Mental Health And The Coronavirus Pandemic: How It Affected Us

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As the pandemic took the world by surprise, it created a state of panic and fear. This fear started eating people’s consciousness and mental health little by little. It took just a couple of weeks to hit the headlines about how quarantine practices have degraded people’s mental health.

With the quarantine practice, people become anxious. This resulted in elevated stress levels. With the advent of the pandemic, we were able to see several effects:

  • Loneliness.
  • Depression.
  • Harmful drug uses.
  • Increase in alcohol consumption.
  • Suicidal behaviors.

This increases the concern about whether claiming for quarantine was the right call. 

What Is Mental Health?

Mental health is a state where we are stable in terms of psychology, emotions, and social well-being. Mental health affects our sense of things, how we think and feel. Mental health plays an important part in our life. It is one of the core parts of the fundamental being.

Over the course of your life, if you face mental health problems, you will find that your behaviors have chased quite a lot. There are several factors that contribute to your mental health changes.

  • Biological factors.
  • Life experiences.
  • Inherent mental disorders.

If you are facing any mental health problems, you can take an anxiety therapist from In Focus.

How Can We Detect Mental Health problems?

It is hard to point at people and say they are suffering from mental health problems. Mental health issues are hard to detect. A mental health disorder can be detected if you observe him/her for a long time.

Here are some warning signs that you can take to help detect any kind of mental health problems.

  • Eating or sleeping too much.
  • Having low energy.
  • Having unexplained body pain.
  • Excessive smoking, Drinking, and Drug consumption.
  • Shouting for the smallest of things.
  • Thinking of harming yourself.

How Social Isolation Affected People Mentally?

Humans were never accustomed to social isolation. We can hardly think of any scenario where we have come across a mass isolation campaign. Humans were never made to live alone. However, with the pandemic at bay, everyone was forced to isolate themselves to stop the COVID 19 pandemic spread.

Yes, it was the only method to stop the spread of COVID 19 as we were yet to discover a vaccine. Although this step was taken to save people from dying, this practice invited mental health deterioration.

Isolation has affected older people the most. Old age is a time when they have someone to stay by their side. However, with COVID 19, everybody was forced to isolate themselves.

Before the pandemic, researchers estimated that more than 8 million older people had been affected by isolation. These numbers might have doubled during the course of the self-isolation period.

Mental Health Deterioration Due To Income Insecurities

One of the major causes that many of us are going through mental health is due to job loss and income insecurities. Since many people have lost their job due to the announcement of the lockdown, they are not getting enough money to fulfill their basic needs. 

Workers from retail stores, hotels, restaurants, travel industries have mainly lost their job due to the pandemic. As a result, they cannot pay their bills, and they are going through mental stress. If they don’t find a way to cope with the stress, it can impact their health. 

Mental Health Deterioration Of The Burnout Health Care Workers

Several reports show that healthcare workers are mainly facing mental health issues due to the pandemic. Challenging working conditions is the primary cause of mental issues. The report claims that health workers are at a greater risk of mental stress and burnout than workers in any other job. 

They are facing many workplace problems like bullying, lack of emotional support. Since they are not in a good mental state, they cannot offer better quality care to the patients. A senior professor said that doctors are clueless about how to deal with the coronavirus. So, lack of knowledge and proper training put a high level of stress on nurses and other health workers.  

Healthy Ways To Cope-Up With The Stress

Living with mental stress for a long time can affect our overall health. So, it’s important to take the necessary steps to get out of any kind of stress that we are experiencing due to the pandemic. 

Below tips can help us gain control over things and live a healthy and stress-free life again:

  • Know what to do: You know your body well, when you think that there is something wrong with your body, contact your doctors immediately. Even if you think it can be a mild fever or seasonal cough and cold, seeing how things are outside and COVID 19 is on the loose, consulting a doctor might be a good choice.
  • Take care of emotional health: It is important that you take care of your emotional health. In a time of crisis, keeping your emotion in check will help you think clearly to protect yourself and your family from the immediate crisis.
  • Take rest: Taking rest at a regular interval will keep your stress level in check. Hence, take a break from whatever you are doing. Give your body some rest. 
  • Adopt a healthy diet: A healthy diet is essential for good mental health. When you are going through any stress, you may neglect your eating habits, which can create other health issues. So, adopt a proper diet and lifestyle to stay healthier. 
  • Connect with others: Try to connect with others physically. Start with the person with whom you are most comfortable. You can talk about how you feel, talk about your best memories, places you have traveled together, and shared moments. It will help you get out of the stress easily and feel connected. 

Conclusion

The COVID 19 pandemic has forced people to self isolate themselves. However, this has invited the following problems.

  • Loneliness.
  • Anxiety.
  • Depression.
  • Dementia.

Socializing from a distance, such as a video conferencing, can help people ease up a little bit and prevent any complications—especially older people. Anyone experiencing any mental health-related issues must consult a doctor immediately.