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I'm not an infectious diseases specialist, and wouldn't waste your time, offering the analysis on “What do we know about COVID 19”.
In this article, I am going to discuss the devastating effect of these pandemics on our society, and the fear that leading US infection disease experts and agencies subjected the society at large. However, I am going to look at it through the lens of a massage therapist, focusing on the role that massage therapists should assume in such cases.
When approximately 4 months ago, our government and media started discussing COVID-19, we have learned from our leading infectious disease specialists, including world health organization that we should not worry, as COVID 19 transmits from animals to humans only, rather than from human to human. I, as most likely most of us, trusted the information from the CDC site and accepted its guidance.
Then everything has switched and the same leading infection diseases specialists, started screaming about terrible pandemics, and CDC guidance insisted on wearing masks and keeping social distance. From our local and federal government, comes an order “to stay at home.” The country was shouted down.
During the 1st month of the so-called official start of the pandemics, the same leading infection diseases specialists demanded not to wear masks. They stated that masks were not only failing to protect us from infection but also exacerbated the possibility of infection with COVID-19.
They claimed that COVID-19 was not an airborne infection, it was surviving on surfaces and by touching it you can get infected, therefore one must frequently wash hands, and not touch the face. Thus no masks were necessary. Many of us, followed CDC guidance to wear masks; only to learned later that there is a possibility, that wearing masks was the cause of infection. I guess, this dangerous disinformation trapped millions of people. Then, the same leading infection diseases specialists highly recommended to disinfect surfaces and especially metal surfaces and to disinfect, clean all delivered groceries.
Our conscious and subconscious minds naturally recorded these worries and fears of having masks on for an additional month. The absence of clear directives could possibly lead us to contracting coronavirus.
I have followed CDC guidance and did clean groceries and other deliveries. Probably most of us did. Then, after approximately 45 days, the same leading infectious disease specialists, told us that we don't have to bother disinfecting the groceries.
Terrible inconsistency shook our minds and sub minds. The strongest of us were in fear. When I saw on TV hundreds of people without masks, to me it was clear that a terrible fear is pushing them to fight this fear, by not wearing masks. The subconscious mind is extremely powerful.
One of the greatest psychoanalysts, Carl Young, said:” if to compare influences on our deeds, decisions, etc., conscious and subconscious, then subconscious will be the ocean, and our conscious, would be a shell of a nut.” Proposed proportions were given for a better understanding.
Political football fueled the confusion and panic of pandemics that I briefly described. “Scientific community” constantly contributed to mass anxiety. Stanford University is one of the authorities in the world of science in conducting studies.
Eran Bendavid, Bianca Mulaney, Neeraj Sood, Soleil Shah, Emilia Ling, Rebecca Bromley-Dulfano, Cara Lai, Zoe Weissberg, Rodrigo Saavedra-Walker, James Tedrow, Dona Tversky, Andrew Bogan, Thomas Kupiec, Daniel Eichner, Ribhav Gupta, John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya
Here is their conclusion:” Conclusions the estimated population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection may be much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases. More studies are needed to improve the precision of prevalence estimates. Locally-derived population prevalence estimates should be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections.”
One would say it is great news. Without symptoms, the human body fighting off infections and developing immunity.
The Stanford team was not clear, but the media presented this study something similar to: ”Stanford researchers concluded that there may have been 50–85 times more people affected by COVID-19 in Northern California alone than the cases that were officially confirmed.”
Again, let's keep in mind that Stanford University is one of the authorities in the world of science. These media bloopers added to panic and anxiety. It is asymptomatic to use a serology/antibody test, in assessing the percent of infected population.
The question is, maybe this massive panic/anxiety is weakening even the acquired immune system, making people sick, and possibly leading to mortality?
Further in my article, I am going to talk about the unbelievable power of placebo and nocebo, and therefore maybe my sentence above would make more sense. Probably I would make more scientific sense than the order issued by Texas Governor to shut down all bars. Really? Was there any scientific data supporting spike of coronavirus cases because of drinking in bars? How many of the US population attending bars? Somebody, scientists, healthcare authorities of the state of Texas bothered to apply some reasonable statistics, prior to shot down bars? How about people who have attended bars? I can speculate, that most likely, conscious and subconscious minds weakened their immune systems.
Dear friends, I can offer you many more samples and explanations that triggered massive anxiety, and made some of us sick, including clinical depression and more.
Dear friends, upfront thank you for understanding. This warning is necessary to avoid misunderstandings.
Thank you.
In conclusion to this article, I am going to offer the links, to article title: ”THE PLACEBO EFFECT AND ITS ROLE IN MASSAGE THERAPY."
When the original article was published, some massage therapists, who clearly didn't read the entire article, posted comments: ”Boris Prilutsky declared, that massage therapy is nothing but a placebo.” The article doesn’t claim anything like that. Therefore, if you are not planning to read the entire article, then, in order to avoid confusion, it might be better if you won’t read it at all.
I am not a scientist, but a massage practitioner with good academic background. For many years I am practicing medical and sports massage protocols developed through extensive research. At the time of the research, all techniques as well as entire massage protocols were tested against the placebo/controlled group. Having rich experience, I can claim massage therapy is not a placebo. At the same time, as I'm explaining in the article, if in addition to all very well-known mechanisms of simulations, we can trigger the mechanism of a placebo, then it makes our method even more powerful.
Thank you.
Let's come back to “What do we know about COVID 19?”
We know that it is a very contagious unknown strain of the virus. We know that we all must wear masks, and maintain social distances, to wash hands frequently, to develop discipline not to touch the face, etc. This is all that we know for now.
The links below are to part one and part two THE PLACEBO EFFECT AND ITS ROLE IN MASSAGE THERAPY articles. I trust you would find these articles useful.
I would like to stress the importance of one sentence from the “placebo” article:” We cannot talk about placebo and not consider extreme power of nocebo.” I believe that this understanding is crucial in our occupation. Even in the case when nocebo starts destroying the health of individuals, our treatment is extremely powerful and allows people to get their life back. Hopefully, my article and the most important two parts of THE PLACEBO EFFECT AND ITS ROLE IN MASSAGE THERAPY would accentuate the importance of the human factor in the good and sustainable outcomes of treatment.
The real intellectual, scientist, and medical-massage practitioner, Dr.
Dear friends
Before coronavirus pandemics,
I couldn't find any data that would contradict the fact that at least 75% of primary care physician’s visits are stress-related illnesses, and disorders. Disorders, such as headaches, essential hypertension, muscular aches, sleep disorders, anxieties, depression, weakened immune system, and much more.
Massage therapy, clinically proven for many years to be the most powerful methodology in stress management, offering sustainable results, and giving people their life back.
Again, even before coronavirus pandemics, 75% of visits to primary care physicians were stress-related. Thus, as before, our mission is to address stress, especially considering that nowadays fear induces a tremendous amount of additional stress in a human body.
The links below are to the articles that are devoted to specific techniques that empower the immune system, as well as increasing blood passage time. In these two articles, I discuss stress management, which is balancing sympathetic and parasympathetic activities.
I will dedicate my upcoming educational video to the release of acetylcholine techniques, including mostly hands-on demonstrations and explanations. Please subscribe to my channel to receive notifications when new educational materials are available.
Recently we made a video, where I’m explaining the role of medical massage in post-surgical rehabilitation, as well as demonstrating hands-on protocols.
The link below is to the video, where I demonstrate the techniques for cellulite reduction.
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