Five Ways Collective Intelligence Can Help Beat Coronavirus In Developing Countries

Nesta recently highlighted how the pandemic has spurred an incredible number of collective intelligence initiatives – combining crowd insight, data and machine intelligence to mitigate the crisis. These range from scientists inviting citizens to help them design virus-fighting proteins, to DIY biology communities collaborating to design open-source testing kits.

Have you noticed an increase in your level of agitation, anxiety, or distress? Are you more volatile, all over the map, emotional, or depressed? Are you carrying around emotions and fears that you know are not yours or that are expressing themselves at an amplified, more-than-just-you level?

Paying attention to how we spend our energy can provide major clues in the process of healing. Certain emotions, such as blame, guilt, anger, or fear, that we return to again and again, can literally drain our life force and leave little or nothing to fuel the immune system.

Slicing huge chunks of stress out of your life can actually be quite easy. But let's face it: Sometimes no amount of planning and organizing can keep stress away. "Down days" are part of life, and there are times when we feel truly blue. What to do when that happens?

Records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.

Color therapy is an ancient approach to healing that has been used since the earliest of times. Practitioners of Chinese medicine believe that colors have a profound effect upon health and that illness can be diagnosed through the color of certain parts of the body, including the tongue...

Numerous criticisms of medical science have been articulated in recent years. Some critics argue that spurious disease categories are being invented, and existing disease categories expanded, for the aim of profit.

It is important to realize that all healing techniques whether they be physical, energetic, mental, or emotional are an attempt to reestablish proper flow. Blockage or stoppage has occurred because somewhere, somehow there has been limited perception. The direction of healing then always moves from...

Children respond extremely well and rapidly to homeopathic medicines. What is even better news is that they love to take homeopathic medicines, since the remedies are usually made with lactose or sucrose and thus tend to be sweet.

The adrenal glands were long regarded as emergency glands -- pouring out their internal secretions only when a person was confronted by a dangerous situation and had to resort to 'fight or flight.' Later, it was shown that adrenaline is so vital that humans cannot live for 4 seconds if it has been drained from the blood.

In her doctoral dissertation, Meredith Davis notes that “all discomfort in our lives, whether physical, mental, emotional or psychic, is the attempt of our Self to shift an energy pattern that is ready to be released on some level.”

Many ancient cultures, such as the Incas, Egyptians and Tibetans, believed in and taught breathing exercises for healing purposes and to raise consciousness. Mystics and gurus believed that practising pranayama led to the experiencing of the true self and the universe.

According to the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, anger damages the liver, too much joy and laughter damage the heart, too much thinking and reflection affect the spleen and stomach, too much sadness and weeping affect the lungs, and anxiety damages the kidneys. This theory corresponds to a psychosomatic explanation of the change in organs, and the origin of disease.

Though the Art of Jin Shin bears some similarities to acupuncture, the practice achieves its transformative results without needles, using only a gentle touch—a methodology that translates very nicely to self-care. All you need in order to get started are your fingers and hands, and a little bit of time and patience.

Americans love to learn all they can about their health problems, incessantly reading about each and every disease on the internet, looking for anything that can alleviate their symptoms. The problem is that people are searching for advice in a country with no genuine tradition of holistic healing.

As we finished lunch at a spiritual retreat center, one of the participants stood behind me and massaged my neck and shoulders. Suddenly I was jarred by a deep voice booming, No healing allowed here! To my surprise, the retreat center security guard was standing behind us...

Consider for a moment the possibility of your personality acting as your mask, as the protection you don for the world. Like performers, each of us presents ourselves as having certain personal characteristics. We may be aggressive or meek, loud or soft-spoken, dominating, loving, inquisitive, or good-natured...

Sacred space is a place where we honor the divine in its material form. The dimensions of a sacred space vary. It can occupy anything from the corner of a room to an altar, a Gothic cathedral, a mountain, the ocean, the planets, the solar system, the universe, or beyond.

In ancient Greece, there were temples with rooms to which sick people could retreat. This was a time of quiet introspection, based on the understanding that illness is a sacred space where inner work can be done, so that healing may come from the core of our being.

As you continue to journey on a clear path to healing, it is very common for different feelings and emotions to arise. Old guilt, anger, and doubt may enter your mind and heart from out of nowhere. Likewise, new fear, anxiety, and sadness may develop if you see no end to the path before you.

