By: Abegail Genova
Have you finally got a job and felt really ecstatic for the first few months and slowly deteriorated because of a body worn down from the daily battlefield of being a commuter? Trying to keep up with a hectic schedule? Or that you just can’t afford to leave your work unfinished that you spend most of your week staying overtime in the office because your client just can’t make up their minds with what they want?
PHOTO BY tirachardz
These situations usually tend to exhaust both physical and mental states and could make our immunity systems drop if we don’t exactly have that much of a healthy lifestyle or endurance, and daily tasks will not finish themselves if you don’t work on them and thus here, we turn to solutions in an effort to fix the ‘unwell’ feels screaming from whatever part of our body.
Here are the go-to patch ups for working millennials that you may want to have with you on certain days too:
Vitamins
Having to encounter the world outside your home where you are unsure of what sickness lurks in the air, our working millennials take the reinforcement of vitamins / multivitamins to boost their immune system. These are tablets or dissolve-to-drink tablets like Enervon, Stresstabs and Berocca.
“You can’t have too much Vitamin C!” says Bee, a double part time teacher who works at a play school-preschool and a school theatre workshop for kids during the day and works on art commissions during the night. With a hectic routine where she constantly has to deal with kids all the time, she has to keep up with the high energy. She takes vitamin C tablets everyday and sometimes boosts up with Berocca. In Bee’s working field, she makes sure that she is well before going to work. “In my line of work, if you’re sick, you can’t come to work because we work so closely with kids and they can catch your colds easily and that is a HUGE risk.”
Medicine
Some people carry medicine in their patch kit to address body pains and migraines or for specific ailments that they have like hyperacidity.
PHOTO BY Kayla Maurais
Vivo, who is a college student having an OJT as a restaurant intern where he works mostly in the kitchen and front office works from time to time, carries medicine according to his category of pain and schedules to take them every 8 hours. For light pains, he carries paracetamol like Biogesic, for greater pains, he goes for ibuprofen like Advil, Alaxan and Motrin, and for ‘hellish pains’, he takes mefenamic acid like Ponstan or Dolfenal. Lastly, his best go-to for a combination of pain, runny nose and cough is Bioflu.
Vick who is a call center agent, who has daily migraine that she considers as ‘normal everyday problem’ brings Saridon with her – a medication she uses for extreme migraines.
Topical Ointments
Having to constantly check on things and making sure everything is working just fine could fall in the expression ‘quite a headache’ albeit literally. Field technician Kit who works in a telco, with a few other of his colleagues, finds comfort in using White Flower; an embrocation mixture of essential oil. “I use it when I have headaches. I rub it on my temples and it helps me feel better. It was initially introduced to me by mom and now even my co-workers use it.”
Patches
JM who is an admin officer who used to work in a crazy night shift, uses Salonpas patches. “I cut up the salonpas patches and put them on my forehead/temples!” JM laughed as the image may seem weird but it works for her so that’s great. “I do use them on my back too of course, especially for period pains.”
For people like Christian, working as a content supervisor who cannot just leave work because of flooding tasks to do and monitor, Cool-Fever is his buddy for days when he should call in sick. “I don’t just use it just for needing to go to work despite having a fever, I also use it at home because it balances the feeling of heat from the fever.”
Fluids
More than half of our body’s component is water and it is something that we have to replenish. “ALWAYS drink water” says Wey, a multimedia artist who works heavily on video editing up to past midnight. Fluids are specially needed by our body after all as it contributes to many functions of our body. “I take Gatorade when feeling weak because it has electrolytes that help the body. I also drink Smart C Calamansi if not Berocca because believe it or not, I easily get sick.”
Patricia who works for a BPO company for insurance where the environment could be super toxic, has Lola Remedios in her patch kit for cases of body pain, sore throat and colds. “It’s kinda inevitable to have healthy workmates so the virus just roams around the air and stressful work can exacerbate the situation” and so Patricia keeps up everyday drinking water with lemon.
Tea also has different benefits depending on the kind of brew that you drink. Maja, a writer who always has a very tight schedule, drinks Chamomile tea for when she needs to chill and destress. She also keeps minty types of tea for when she has a cough or cold.
Comforts and YOLO
PHOTO BY Hannah Morgan
There are things that medication doesn’t always cover up, just like the search of comfort and rest. In one way or another, there are things we pick up when we feel unwell.
“Candy.” Simply says Princess, an events coordinator. This may not exactly be healthy but for her, it helps ease up her hunger and the feeling of dizziness.
Harme, who is studying information technology and does a lot of self-study on other things while taking art commissions for income, seeks comfort from drinking coffee not only from when she feels unwell physically, but also emotionally. “I also resort to yummy food. My favorite foods of course.”
Aside from what to drink, Wey, the video editor, had also added this item that mostly fits in this category- “S.H.A.B.U”, do not fret as it is an acronym for “Salamat Hesus At Biyernes Ulit” which is basically T.G.I.F (Thank God It’s Friday). “We need to have motivation in life and enter intergalactic mode”, it was Wey’s way of saying that we should also have fun at the end of a crazy if not tiring week. Wey also advises that we should give time to have a check up so we would know if our bodies have deficiencies.
“The courage to say ‘I’ll be having a half day’.” initially answered Steph, a graphic artist, when I asked about go-to remedies. The levels of hectic at her work can go from 0 to 100 and just sways back and forth that sometimes she just cannot gauge it. Working for hard-earned money is admirable but there should be times when we have to raise the white flag and call it a day. Overfatigue is very risky to one’s well-being after all.
Health is wealth and prevention may also be a solution but do remember that these are all just ‘patch-ups’, you shouldn’t ignore something that happens too constantly with your body because it might turn out to be worse than what you take it for so do consult a doctor and take a well-deserved rest. Take care of your body because we rely on our functions to be able to work after all. Also remember to have some exercise. Even ones that comes even in small frequent stretches can be a remedy to stiff muscles!
There are many remedy options out there, what do you keep in your patch kit?