It has been one of those days
(or is it weeks, months...even a year perhaps) when the mind has been restless
while body has been at rest. The New Year dawned and before I could even blink
a month had passed by. All the New Year resolutions remained (so far, at least)
simply as resolutions...showing no inclination to move into action. The mind
kept trying to mentally shake the body out of its lethargy, but to no avail. Surprisingly,
when asked, the body kept insisting that the mind was not co-operating!! And in
this tug-of-war of the mind and body, days turned into weeks and months into a
whole year. Am I leading somewhere with this? Rest assured, I am.
One would wonder what this
tussle between mind and body is all about... it’s about recovery, convalescence,
recuperation, rejuvenation...or whatever else you may wish to call it. While we
spend a lot of time, effort and money on curing the illness, we seem to forget
to factor in the time required for convalescence which is the time it takes for
the mind and body to work in tandem once more. Something the family and friends
and often even the patients themselves seem to forget. Any serious illness,
takes a toll on the mind, body and spirit...leaves behind self-doubt and fear...can
I do this? Should I do this? What if... and similar such ridiculous concerns
seem to surface in the mind, giving the body all the reasons it needs to stay
put and not make any effort.
I remember one of my nurse
friends in Sweden telling me that the female brain works only at 70% its normal
capacity post-delivery. As many of us have experienced, post-delivery there is
a feeling of a brain fog and its impossible to remember the simplest of
things...and yet, very few mothers forget to feed/clean their babies in time,
or miss its cry. It appears that nature has somehow ensured that a new mother focuses
essentially on the needs of her baby and renders all else into the background
of her mind. So think about it...even nature felt the need to give a mother’s
mind a little time to catch up with the her body after the trauma of
childbirth, which is such a natural, normal and frequent occurrence. Yet, we,
forget to do so when our own bodies or those of our loved ones undergoes the
unnatural trauma of a serious illness/surgery etc.
Any recovery process is not
merely a physical phenomenon... the physical recovery, or lack of it is still
visible and measurable...it’s the emotional and mental recovery that most
people struggle to come to terms with and often tend to neglect...leading to
depression or stress of varied kinds. The effort it takes to fight the ailment,
to remain in a positive frame of mind and to try to be cheerful all deplete the
emotional reserve an individual has. Emotional reactions and breakdowns happen
after the worst is over...almost similar
to weeping in relief. A patient who has borne the pain stoically suddenly seems
to become impatient and irritable once the worst is over.
Add to this the basic
expectation of people around, that, now that he/she is physically fit, they
should run around as they did before and behave exactly as if nothing had
happened. “Put it behind you” is the simple adage that is often thrown
around...is it so easy?
