By Herman M. Lagon

Some pandemics do not come with breaking news or body counts. They show up quietly, like the damp heat in a crowded office — felt, but unnamed. These are not viral outbreaks but everyday habits we have slowly accepted: the shortcuts we take, the rest we ignore, the disconnection we defend. They do not shut cities down, but they wear people down. Like a “Fast, no hassle” sign outside a pawnshop, we keep chasing ease, losing something deeper each time.

Consider our craving for quick fixes. A missed deadline? Blame the signal. Burnout? Grab another 3-in-1. Relationship tension? Scroll past it. We treat symptoms, not sources. A 2023 PSA report revealed a 19 percent rise in self-medicating practices among Filipinos — most without consulting doctors. We have turned survival into a checklist, not a reflection.

Alongside this is our declining need to move. Bodies are made to move, but our lives keep us seated. In Iloilo, lifestyle diseases like hypertension and diabetes have risen, says the DOH. “Wala lang oras,” a colleague told me when asked why she no longer walks to school. She rides a motorcycle now — except when she pushes it home with a dead spark plug. The real exhaustion, though, is not from the machine.

And what fuels us? Often, junk. Not just food, but choices. A 2022 FNRI study found that over half of Filipino meals are high in sodium and sugar. Fast food gives us what life rarely does: something predictable. A student once said, “Mas mahal pa ang saging kaysa Piattos.” And he was right. This is no longer just a dietary issue. It is a crisis of access, cost and habit.

Then there is the phone — the device that has quietly taken over everything. From waking us up to putting us to sleep (badly), it now controls even our boredom. Pinoys spend over nine hours a day online, the highest globally (Digital 2023, We Are Social & Meltwater). What used to be a tool for connection has become a crutch. Toddlers get phones in jeepneys just to behave. Stillness now feels like something to escape.

Much of this screen time happens indoors, under roofs that keep us from the very sunlight we need. A 2021 study in the Philippine Journal of Health Research and Development pointed to rising vitamin D deficiency, especially among teens. But the concern is more than biochemical. Children now know more about YouTube influencers than the neighbors in their barangay. A walk to the plaza counts as “nature.”

When pain shows up — headaches, heartaches, sleeplessness — we self-medicate. Not to heal, but to keep going. According to the FDA, 40 percent of drug-related hospital visits are due to misuse or self-prescription. In a world that rewards speed, reflection seems inefficient. And pain, once a signal, is treated like a glitch to erase.

Stress, too, has become a badge of honor. Teachers trade war stories about unfinished reports, while students joke about waking up before the rooster just to finish a requirement. We have normalized exhaustion. The WHO reports that chronic stress now fuels over 70 percent of mental health referrals in Southeast Asia — with our workers among the most affected. Tension is our new default. Ease, ironically, feels suspicious.

Of course, we are not sleeping either. Not because we cannot — but because we refuse to log off. “Scroll lang sang madali,” a friend once said at midnight. She was still online at 3:00 a.m. The Philippine Society of Sleep Medicine notes that one in three Filipinos suffers from sleep disturbances, many under 35. Sleep has become optional, sacrificed at the altar of doomscrolling or brain rotting.

Solitude, once a sanctuary, now feels awkward. A student once told me she keeps her earphones in even while commuting, “para hindi ako mag-overthink.” In a world designed to distract, silence has become unbearable. But without it, we lose the chance to examine, recalibrate, grow.

And then there is discomfort — the one thing many of us work hardest to avoid. We choose familiar over fulfilling, easy over essential. Yet it is in discomfort where growth takes root. During the pandemic, public school teachers had to master Zoom, modules and online classrooms overnight. It was brutal. It was also formative. Growth rarely feels like success in the moment — it feels like confusion, frustration and doubt. But it builds something.

Put together, these silent pandemics do not scream. They whisper. They do not collapse systems overnight, but they hollow them from within. They make survival look like success. They flatten not curves but lives. What makes them dangerous is not just how they spread, but how we excuse them. “Amo gid man ‘na,” we say.

But it does not have to be.

This is not a call for perfection. It is a quiet push for presence. Health — real, humane health — lives in the pauses. In sitting with our discomfort. In saying no to ease when ease costs us our clarity. The antidote to these habits is not another app, product or promise. It is honesty. It is discipline. It is paying attention. Because often, the things we ignore are the very things unraveling us.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with./WDJ