Coping with Coronavirus: Tips to stay calm and have a healthy mental state

You must be knowing that COVID-19 or Coronavirus Disease is a noble virus that has spread across the globe as a pandemic and forced national governments to impose lockdown and promote social distancing upon its citizens.

Initially, many people were enthusiastic to support the lockdown and social distancing and didn’t realise that it would extend this long. The question that arises in people’s mind right now: Is the lockdown actually important?

Understanding the importance of lockdown

Given the pandemic nature of COVID and the speed of its spread, lockdown is an essential tool that decelerates this by avoiding human to human contact. Self quarantining at home, social distancing, and maintaining good hygiene are complementary methods that are required to curb the spread on a global level.

With this said, the lockdown can create a state of panic, fear and stress in one’s mind. But looking at the positive side, a little bit of stress can also be a motivator to take good care of yourself.

Handling social isolation

Self isolation and keeping the calm can be tricky but here are few things that will help you make this journey a smooth one:

1. Start your day well

It must be tempting to check on your phone as soon as you get up in the morning to keep an eye on the latest news on this pandemic. But, starting with mindful exercises like noticing three things in your environment and others can help you connect well with your environment.

2. Routinise your day

Get yourself out of the bed and create a plan and productivise your day. List down the activities you need to do throughout the day. Listen to a podcast, take your pet out for a walk, indulge in cooking, do household chores and stay physically active.

3. Divert the traffic

Divert all the stressful thoughts out of your mind and engage yourself in productive activities. Listen in to positive music and read thought provoking books.

Handling emotional problems

If anxiety strikes, try to breathe slowly for a while and think of something serene and calm. This will help you avoid the thoughts that are making you anxious.
If feeling angry or irritated, try counting back from 10 to 1. Distracting is the key in such cases.
Feeling lonely or upset is quite common during this time, active communication with friends and family is quite helpful. Do talk with people who have similar interests like you and discuss life events with those with whom you haven’t talked in a while. Pick up the phone and call, it’s that easy.
Even after trying yourself to avoid such feelings, these feelings of sadness, anxiety or irritation persists for more than 7 days, do talk it out to some professional. Take online or on-call therapy sessions that could help you find the issue and curb it down. Therapy is not bad, treat depression as any other illness.

Emotional issues after recovery

If you have contracted the infection and recovered successfully, you might experience:

Stress while going back to the community
Fear of your loved ones getting the infection
Unnecessary distancing from people who do not understand the illness well, this could be stressful and isolating
Guilt or depression of not being able to help others or your family during the time of lockdown and was being a burden to them
Try performing the above mentioned activities to avoid these feelings and thoughts

Recognising mental health problems

Since now you know how to understand your mental health problems, be sensitive to such issues in your closed ones as well. Check for changes in sleeping patterns or any difficulty in sleeping or concentrating on things. Look after their health or addiction to any substance.

Be supportive of them and if the problem still persists, do contact mental health professionals for therapy.

Disclaimer: Medivisor Health does not claim any responsibility for the information contained in this article. The information may not hold good for everyone. The post is for general awareness only and should not be construed as a substitute for qualified medical opinion. Please consult your own doctor to know what is good for you.