While some people who have had COVID-19 report brain fog and fatigue as lingering symptoms of their infection — what's known as long COVID — mental health care providers around the U.S. are hearing similar complaints from people who weren't infected by the virus. And many doctors, like Kali Cyrus, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University, are feeling those symptoms, too.
"I am taking a nap in between patients," Cyrus tells NPR’s Rhitu Chatterjee. "I'm going to bed earlier. It's hard to even just get out of bed. I don't feel like being active again."
Don’t worry, Cyrus tells herself and many patients. Your lethargy, irritability and inability to concentrate can all be symptoms of chronic stress — a natural, physical response to more than a year of hypervigilance and uncertainty about your health, safety and circumstances. The symptoms may even be intensifying now, as vaccination opens up new decisions and change.
If your usual stressbusters aren’t working right now, mix it up, mental health experts advise. Maybe take a bike ride instead of a walk, or get away to a new location for a couple of days.
READ ON for more clues on how to recover and recharge.
PLUS: How The Polio Vaccine Beat Vaccine Hesitancy |
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| When a bad headache strikes, “we're all one Google search away from assuming a worst-case scenario,” says primary care physician Dr. Kristen Kendrick.
And while the odds are overwhelmingly in our favor here -- most head pain is caused by muscle tension, insomnia, caffeine withdrawal or other mostly benign causes -- there are some “red flag" warning signs you should call a health provider to get help right away.
Kendrick notes that a sudden, sharp and debilitating headache -- the worst you’ve ever had that comes on in seconds -- requires immediate medical attention, for example, as does a headache that arrives with stroke symptoms, such as weakness on one side of the body or slurred speech.
Read on to learn more about how to tell when pain from a stiff neck or headache that spikes when you move your body could be serious.
PLUS: Why COVID Vaccines 'Don’t Mean Immunity’ For People Who Have Transplanted Organs |
Brendan George Ko/Penguin Random House |
Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard is a breast cancer survivor whose chemotherapy drug, derived from the yew tree, helped inspire her to explore all the ways "highly social" trees communicate, share resources and even spread information about potential threats.
Simard, a professor at the University of British Columbia, and colleagues have discovered that neighboring trees are often connected by a hub, or a “mother” tree. That’s an older tree that may be in the process of dying but is able to share life lessons, as well as nutrients and chemical defense signals through a web of underground fungi that connect it to the roots of younger trees.
In her new memoir, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, Simard shares her personal story and her research findings.
Read on to learn why she thinks her work could lead to more medical discoveries and changes in forestry management.
PLUS: What’s In It For The Corpse Flower To Smell Like Death? |
More of this week's health stories from NPR |
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