When docs need a healing touch

When docs need a healing touch

Health Workers Resort To Meditation, Movement Therapy, Spirituality, To Find Their Ground

Saranya.Chakrapani@timesgroup.com  23,05.2021 

Dr Lavanya Rajaraman remembers her first day of Covid-19 duty like it was yesterday. "It was after my maternity break. The paediatrics department, where I work, offered extra hands in the Covid ward at MGM Healthcare," she says.

That was in February.

Today, as Lavanya works closely with a multiplying number of scared and anxious Covid positive children, thoughts invariably arise of her own toddler son, whom she hasn’t held or seen in over a month.

To make sense of this emotional conflict – as a frontline worker, doctor and mother – Lavanya has a mandatory half-hour slot set aside every morning for a session of chakra meditation, taught by a friend and energy practitioner. This pursuit for balance amidst chaos resonates with medical professionals across the country, who are resorting to a short activity of choice every day to breathe, and rest their nerves, as they find themselves in the eye of a relentless storm for more than a year since the Covid-19 outbreak.

"I was willing to try anything that could help me non-invasively,” says Lavanya. “I even did a session of spiritual healing.”

For those medical professionals who had a workout or self-care regimen in place previously, the second wave has been disruptive, and forced them to find flexible alternatives.

Before March 2020, Dr Vidya Devarajan, the infectious diseases expert at Dr Rela Institute, couldn't imagine missing Bharatanatyam classes with her daughter. Now, as she begins her day in a ward of 150 Covid patients, she remains committed to the yoga classes she has signed up for with a teacher from Coorg.

"I tested positive twice, and, after the second time, I was determined to go back to yoga as I knew it would help me bounce back," says Vidya. "It was also a powerful lesson against self-neglect. At a time when our role is central to getting people back on their feet, I must keep well ---physically, psychologically --- to be on the top of my game."

Personal time becomes all the more important when you’re waking up to a hard, unchanging reality every day, says Dr Rameshwar R, senior resident, department of internal medicine, Savitha Medical College. “During my early morning walk I process what I need to do and prepare to meet the uncertainties that may arise during the day,” he says. “This has become especially important, as each of us meet 50 to 100 patients on a daily basis, whose statuses and requirements we must remember.”

In the period following the pandemic, mental health experts are finding that an inexplicable guilt has been overwhelming doctors who return home after administering precious oxygen to a few, while witnessing some others lose the battle to both resources and the disease.

"Doctors have turned weary, watching patients gasping for breath and pass away. It has led to tremendous mental, emotional and physical turmoil that has resulted in extreme hypertension and body pain," says Tripura Kashyap of Creative Movement Therapy Association of India (CMTAI), who has been running free-of-cost dance movement therapy sessions for frontline workers. "Many of them found verbally expressing what they're going through much easier after they expressed it through movement. It gives them a vent, a break, to pause, reflect and embrace what they're feeling, and find a release."

Many found verbally expressing what they're going through much easier after they expressed it through movement

Tripura Kashyap | DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPIST