Give nature time to heal | Bangkok Post: opinion

EDITORIAL

A medical survey conducted recently among hard-driving, white-collar workers in China has reached a conclusion that should have been obvious from the start. Long hours spent sitting behind a desk with little activity and irregular eating habits will eventually generate a multitude of aches and pains. As stress builds up, workers become physically uncomfortable, irritable or depressed. After hours of staring at a computer, their muscles are tired and weak, their joints stiff and they suffer from general malaise. Although the survey concentrated on workaholics in China, it would have found the same result here. Fortunately, most of these symptoms can be avoided by taking short breaks and getting some routine exercise _ a sensible course of action and one proven to work.

Unfortunately, it is too simple a solution for some and that is why pharmacies are full of customers seeking a "quick-fix" cocktail of symptom-management drugs to relieve aches and pains which are not normally caused by an illness. And, if they are, then they run the danger of making things worse because the analgesics they take can mask underlying health conditions.

Does this mean we are turning into a nation of hypochondriacs and pill poppers? Sometimes, it seems so. There is no shortage of consumers ready to gulp down pills for real or imagined symptoms, most of which would clear up by themselves if people just gave their immune systems a chance. Perhaps such indulgence is partly motivated by today's faster, more stressed pace of life, with people feeling the need to be active, alert and even over-energised. The majority, though, do make a conscious effort to fend off the blitz of television and other advertising offering ways to make us feel better at the expense of turning our bodies into a chemical wasteland of ingested pills, liquids, vitamins and food additives. Often people will waste their money on antibiotics to treat a cold, despite the fact that these drugs are anti-bacterial and have no effect on viruses. In short, many of us have been conditioned from birth to believe that a pill is the answer to anything.