Rooms can have a different atmosphere that cannot always be attributed to such things as decor, light, ceiling height, or even good or bad feng shui. Rooms also have an aroma that reflects all that is in, and goes on, there. Another factor is cleanliness. If a place does not feel conducive to good energy flow, it may simply need a good energy cleaning.

It is sometimes impossible to understand the path of your life, especially when it takes an unexpected turn toward illness, disease, trauma, or loss. You cast about for answers, build stories to explain your new life, and move forward as best you can.

Your Mind tells the body -- even down to the tiniest cell -- what to do. Thoughts held long and intensely enough are actualized in flesh! What thoughts, you wonder? Endless possibilities! but you would do well to ask Self what beliefs have been most creative in your own life...

One type of therapy that is starting to become more popular is “ecotherapy”; which advocates claim can improve mental and physical wellbeing. 

Pain is a primary emotion. It has several emotional by-products which may come from it such as anger, jealousy, depression, hatred, and confusion. The types of emotional by-products we feel depends on whether we turn our pain inward or outward...

Everything is contagious -- not just germs, but good vibes and bad vibes, too. When a person begins laughing hysterically, watch how others laugh or at least smile. When someone is expressing hatred, notice how those in the vicinity tighten their bodies, develop a defensive posture, and maybe clutch another's hand.

Quite simply, you are more than just your physical being. You have a field of energy that surrounds you—your personal energy field. It is unique to you, just like a fingerprint or a snowflake pattern. Basic physiology teaches us that each cell in our body has a charge.

The survival instinct is the fundamental component of the sacred. It is not to be confused with the fear of death. The fear of death arises out of a lack of love. The fear of death is tied to the deceptive idea of oneself as an indi­vidual separate from the whole. One’s fear of death diminishes as the illusion of being separate from the All dissolves.

There is a cultural shame that is implied when an individual has the need for too much sleep or feels tired without having a good reason. You have thoughts such as God, I don't know why I'm so tired! or What's wrong with me? And these very thoughts and attitudes negate a simple, natural flow...

You can either choose to allow yourself to be healed by another, or to do the healing yourself. Do whatever is necessary to release yourself from the symptom, and return yourself to the state of being in which you are happy and healthy. It’s your natural state.

There are many theories and many practices abounding today to heal disease and disorders. Basically though there is only one method. In other words, all methods boil down to one thing. The essence of "healing thyself" lies in...

Jonathan Goldman, author of Healing Sounds, identifies healing as the result of a formula he defines as: Frequency + Intention = Healing. This can be accomplished in various ways through sound. Chant is one way that sound and intention have been combined throughout history to create various states of healing.

For thousands of years, Inuit have adapted to the changes in their environment, and continue to find new and innovative ways to survive.

A few weeks ago, I hurt my back. I pulled a muscle and when it happened, it literally knocked me off my feet. It took me several minutes to get back up off the floor and the pain was like nothing I'd ever felt in my life. However, with my usual positive attitude, I thought: "No problem, this will be healed in a day or two."

A child sucks her thumb for self-comfort. An adult touches several fingers to his forehead or leans a cheek into her balled-up fist as a response to cognitive stress. We cross our arms or place our hands on our hips when we seek safety and grounding. None of us are explicitly taught to use these postures as cop­ing mechanisms, yet when the need arises, we fall back on them without con­scious effort.

The aura, a field of energy that surrounds people and other living things, reflects the energy of the spirit in that body. Its colors, textures and patterns reveal much information about physical, emotional, mental and spiritual states. An aura is like a thumbprint; it is completely individual and expresses who you really are in all your splendor...

How we truly feel about ourselves must be considered when we talk about healing. Many of us have what Pema Chödrön calls a “subtle aggression” against ourselves. Unfortunately, our desire for change or transformation often comes from there. But that never works.

Most of us might think sleep is like a light switch. That is, we go to bed, shut our eyes, and our body “switches off”

In ancient Greece, dreams and visions were the most common method of inquiry into the cause and cure of disease. Galen documented and recorded a description of the effect of images and the imagination on health. He believed that one could study the records of a patient's imagery and dream content to glean important diagnostic information. Such inputs would help doctors help teach their patients to learn how to heal themselves, and help...

What if you didn’t need surgery to implant a pacemaker on a faulty heart? What if you could control your blood sugar levels without an injection of insulin, or mitigate the onset of a seizure without even pushing a button?

