Mental health and COVID-19 | How to deal with anxiety during a pandemic?

Fear, worry, stress, anger, anxiety are a normal response to perceived or real threats. It can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions among people. Fear and anxiety about a new disease and what could happen are common and understandable. The coronavirus disease(COVID) pandemic may be stressful for people. 

Stress and fear due to infectious disease can sometimes cause worry about your health or loved ones, change in sleep pattern, increased substances abuse, change in eating pattern, fear or worry about your job or financial situation. Too much stress and fear can cause serious mental health problems like anxiety, depression and can even lead to suicide. Especially the people who have experienced violence, sexual abuse, and people having financial stress are at risk of suicide.

 Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations. Some people might respond calmly to the situation while others might be stressed and anxious. Especially older people, children, teens, health workers, people who have lost their jobs or had major changes to their employment are at higher risk of being anxious. It's a tough situation, but there are actions that people can take to cope with the circumstances and ease their suffering.

1. Maintain regular rhythms:                                                                                                                                    Make a plan of activities for the entire week. Manage your schedule properly like before with modification to suit your new routine. Wake up, eat, sleep on time. Lack of sleep contributes to anxiety and stress. So, sleep on time but do not sleep until noon every day. You can use this time to learn new things to keep yourself going.                                                                    
2. Take care of yourself:                                                                                                                                              Eat a healthy balanced diet, exercise regularly, practice meditation or yoga to keep yourself calm, focused and healthy. Avoid substance use like drugs, alcohol and avoid too much caffeine which can cause anxiety and stress.  Don't expect too much from yourself on difficult days. Think of things that have helped you to reduce your stress in the past. For me, it's music and dancing. I have always enjoyed it. It makes me feel calm and collected and relieve stress. If you are able to offer support to other people then help them, they might need it. Helping others can be good for you too. It helps you to decrease your stress and anxiety.                                                                                                                     
3. Box breathing:                                                                                                                                                          It's a technique used when taking slow, deep breaths. It helps in relieving stress or anxiety and can improve your concentration. So, how to perform box breathing? It's easy to perform this exercise. First, before starting, sit in a comfortable position on the chair.                             Step 1: Slowly exhale through your mouth, getting all the oxygen through your mouth.                 Step 2: Inhale slowly through your nose to the count of four.                                                           Step 3: Hold your breath for another slow count of four.                                                                   Step 4: Exhale again through your mouth for the same slow count of four.                                       Step 5: Hold your breath for the same slow count of four before repeating this process.                
4. Keep physical distance from others not social:                                                                                                    Keep in touch with family, relatives and friends through social media. It's easy to become isolated in this situation when we are advised to keep away from others, especially for people who live alone. Connecting to others helps to release good hormones that help to relieve stress and anxiety.                                                                                                                                
5. Stay informed not overloaded:                                                                                                                              Being constantly exposed to fear-inducing news feed about pandemic can impact your mental health. Staying informed is important but hearing about pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting. If social media makes you feel anxious then take a break. Pick one or two reliable sources of information and check once or twice a day only and don't share fake news as it can affect the mental health of other peoples.                                                                                             
6. Reach out for help if you need it:                                                                                                                          Don't hesitate to seek the help of a professional if you do not manage to cope with fear and anxiety on your own. It is normal and understandable to experience fear and anxiety in the context of COVID-19 pandemic so don't hesitate to talk about it or ask for help.