All Hail Homeopathy!

SBT’s Features Editor looks at the ways in which illness affects businesses and employees and talks to Homeopath, Simone Oates about how the process of homeopathy remedies can help

Ill health amongst employees often affects their productivity and efficiency and, therefore the overall success of your business. To a large amount of people, work secures first place in their list of priorities whilst general wellbeing takes a back seat. Of course, work is one of the most important aspects of your life, but should it come before your health? Definitely not. Taking time off work for health reasons is not as easy as it sounds – especially if you are a business owner – which causes a large amount of people to dismiss the early signs of illness. However, doing this creates possible long-term health issues in the future and eventually, more damaging effects to your business.

As the saying goes, ‘if you don’t listen to your body when it whispers you will not hear it when it screams,’ and the initial symptom your body recognises is actually its way of trying to correct the problem and heal itself. Ignoring these symptoms in the short term will not pose much of a threat to your work life, but the longer you leave it the more aggressive it will become. Trying to defeat the symptoms of illness with over-the-counter medicines may also force your body to find a substitute way of eliminating the contamination, preventing your body from curing itself in a natural way. For example, purchasing everyday creams to treat eczema can often stop the body from eliminating toxins and cause it to find other possible routes, such as the respiratory system, which, as mentioned before, can cause other long-term and more damaging issues like asthma, for example.

One or two sick days a year may not seem like too much of a problem, but when combining these days with the 31.42 million people in work (at the end of 2015), I’m sure the end stats are resoundingly high, making a huge impact on business and the UK economy as a whole. The majority of short-term absences from work are due to minor illnesses such as common colds and flu, whilst the most common long-term illnesses resulting in absence include mental health problems such as stress, depression and anxiety, as well as musculoskeletal problems including back and neck pain. While we’re on the subject of these problems, it’s important for businesses to know and understand the ways in which they themselves can prevent the rising statistics of ill health in the workplace, for example by providing comfortable chairs, regular breaks and a manageable workload, therefore decreasing the risk of back pain and stress in particular. You will also find that this will demonstrate the domino effect, as high stress levels often bring on physical illnesses such as colds and flu.

Back in 2013, men lost 1.6% of their total working hours because of sickness, while women lost 2.6%. A substantial amount of working days are lost when female employees take days off on a relatively regular basis due to problems such as period pains, menopause or morning sickness, especially when you bear in mind the fact that women make up 47% of the UK workforce. Menopause and premenstrual tension make women feel like rubbish, to put it plainly, but can often affect other members of your staff too. For example, women suffering with issues like this can often become very irritable with other colleagues and even possibly clients, and I’m sure you don’t want you hormonal female workers scaring off any possible customers who may come your way.

But fear no more, because SBT introduces homeopathy – a successful form of treatment used for anyone of any age in any state of health, which can be utilised alongside conventional drugs and will not interfere with prescribed medicines. We spoke to Simone Oates, who specialises in homeopathic remedies, to find out more about this natural therapy and how it can benefit employees and business owners alike.

Jess Saunders: Simone, could you give us a brief overview of the homeopathy treatment and how it works?

Simone Oates: Homeopathy is a remedy that will help deal with stress, depression and anxiety as well as a range of other health related issues. It recognises that the human body is intelligent and it will always endeavour to heal itself and the symptoms it produces are evidence of this. With homeopathy we endeavour to give remedies that will produce symptoms similar to the symptoms of the illness and so aid the body to heal itself.

JS: Why is homeopathy more beneficial to individuals than other possible remedies?

SO: It could be really worthwhile to look at treatment with homeopathy as it looks at the symptoms a person has rather than the actual diagnosis. Homeopaths can deal with issues that do not have a formal diagnosis. There is the hay fever season when the last thing you want is to greet new clients or make a presentation with the symptoms of hay fever. Homeopathy can help with hay fever and allergies, we have remedies for immediate relief and also remedies which will help to build up your body’s immunity and resistance to the allergen.

Also, many women want to achieve in their careers and therefore often put off starting a family till their late thirties. After years of taking oral contraception, achieving a pregnancy can be really difficult. 25% of women these days have fertility problems. Homeopathy is excellent for helping with fertility problems. I am now using the Liz Lalor fertility programme, this uses homeopathy sometimes with the addition of certain herbs and supplements. It has an 87% success rate, for women up to the age of 42, used over 4 menstrual cycles. Liz has so far enabled 340 births.

JS: How quickly do homeopathic remedies work?

SO: Some homeopathic remedies work instantly, for example the homeopathic remedy Nat Mur will stop a cold sore in its tracks and then heal it. It’s great for problems of this kind as, if you suddenly find that you have a problem with your image, then your self-confidence will plummet.

JS: How does homeopathy benefit businesses in particular?

SO: Many workplaces have staff off with stress related illness and often the lack of one member of staff has the knock on effect, increasing the work load for other employees and therefore, causing stress in other staff members. You may have employees who are often off sick – they may have tried their best to look after their health with conditions for which there are no answers in conventional remedies.

Simone is based at Seaford Osteopathic Clinic and Lushington Chiropractic clinic in Eastbourne, but also offers home visits. For more information, email Simone at simone.oates@sky.com or call 01323 894479