So, we are all back in (a sort of) Lockdown. It is indeed a strange experience. Different people feel and react in different ways to the new reality.

For me, the most stark observation was how much we become attached to our ways and our comforts. Thinking about it now, (hindsight is always a great thing), we haven’t really been asked to do that much and not for a particulary long time. And yet, a lot of us have genuinely suffered. Besides the emotional anguish, is there a significant effect on our health? In this post I will try and answer this question from the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Acupuncture point of view and from the Western Medicine (WM) angle as well.

The honest answer to this post’s question is that we don’t know for sure (sound familiar?).

Until a few years have passed with dedicated epidemiologists sweating over an inordinate amount of data, we won’t know for sure if and how the COVID-19 lockdown has affected our health. Even when this day comes we will have to be very careful with the headlines, as we know so well how statistics can be manipulated. In any case, what we can do today is try to predict according to our knowledge and experience of how life-changes affect our health. The major life-changes we are going to look at are: staying at home (work/rest balance), stress and emotions, pollution, health awareness, NHS waiting lists, and other considerations.

Staying at home

For the first three months most of us needed no longer to wake up early in the morning to commute to work. Sounds great, really, but was it? According to TCM and Acupuncture we should preserve our energy. Over-taxing ourselves, therefore, is not recommended. Considering the reality of modern places of work, TCM can only see this break as being a positive change for our health. Western Medicine is not so sure. There are many contradictory studies regarding the question “Is work good for your health?”. The general agreement, however, is that it is. While I can see the point of modern science seeing work as a healthy thing, I have to side with the TCM on that matter. A three-month break in our hectic and often stressful work must be a positive thing for our health.

What about the stress it causes?

Stress, as anyone who follows my posts will know, is a major health hazard. The lockdown effect on people’s stress levels varies: some people feel more stressed than usual, and some less. A survey found that 50% of people reported deterioration in the quality of their night’s sleep, while 28% reported that their sleep had actually improved. These changes, no doubt, reflect the different ways the lockdowns affect different people’s stress levels.

In general, I suspect a lot of the stress was due to change. It’s in many people’s nature to get stressed from changes to life. I think, however, that this particular change has had a positive effect on most people’s stress levels when they eventually got used to it. It has also made many people think about their lifestyle. It has forced them to slow down and now, when they experience the more sedate pace of life, they have realized that by rushing around like headless chickens all day they have missed a lot of the joy of life. This realisation may have a very beneficial effect on their long-term health – at least on those who can act on this new knowledge to achieve a more balanced lifestyle.

The effect of the lockdown on stress levels, as we have seen, is different for different people. Other aspects are more uniform in their effect. A good example of that is how the Health Services function.

NHS Waiting Lists

Our dear NHS – clapped by the nation every Thursday evening – was performing heroically on the COVID-19 front but was almost completely paralysed in most other areas. Except for emergency cases the NHS just wasn’t functioning. Even now it is extremely hard to get any treatment, consultation or medical procedure done if it’s not strictly urgent. On the face of it, it sounds like this must be bad for our health. But is it? This may sound controversial but the statistic regarding the issue is clear; modern medicine can be very damaging for your health.

We have to put things into context here. Certain treatments are essential and denying them will cause death in the future (cancer, early diagnosis etc.). Other treatments, however, may give you a relief in your symptoms but having them will likely cause damage in the long-term (almost all medicines are that way inclined). In these cases it will probably be beneficial to look for a more healthy alternative to help those symptoms (i.e. change of diet, exercise, Acupuncture, Chiropractic treatment etc.).

On the whole, I think we have to concede that the lack of NHS treatment availability during the lockdown is doing more harm than benefit for your health, even if just due to the amount of upset and anxiety it causes so many people.

Lifestyle and pollution

The pollution issue is a straightforward one. That aspect not only directly benefited our lungs with cleaner air, it also raised the awareness of people to the air pollution problems.

Lifestyle

Some people’s lifestyle has improved during the lockdown by way of exercising more, getting less stressed and eating better, but others ate more, watched more TV and inevitably put on more weight. Overall, I think, the effect was positive. Mainly because it caused everyone to slow down and even stop and think, to re-evaluate. I know many people who decided to do their best not to go back to a hectic lifestyle and to pay more attention to their health from now on.

Awareness of infectious disease

This is a very interesting one. We all wash and scrub (and wipe and wash again), masks on, keep distance, stay very clean and very hygienic, etc. Of course, at the moment it is all necessary to combat the virus. However, I suspect a lot of these hyper-hygiene habits will stay with a lot of people as the fear of infection will remain.

On the face of it, why not? There are potentially dangerous bugs out there so people do all they can to avoid them. In reality, however, things are not that simple. Science has known for a while now (and the scientific evidence for it is growing stronger) that our modern hygiene habits are too extreme. Over-hygiene has been blamed for the increase in prevalence of many allergic and auto-immune conditions. Even before the COVID-19 era, it became clear that we live a too-sterile life. Imagine how bad it has become now! Like almost everything else in life, it is all about balance. Cleanliness and hygiene are important: however, too much hygiene is potentially very unhealthy in the long term.

Chronic conditions

Finally, there is one more health area which has been clearly affected by the lockdown. It is hard to put it into a specific category but I have noted that a lot of people with chronic conditions have deteriorated quite dramatically during the lockdown. This was also often true regarding old people. This observation is not easy to explain but is probably a combination of sudden change in routine, stress, and in some cases loneliness. This deterioration was often sharp and dramatic, and in some cases it led to death.

To sum up: we need to remind ourselves that our question today is not if the lockdown is a good or a bad thing. Of course, it is bad; it’s unnatural and oppressing. The question is: was, as a one-off phenomenon, it good or bad for our health? Allowing for the fact that people are different and are affected and react in different ways to life changes, my conclusion is as follows: overall, the lockdown, as obnoxious as it was, was more helpful than harming for our health – particularly in the long term. This is mainly due to two factors, one of which is 3 months of rest from the rat race, and the second is better self-awareness and self-educating regarding our lifestyle and life priorities.

Best of Health,
Dr Ilan Shahor