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It’s World Wellbeing Week! But Which Lessons Will Last the Test of Time?
To watch the webinar that inspired this blog post, please go here.
COVID-19 has been a real wake up call for people around the globe. The sudden onset of this wide-reaching pandemic has provided many lessons about what’s important, including how essential it is to maintain our overall wellness. This is a broad topic, but it’s not one that we should shy away from.
It might be easy to think about our health during a health emergency, or when we’re prompted to consider it more closely because of World Wellbeing Week, but we need to make sure that we don’t forget about our wellbeing once these time periods are over.
What is Wellness, Really?
The first thing to understand, is that wellness has a much wider meaning than the beauty and pampering brands that have hijacked the term over the past few years. It’s a much deeper term that covers both physical and mental health. This isn’t some kind of nebulous idea that’s all about how you’re feeling, either. It can be tracked by physical symptoms, heart rate, oxygen saturation and respiration for example for physical health, and mental stress levels for mental health. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans say that they experienced physical symptoms when they think about COVID-19. And yet, so many of us have no real understanding of our own wellness levels, of how we’re doing, of how vulnerable we are in hard facts.
The Importance of a Wellness Routine
The current situation might well have put your health and wellness under the spotlight to a greater degree than you ever thought about it in the past. For many, existing health conditions have meant that they are ‘at risk’ from the Coronavirus more than your average person, leading to them sheltering, or adhering to more excessive restrictions during the lockdown period. For others, previously easy to handle medical needs have got a lot more complicated as face to face clinics have cancelled appointments, doctors have set up remote triage and care instead of their usual appointments, or non-critical health conditions have moved down the list of priorities.
Taken to extremes, some people have found the stress too much to cope with, and have been surprised by the lack of coping mechanisms they have in store. More than 1 in 3 Americans have reported signs of clinical anxiety and depression since the pandemic began. Remote working, handling the closure of schools alongside distance learning, plus living with key workers and many other factors only exacerbate this stress.
One thing is for sure, COVID-19 has shown everyone that we need to be more in control over our personal mental and physical wellbeing, both in how we achieve it to begin with, and how to maintain it for the long haul.
Making Wellness More Accessible
Studies show that adults are visiting their primary care providers less than ever before. In some countries where there are National Health Services, it may even be frowned upon to use doctors appointments without a clear reason for your visit.
Our innovative mobile app brings the tools to monitor and maintain wellness directly to a patient’s pocket, via a smartphone, or any camera-equipped device. With the goal of making wellness far easier to achieve, any user can simply look into the device’s camera and with a video taken from the upper cheek area of a person’s face, we apply AI technologies to receive accurate insight into the metrics people need to continually measure and monitor both physical and mental health.
As it’s so simple and straightforward, it’s easy to make this part of a daily wellness routine. If people notice a downward trend, they are far more likely to take this seriously, getting the medical support that they need instead of letting symptoms get worse without them ever taking notice.
We Say, Let’s Make Every Week World Wellness Week!
Digital healthcare technology is making so many strides in supporting patients around the globe with their ongoing health and wellness. Let’s not let it fade into the background once we return to the office, or once the restrictions around COVID-19 are lifted. By integrating a daily wellness check via mobile app, we can stave off more serious long-term conditions, and work to improve the wellness of us all.
Want to see how the Binah.ai app works in practice and allow your patient, customers and employees stay on top of their wellness? Get in touch here.
