By Dr.Abdul Razak Shaikh,
It’s easy to blame, it’s easy to politicize, it’s harder to tackle a problem together and find solutions together. Infectious disease outbreaks, like the current Coronavirus (COVID-19), can be scary and can affect our mental health. While it is important to stay informed, there are also many things we can do to support and manage our wellbeing during such times. The government is telling us to stay at home and only go outside for food, health reasons or essential work, to stay two meters (six feet) away from other people and wash our hands as soon as we get home.
This will mean that more of us will be spending a lot of time at home and many of our regular social activities will no longer be available to us.
It will help to try and see it as a different period of time in your life, and not necessarily a bad one, even if you didn’t choose it.
It will mean the different rhythm of life, a chance to be in touch with others in different ways than usual. Be in touch with other people regularly on social media, e-mail or on the phone, as they are still good ways of being close to the people who matter to you.
Create a new daily routine, You could try reading more or watching movies, having an exercise routine, trying new relaxation techniques, or finding new knowledge on the internet. Try and rest and view this as a new if unusual experience, that might have its benefits.
Make sure your wider health needs are being looked after such as having enough prescription medicines available to you.
Fear about the coronavirus has gripped the world. This new illness certainly is frightening and needs attention, but it’s important to note that far more people die from an illness that’s all too familiar, the seasonal flu. Why are we so afraid of this novel coronavirus when we are much more likely to catch the flu? about new risks more than familiar ones, Why we worry? how to calm our anxiety and what are the psychological effects of being quarantined.
The psychiatrists have warned against coronavirus phobia among the people as it is resulting in self-testing and self-medication.
Do not panic, they advised people and urged them to stay home and adopt a social distancing approach until the pandemic was over. They said that people continued to throng laboratories to get tested, which was against medical advice.
One aspect is that people are underestimating the intensity of pandemic of coronavirus severe virulent infection as they don’t take necessary measures to prevent its spread while some have developed a severe phobia of getting the virus despite not having any signs and symptoms. we have to adopt precautionary measures without getting panicked.
A psychiatrist said that people had developed severe panicky state and got palpitation, dryness of mouth and numbness of the whole body besides interrupted sleep and waking up during midnight with panic attacks.
Such people get worrying thoughts as to what will happen to their families, wives, and children if they die. They rush to hospitals with suffocating and respiratory distress, psychological in nature, for investigations and treatment.
People thought that their family members were going to die, even well-educated persons left cities for their villages because of the fear of getting the infection. People are also getting panicky and have started unnecessarily buying foodstuff, tissue papers, toilet papers, and sanitizers. Masks and sanitizers have disappeared from markets.
The psychiatrist said that people having phobic anxiety disorder about the infection could give auto suggestions to themselves.
They have fever, cough, throat or chest infections. Nothing will happen to them. They should lie down, take deep breaths and hold on as long as they can. Then they should release it slowly and repeat this thrice a day.
They could do relaxation and desensitization therapy by that practice and through imagination by taking themselves to a comfortable place of choice. As 95 percent coronavirus infection passed uneventfully and body got immunity against it.
Only five percent infected people get lungs and respiratory complications entailed complications. The person having severe phobia should contact psychiatrists.
Despite the confusion over exactly how and when to quarantine, millions of people around the world will inevitably have to drastically reduce social contact and spend time in isolation to combat coronavirus. Frank McAndrew, an evolutionary psychologist at Knox College in Illinois, notes that enforced quarantine is particularly distressing. Being quarantined gives one a sense of being at the mercy of other people and other uncontrollable forces such as an epidemic. This leads to a feeling of helplessness and uncertainty about the future that can be very unsettling, he tells.
The mental health implications of isolation do not mean we shouldn’t quarantine. It’s essential to follow medical professionals’ guidance on combating coronavirus, just as it’s important to recognize the difficulties. In times of isolation, we can support each other by recognizing mental health struggles and providing comfort even from afar.