By: Dr. Jeudi Boulom, DC May 31,2020
Humanity have entered a time where all the mixed emotions of Fear, Scared, Anger, Sadness, Griefs, Anxiety, and Worry have reached an all-time high. What could be the triggering factors to all of these emotions? How does one find a solution to deal with all of these emotions? How about the sadness of not being able to see your parents who are in the age group of highly vulnerable or the parents not being able to see their grandchildren? What about the worry of not having enough money to pay for rent, food, and living expenses because your business was one of the non-essentials? And how about the grieving of love one who died and you not able to have a celebration of life for them? How about the fear of getting the COVID-19 or fear of love one dying from the virus?
All of these emotions are valid and we support those who are going through it during this challenging time. However, we must not be crippled by the emotions but rather find strength and solutions that will empower us as an individual and as the community? For instance, when my patient shares her story of how her significant other almost took his life when he came down with the symptoms similar to covid-19, I was shocked. She said he held a gun to his head and wanted to take his life because he was scared of getting the virus, and he did not want to give it to his family. Her quick response, and her knowledge about the virus, empower her to stay with him and help comfort him through the healing process by making sure he gets proper nutrition, rest, and moral support. In the end, he tested negative and he was blessed that she stayed by him through this scary time.
Therefore, to overcome fear we must empower ourselves with the right information, we will have strength and find solutions to deal with any emotions or issues that arise. Thus, in the case of Covid 19 pandemic which lead to the shutdown of our economy and cause the panic, we must find ways to reduce the fear and stress. Since fear cripple us from using logic, we should look to experts and research to better understand the virus to help us overcome fear. According to Dr. Scott W Atlas, MD, “The overwhelming majority do not have significant risk of dying from Covid 19”. Dr. Scott W Atlas, MD wrote an article title “The data is in-stop the panic and end the isolation where he points out five facts as to why we should stop the panic and end the quarantine (5). Also, in MedicalNewsToday.com, many people with COVID-19 experience mild to moderate symptoms, and most recover without needing treatment in a hospital (3)
As for the worry and anxiety of not having money to pay for rent and foods. Small business is the bread and butter of our economy. We need to get our small business owners back into business. According to epidemiologist, Knut M Wittkowskii (1), stated “that we should open our country back up and healthy people should go about living our lives as usual”. Furthermore Dr. Scott W Atlas outlined safety steps to re-open our country back (2). Thus, with all the leading experts such as epidemiologist and medical doctors who strongly support the re-opening of our country, we can reduce the fear and use the information from the experts to help us discern our decision. We should ask our elected officials to open back up our states so that we can start to rebuild the damages, but do take the safety measures to follow the CDC guidelines including washing our hands and stay home when we do not feel well.
Thus, here are ways on how an individual and the community can pro-actively support rebuilding of our economy? We start with ourselves by understanding the important steps of helping to support our immune systems, and maintaining our overall well-being for ourselves and our love one. Here are some steps:
- Reducing Stress (dance, sing, gardening, writing, crafting)
- Plenty of sleep (sleep between the hour of 10 pm to 2 am for high production of Melatonin. Melatonin is the precursor to Serotonin)
- Drink plenty of clean, pure water ( ½ of our body weight in ounces)
- Exercise (motions helps the body to remove toxins and reduce the stress)
- Nutrition (especially when body is under stress, we need to increase our nutritional intakes. Eating fresh, organic, home grown vegetables and fruits. Also, supplements such as vitamin C, D, Zinc, Selenium (4))
- Chiropractic Care (regular chiropractic care helps balance the nervous systems. The nervous system is the master system that control all functions of the body)
- Healthy Digestive System (the health of our guts is very important. Poor digestive system can lead to leaky guts and decrease immune functions)
- Laughter (watch funny shows or movie helps us laugh. Laughter is the best medicine because it shifts our mind from all the worry, anger, fear, etc.)
- Reduce Toxins (toxins are everywhere, from our foods, to air we breathe, to water we drink, and our home.)
- Meditation (meditation is a form of relaxing our mind from all the chaos. Meditation helps us to connect with our higher self. This is where creativity arise)
Last, we can also build stronger community that encourage peace and prosperity for everyone. We can start to create a relationship with your neighbors and get to know each other. Check up on each other to make sure that our neighbors are safe and well. Start a community garden to be self-sustaining. Furthermore, have all of your neighbors contact information. Create a neighborhood watch to protects each other from looters and outsiders. Also, have an emergency preparedness plan for the neighborhood block. Hold a monthly pot-luck to create social gathering atmosphere to help bring back the community connection. Start shopping in your local community to support local businesses. These small steps are our way of pro-actively supporting the rebuilding our country to be great again. We are strong when we unite and come together to lift each other up in time of needs. This is how we become a part of the solution and not the problem.
In summary, even though our current affair can be very daunting and uncertain, we all can be pro-active by taking responsibility of our own health and our community. Furthermore, by pro-actively keeping our body healthy and strong, we will help prevents us from being prone to sickness. Also, if we want to create a world where our children can play without the fear of harmed by strangers, then we must build a strong community of loving people who wants love, peace and harmony.
References:
1.https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/
- https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/495833-how-to-open-society-using-medical-science-and-logic
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/is-coronavirus-deadly#summary
- https://isom.ca/article/nutrition-therapy-for-severe-viral-infections-covid-19/
- https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-in-stop-the-panic-and-end-the-total-isolation
