospitals to stop admitting non-emergency patients because of the overwhelming number of patients infected with COVID-19.
The unexpected amount of people that needed to get hospitalized pushed the American healthcare system to its limits. Many were turned away from the hospitals due to the simple fact that the virus was highly transmissible. They had to prioritize a certain subset of people over another to quell the virus quickly.
Reliance on hospitals and other healthcare facilities had to take a long pause. People with non-critical emergencies had to settle for preventive and alternative healing methods to get them through these trying times.
What are the preventive and alternative healing methods helping people through the pandemic?
Meditation
Meditation has been widely used as a preventive healing and curing method by those who have been stuck in quarantine or lockdown for too long. Meditation traces its roots from India. While, at first, it was deeply rooted in religious practices, it has since evolved into a practice that helped people deal with their thoughts and feelings.
In the early 2000s, meditation was finally admitted medically to be highly beneficial if continually and deliberately practiced. It is now accepted to have positive effects and helps manage pain, brain degeneration, and lessen the chance to develop anxiety. Depression is said to have plagued the mental health of a lot of people alongside the pandemic. Because people had fewer chances to interact with others, the need for social interaction remained unquenched for far too long. People need to be touched, to be talked to, and to be physically present.
People developed a wide array of mental illnesses, like anxiety and depression, because of the uncertainty the pandemic brings. Through mindfulness and meditation, these illnesses are kept at bay. Even if the hospitals are packed, people can still rely on meditation to get themselves out of sticky situations.
Acupressure
Acupressure is one of the most famous alternative healing methods people use to help with body or nerve pain. While acupuncture involves the pricking of energy points of the body with needles, acupressure is all about accessing and stimulating these energy points with the right amount of pressure and pulling out all the negative energy. It is the preferred method over acupuncture simply because it does not involve actually wounding your body to achieve the same results.
Acupressure can be likened to a massage that has more than enough beneficial effects. Acupressure targets the most critical points in the body and releases the unwarranted tension it contains. It can help alleviate the pain the body is experiencing, albeit how temporary it is. It saves a person an unwanted trip to a COVID-19-packed hospital.
Naturopathy
Widely considered an alternative form of medicine, naturopathy has made its way as an allegedly effective way to deal with body healing. Similar to doctors, naturopathic doctors also study for several years to get their certification. A lot of naturopathic methods involve folk medicine and herbalism, which are contrary to modern medicine.
While several people vouch for its efficacy, its lack of legitimate scientific support is why naturopathy makes doctors nervous. It has, however, kept a lot of patients away from virus-infected crowds inside hospitals. Naturopathy involves multiple modes of curing the human body — including some forms of herbalism and non-invasive therapies for the body.
Unfortunately, we are forced to live with the fact that state-regulated healthcare cannot accommodate the populace anymore in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years. They have become more reliant on preventive and alternative healing methods to heal and sustain them through the pandemic as we all wait for the ultimate solution to the virus.
