In our world today medicine has become a properly established field with experts, technology and all. And we grow up seeing that there is a field that is supposed to know all about our health and have everything figured out, so whenever we have any medical needs or questions we just refer to the doctors and experts.
But before medicine became a field with experts, before even small tribes and villages had their own doctors/herbalists the body has always had a way of telling you what you need at almost every moment in time to take care of whatever situation your body is going through at that point.
This applied to animals too, it has been noticed countless times that animals seek out certain plants with medicinal values that corresponds with what they're going through at that moment.
Look at these:
Humans have this ability too, but over the years we have learnt to ignore and not pay good enough attention to our bodies. We learnt to ignore these feelings because we were taught to depend on the doctors and experts instead, for even the slightest health disturbance.
And even now that I am writing this post I'll still have to add that self medication has it's risks and consulting your doctor is always best. Imagine that, because it just doesn't feel right to talk about health any other way.
But the fact remains that you need to listen to your body, do what it tells you and give it what it tells you.
Personal Experience
In Nigeria drinking coffee for awakening is not as commonly practiced as it is in other parts of the world, and however common it is now in Nigeria, it used to be less in the past. Growing up I never knew coffee served the purposes it serves, but I remember always feeling like taking it when I'm feeling kinda under the weather and that it always boosted my energy.
I also remember being a child and always wanting yoghurts when I feel some sort of disturbances in my stomach, and that it always helped. It wasn't until I grew up that I read somewhere about the crazy benefits of yoghurts to the stomach.
Bear in mind that I was never told any of these things as a child, I just did what I felt only to find out that research showed those things served those purposes I was using them for.
So many times in my life I've felt sick and everyone would be telling me about how I need to see a doctor and all that, and I'll tell them all I need is sleep, that I think I've not been sleeping well for a while now, that I only have to take my sleep seriously for some days. And true enough when I do all the feelings of illness would be gone!
By far the craziest experience I've had is this: one time I had some pimple-like growths on my laps. They were clearly not pimples or acne, they looked like they were from a sexually transmitted infection.
I went for a test and the results showed I had no infection whatsoever. But I still had these little growths. I tried a lot of creams and stuff that were supposed to kill them off, but they didn't work. There was a final very expensive cream I was told to buy. I decided I was going to save up or wait for when I can buy it in future until I decided why don't I just cut off all these growths with a razor or something sharp.
And that was what I did! I cut them all off, it was quite painful but I did it cos these things were making me look bad and infected. After cutting them off I applied some antibacteria/fungi/inflammation on it and in a few days they healed and the growths were gone! And they've never come back.
All cos I did what I felt.
Conclusion
So, even though I can't really tell people to self medicate, but to contact the experts, the fact remains that listening to your body is very important, your body has smelt stuff, eaten stuff, digested stuff. When you're going through something that requires one of the things it has smelt, tasted, or experienced, chances are it would tell you to get one of those.
It would tell you this by craving one of those things. Your satisfying those cravings might be the difference between life and death or poor health and good health sometimes.
The End
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