Mental Health During Covid-19 Pandemic :
The Covid-19 Pandemic has a major effect on our life. Many of them are facing challenges that can be stressful, overwhelming and cause strong emotion in adults and children. In this hard time public health action such as wearing masks and social distancing will help to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
This situation is building stress and depression among the people specially in teens and elderly people.
Stress can cause the following :
- Feelings of fear, anger, sadness, worry, frustration.
- Difficulty in sleeping or nightmares.
- People are consuming tobacco, alcohol and other things.
- Change in mental health.
Depression can cause the following :
- Loneliness, sad, hopeless.
- Feelings of anger, aggressiveness, restlessness.
- Behaviour of losing interest, feeling tired, drinking and consumption of drugs, negative thinking.
- Physical reaction pains, digestive problems, and headaches.
- Other problems might be having difficulty in completing tasks, delayed reply in conversation, unable to concentrate.
In this situation it’s natural to feel stressed or depressed, many of them are losing their closed ones, many of them cannot feed themselves properly. For this everyday the news headlines come of suicide reason either for stress or depression. Not all the people are depressed but from the beginning of lockdown since 2020 the depression rate has increased among the teens.
There are many ways to deal with stress and depression. For the present situation each and everyone should be mentally strong, mostly the teens and the elder people.
Health ways to deal with stress :
- Take a break from reading, watching and listening to news – If a person listens 24hrs about the pandemic or watches post on social media, the person will be more stressed.
- Take care of your family – Make a routine and start doing exercise or yoga.
- Connect with others – Talk with parents, friends or with whom you feel free.
- Make time for yourself – Start doing the things which make you happy such as painting, dance, etc.
Mental health’s to deal with depression :
- Meditation – Give yourself time and start meditation by which it will help to feel relaxed.
- Psychotherapy – Don’t feel shame to go to a therapist, consult a therapist and speak to him/her.
- Light therapy – Make your mood light slowly and start doing things which keep you feel good.
- Avoid alcohol and drugs – Stop consuming alcohol and drugs. Consumption of alcohol not only harms mentally but also physically.
- Learn to say no – Start to say no to things which you don’t like to do, which make you feel anxiety.
Helping others cope :
It’s very important to take care of ourself then only we can take care of others. It’s not always necessary to be present physically to help but the present situation doesn’t allow us to do so. By video call or normal call you can help others or your family or friends. For them your health is what matters and nothing else makes them happy and be happy for yourself.
“If you stay safe, everyone will stay safe”.
By Nikita Das.