Things and events in the universe are not haphazard and chaotic: they are formed—“in-formed”—by universal attractors. The recognition that the manifest world, and thus the living organism, is “in-formed,” suggests a new definition of bodily health and disease.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the human body is the fact that there are so many reflexology maps found on different parts of the body. By reading the zones that are located on the surface of the skin on different parts of the body we can discover incipient health disturbances, which may otherwise remain hidden, before they become chronic problems.

The concept of soul loss may seem foreign and perhaps impossible for people who see the soul as an immutable essence that reflects the divine presence within us. While this is an ideal, it is likely that this ideal has not been a constant throughout a person’s life. The soul is sacred essence energy that originates from divine source, but this energy can be depleted if we allow it to be.

The stronger your soul becomes the easier it will be for you to eat better, and the better you eat the stronger your soul will become. Then this world, which definitely prefers you to be governable, measurable, and predictable, will have to take stock of your diversity through which you express your mercy and your love.

Much of the science to support links between water-based body heating and improved sleep is already well-established. For example, scientists understand that a circadian clock located within the brain’s hypothalamus that drives the 24-hour patterns of many biological processes regulates both sleep and our body’s core temperature, including sleep and wakefulness.

Most of us don't pay much attention to the connection between music and our well-being. It is just there. It has always been there. For some of us it hovers on the periphery of our lives. For others it is central to our daily moods and activities.

Most people use toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental floss to clean their teeth, but their use is by no means universal. Many indigenous groups, as well as people in developing countries, use traditional techniques to clean their teeth. Some of these techniques are more effective than others.

Psychic or not, we all need to energize and balance our energy centers each day. The following exercises can be carried out every morning and throughout the day as needed. They will energise the body, pinpoints imbalanced areas, and enable us to attend to our own well-being.

There is a certain cosmic joke to the fact that we begin our spiritual journey often wishing to uncover a “true” self—some sort of finally decided, static being. The deep irony is that when we move past our individual wounding, we discover that we are not just one thing: we are a multitude of selves.

So many things happen in life that don't seem to be part of the plan. Whether it involves the end of a job, a relationship, a home, our health, a situation takes place, and we seem to have the rug swept out from under us. Yet, each challenge comes with a message, with a gift...

Most of traditional healing practices are based on intuitive principles of diseases involving the imbalance of elemental qualities.

It isn't possible to make good, conscious decisions in the midst of confusion and shock. Slow down and don't be rushed. Listen to your inner voice. Weigh the options and make decisions and choices based on what you feel is right for you. We stay far more empowered when we take charge and make decisions we feel good about.

Essential oils continue to be used—as they have been throughout history—for their protective, restorative, rehabilitative, hedonistic qualities, seamlessly providing physiological and psycho-emotional-spiritual support, apparently bridging the pragmatic, natural, and ethereal dynamics of life and existence.

Western science has discovered that when people are heavy thinkers, when they worry a lot, when their thoughts dwell on anger, jealousy, hatred, or other negative emotions, their brain activity can consume 80 percent of all their total body energy...

Blessing, in the meaning used in books I have written on the practice of blessing, often results in healing. A perusal of the section on healing testimonies on my site shows that numerous healings or resolutions of “impossible” situations have occurred through this practice...

Medical tests confirmed that I had been rescued against all odds from a virulent Stage IV cancer that had eaten away my bones and left me dying in agony. I tried to tell my doctors to spread the news that miracles are real. I wanted them to embrace the words of David Ben-Gurion that "in order to be realist you must believe in miracles".

Many of us were raised on Fairy Tales...where Prince Charming rushed in to the rescue, the fairy Godmother waved her magic wand and made everything better... and where two lovers got married and lived happily ever after (without having to "work" at their relationship). Having grown up with these 'role models' is it any surprise that we expect life to be the same?

Your body wants nothing more than to be loved. Like trying to drive an old broken down car or bicycle, it can be frustratingly difficult for a soul to work through a body that is unhealthy or uncared for. Of course, much of our...

Everyone has the power and the ability to connect with the life energy that brings in healing. You don't need training, though you can certainly learn techniques... If you're wanting to increase your healing ability so that you can use it for your own healing, then it's right there waiting...

