A guide to Improve mental health and scale Mt. Coronavirus
Corona Virus/ COVID-19 By M2C staff 11-May-2020It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light
-Aristotle
The Coronavirus outbreak came to light in December 2019 when China informed the WHO about a cluster of cases similar to pneumonia cropping up in the industrial city of Wuhan. Subsequently, it has spread beyond China to almost every country in the world.
Coronavirus has now been declared a pandemic and the world has witnessed over 3.62 million cases and 2.53 lakh deaths by now. Reading such news articles every day and seeing these numbers on almost all digital mediums affects us in more ways than one and in most cases, adversely.
Coming to the present, we have been asked to maintain social distancing, especially for and from people who are suffering from pre-existing ailments and illnesses. Moreover, we are advised to stay home and not step out until the situation is under control. Your kids no longer have a playground, your car is accumulating dust, forget the long drives and even buying essential products is becoming a challenge.
In short, the life as we knew it is temporarily suspended and most of our routines are deeply affected. Many people are looking at the uncertain times that we are going through and have started to develop a reflex behavioural action to the situation. This reflex action builds up in the form of emotions until you are on the verge of exploding.
Let me on behalf of Mission To Cure Homeopathic clinic, tell you, that it is absolutely normal to feel sad, stressed, frustrated, helpless, angry or scared in these times. However, you might want to consider the fact that you are what you think. Let us come back to this later.
So, the questions that people ask us doctors are - What is the solution to my anxiety? How do we avoid having elevated levels of stress and anxiety? How do we start feeling happy and cultivate positivity in our lives on a recurring basis? Is there a homeopathic medicine for stress and anxiety?
The answer to all of these questions begin with a simple step towards change: Change your perspective and keep yourself busy.
Why not see the lockdown from a totally different perspective, a chance to live your life in different ways to heal, improve and rejuvenate yourself?
There are several steps that you can take to prevent stress and boost positivity:
- Start a Routine
The idea of spending weeks in home quarantine tends to throw us off-guard. People have reported loss of productivity while working from home and also that time management has gone for a toss. The answer to building positivity is simple. Start a check-list schedule of small tasks and reward yourself when you complete a task. Also think of the lockdown on a day to day basis. Leave ample room time-wise to include out-of-the-list tasks so that you stay on schedule. Be it zoom meetings or your workout schedule, everything goes into the schedule. Convert this into a school-like time table and get things done. Move towards bigger tasks day by day and see your confidence sky rocket!
- Exercise and practise Yoga
Idle mind is a devil’s workshop, we have heard this idiom but never quite experienced the magnitude of truth it holds before today. It’s very natural for us to react unusually to a continual and uncertain environment with negative connotations. We have plenty of time at hand and nowhere to go but to the refrigerator, twitter and facebook – the perfect playgrounds to build negativity at times. That’s where proper focus on your body and mind helps.
Yoga is the best stress reliever and improves your emotional as well as physical health. However, practising yoga takes strong resolve to kick out your inertia of getting out of bed. Also, it takes time to perfect the art of yoga but improvement in flexibility and exercises that stimulate your lymphatic system helps in improving your immunity. Know more about the lymphatic system.
The effects of yoga on mental health also have the potential to promote one’s ability to accomplish tasks and move through the live challenges better. Yoga has both immediate as well as long term effects on reducing anxiety and stress levels and sustaining the same.
Exercise is an absolute must at home, especially those that stimulate your unused joints and muscles due to lack of activity. The famous Indian squatting for 5 minutes everyday is an absolute must. You can also climb and descend the stairs in your apartment instead of cardiovascular exercises you used to do at the gyms. Improved blood flow and regular stretches contribute a great deal to boosting positivity.
As explained in point 1, don’t forget to reward yourself after completing a session every day!
- Stick to consistent meal times
The most important addition to exercise and yoga is consistent meal times. Rather than stress snacking throughout the day at irregular intervals, sticking to consistent meal times takes care of not overeating and maintains your body weight. Keeping your body weight constant in the lockdown is also a very good achievement to begin with. Most of the people are experiencing the best lunches and dinners for more than a month as the entire family eats together. However, try to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits instead of continental delicacies and avoid high sugar foods. Compensate your vitamin D with a nice balcony tea and breakfast or a stroll on the terrace at sunrise. When was the last time you saw the sun rise from your apartment’s terrace? Many families recently had breakfast in their apartment’s terrace and it was a phenomenal improvement for them w.r.t. mental calm and energy– it made for a great start to the day.
- Do not compromise on Sleep cycle
The changes in your usual schedule coupled with anxiety can wreak havoc on your sleep. Netflix and chill till 4AM in the morning is not exactly chill but kills your natural sleep cycle. It’s a very bad habit and can soon turn into a money heist – pushing you down with medical bills in order to induce sleep. Avoid sleeping in the afternoon and staring at the laptop screen late at nights will just create a cycle of insomnia and other sleep induced disorders which you can easily avoid. One good habit is to watch previously watched TV shows instead of binge watching to create control over the time you spend watching TV shows/ movies. Once you feel confident, you can move on to new shows and stop yourself from getting addicted.
However, the same should be done without compromising your sleep cycle. A proper sleep cycle helps increasing immunity which helps the body fighting against Coronavirus and also helps getting rid of anxiety and stress.
- Increase immunity with Homeopathy
If you are finding it impossible to deal with the anxiety and stress during this period with the above methods, you may definitely try medicine to help you get back on track. There is no shame in accepting that mental health problems like depression are a disease like any other that can be cured. Prolonging treatment for stress induced anxiety or depression leads to other diseases which do not leave you for a long time. Self care is an absolutely serious matter and do not feel ashamed of reaching out to a doctor regarding the same. Homeopathic medicines have a strong benefit that they do not cause any side effects. It has been used over the centuries for increasing immunity and has shown some fantastic results with recovery. The answer to Coronavirus may very well lie within Homeopathy itself with our founder Dr. Vijay talking about the same here.
Reach out to us any time for a consultation and we will be happy to guide and advise you. Stay strong and make efforts to improve your entire family’s health and wellbeing. After all, care and cure go hand in hand.