If you are seeking someone to lead you to physical mastery, seek no further than your own physical body. Look to your ancient tribal cultures, not only in North America, but in South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand. These people know, whether they tell you or not, how to live in harmony.

In the 1980s, health professionals began to practice bright light therapy (BLT) to treat a chronobiological disorder found mostly in northern countries—seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a form of depression occurring during winter months. Researchers have concluded that SAD is also caused by habits of modern life that lead us to spend most of our days indoors under artificial lighting.

Without following a particular diet, overweight people in a new study who tracked what they ate with a free smartphone app lost a significant amount of weight.

It's important to learn to "read" the feet because there are sev­eral physical conditions that need special attention. The signs we observe are the body’s way of telling us something is out of balance. Just like pain, any disorder is a warning signal. Reflexology is not a tool for diagnosis, but with some observation skills, you can discover whether the body is strug­gling and if it is in need of some help.

With the hectic modern lifestyles that most of us experience, there’s an onslaught of good and bad information assaulting our senses all the time. Since the dawn of the digital age, the human attention span has shrunk from twelve seconds to only eight seconds.

Within each one of us there lies a "healing system" capable of fighting off disease, combating infection and bringing us greater energy, vitality, and well-being. In any medical text we can read about the "digestive system", the "circulatory system", or the "nervous system", but nowhere can we find a chapter on the "healing system".

Careful histories of people who come down with serious illnesses almost always reveal earlier warning signs that were ignored or treated superficially. Symptoms are like warning lights or gauges in your car. When the oil light goes on in your car, would you tape over it so you can go about your business?

When I discovered that my illness was a cancer that needed to be powerfully and quickly released through surgery and chemotherapy, I became quite depressed. I couldn't blame the circumstances of my illness on my environment, for I ate well and cared for my body. I began to reflect on my...

Cleansing is the art and process of making health-enhancing dietary and lifestyle changes. These changes aid in effectively managing stress, eliminating toxins, improving nutritional intake, and cultivating a deeper connection with our innate wisdom.

When you are able to detach yourself from the areas of stress, tension, and pain in your body and just be aware of them without the interference of your analytical mind, they have room to unwind and release. This is not to deny or ignore pain; it is to be present with it in a relaxed, open, non judging way.

Our hearing tells us of a car approaching from behind, unseen, or a bird in a distant forest. Everything vibrates, and sound passes through and around us all the time. Sound is a critical environmental signifier.

Today, homeopathy is widely accepted in most Western or industrialized countries except the United States. In France, some 25 percent of all pharmacies are homeopathic. In England, half of all physicians either use or recommend homeopathy. In India, it is taught in almost all medical and pharmacy schools.

Homeopathy has been maligned, and vilified, and homeopaths have been charged as liars and frauds. All this in spite of 200 years of therapeutic successes.

Movement is energy. Emotion is energy. And we all know when we are lacking in energy, for without it we cannot function. The power of our healing work comes from this understanding of energy: we can effect form intentionally...

I dreaded turning fifty. My father had died of a massive heart attack soon after his fiftieth birthday. For years, I assumed the same thing would happen to me. Instead, I've been pleasantly surprised... The years since I turned fifty have been ripe with rich, unexpected developments and expansive opportunities.

Various esoteric sources have long suggested that human beings are capable of healing one another. Only in the last several decades has modern technology and the consciousness of enlightened scientists evolved to the point where laboratory confirmation of subtle energetic healing has been made possible.

Qi or prana is not just form, it is not just function, it is not just vitality, it is not just the communicator between cells and individual minds and bodies. It is all of the above.

We do not have to become monks in order to lead spiritual, healthy lives. We do not have to be vegetarians, or wear flowing robes, or sit in meditation for hours each day. There is no spiritual 'path' because everything is spiritual and all choices are equal. We can work and be parents, husbands, wives, daughters...

Homeopathy uses substances which create disease in a healthy person, will - in minute amounts - cure disease in an ill person. For example, homeopathy will use minute amounts of poison ivy, Rhus tox, to help cure poison ivy's effects.

We can say that Type ‘A’ Behaviour is a heart disease personality. Whatever might be seen as the physical cause of heart disease, it is acknowledged that this personality type is a consistent element. There is also a cancer personality, a near-sighted personality, an arthritis personality, etc.

Australians spend up to A$300 million each year on health-care costs abroad. As part of this phenomenon, each year around 15,000 Australians are traveling overseas for cosmetic surgery tourism, including dental procedures.

There are three main types of signals, three ways of experiencing these inner messages of distortion in the body: as nervous tension; as physical or psychological trauma; and as physical or psychological illness.

It may surprise you to discover how far reaching the benefits of reflexology can be. Not only is it a truly holistic treatment, but it is also an extremely pleasant experience. People get hooked on the good experience of the treatment and the health benefits that they gain from it.

Could your medical treatment one day be tailored to your DNA? That’s the promise of “personalized medicine”. This concept is based on the idea that small genetic differences between one person and another can be used to design tailored treatments for conditions as diverse as cancer and schizophrenia.

It was March 2014 when I received a phone call as I was working in my office. The person on the other end introduced herself as Dr. Linda Houston-Feenstra, chief cardiac nurse of Loma Linda University SACHS Heart Clinic. She said that she has heard about my work on persuasive technology, in particular how it can influence attitude or behavior change in people. She wanted me to assist her with her heart-failure patients.

How you feel about yourself may actually affect the way your body defends itself against the various stresses and infective organisms that surround it. A high level of self-esteem, or a stronger sense of self, can lead to more vigorous immune response.

Life doesn't have to be a process of ongoing damage control. There are many things we can do to keep stress from eroding our health and happiness. The fastest way to fix the problems in your life is to remove your stressors. But don't worry; there are alternatives to firing your boss, leaving your home, redesigning your spouse, or trading in your body.

In ancient tradition (Egypt), the humming sound of the bee was said to stimulate the release of super hormones known as the “Elixirs of Metamorphosis.” Doctors Meredith McCord and Jill Schumacher told us that the humming sounds of the bee resonate and stimulate various structures of the brain, including the pineal gland, pituitary gland, hypothalamus, and amygdala.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the importance of light for our health and well-being has been confirmed by modern science. Today there is a great confluence of discovery and invention.

Acupuncture is a form of traditional medical therapy that originated in China several thousand years ago. Perhaps, they stumbled on an effective medical approach.

Researchers have identified the electrical activity specific to the start of migraines and demonstrated a way to stop it in animal experiments.

I sat quietly, listening to her pain-filled words. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and was in my office for preoperative cardiac evaluation. She began to sob softly. Why had good health eluded her even though she did everything right?

Have you ever wondered what Jesus Christ really meant when he said that heaven is within you? Dante's epic The Divine Comedy also suggests levels of heaven and hell that could be explored in a state of higher consciousness. It is not a physical journey, but a journey of spirit.

In my late twenties, I developed both forms of the autoimmune deficiency disease Lupus. My doctors advised me that, given the severity of both forms of Lupus, I would only live another six to eight years. After three years of suffering, yet functioning with my Lupus, I had an experience that changed my perception.

Our past lives are intended to be in the background. We are not intended to be aware of them. If we are, they are likely unhealed, meaning that there is something about that lifetime that is creating restriction in your current body and life.

Color can be a tremendous Ch'i enhancement when you love it, or cause a real depletion in energy if you don't. If a color bugs you, get rid of it. Removing offensive colors can make a positive change in the entire house -- and in your moods!

We live in a world filled with miracles, and yet we take them for granted. Why do we, as adults, forget to see the miracles of our world? When we believe in miracles, we then create them. We all are miracle workers. We each have the ability to change our lives with nothing more than...

When you take a Kirlian photograph of your hand, it shows a certain pattern of energy. If you take a second photograph while imagining that you are sending love and energy to someone you know, the Kirlian photograph will show a different pattern of energy. Thus, we can see that a change in your consciousness creates a change in the energy field...

The world we perceive, conceptualize, and think we know is only a surface reality. Underneath it lies a magical realm, more elusive and yet more vivid. Every philosophical, spiritual, and religious tradition, every art form, in every corner of the globe, in every century of human existence, teaches about this deeper reality.

Around a third of the population have trouble sleeping, including difficulties maintaining sleep throughout the night. While night time awakenings are distressing for most sufferers, there is some evidence from our recent past that suggests this period of wakefulness occurring between two separate sleep periods was the norm.

In many places in the world when a person is ill, a song is sung to heal. The notion of singing a person to wellness and health may sound strange. You may think it irresponsible of me, a trained physician, even to mention it. But I am not talking about a New Age or alternative treatment. I am speaking of the medicine ways of my tribe...