Daily Times

It’s easy to blame, it’s easy to politicise, but it’s hard to tackle a problem and find solutions together. Infectious disease outbreaks, like the current coronavirus, COVID-19, can be scary and 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 metres (six feet) away from other people and wash our hands as soon as we get home. This means 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 a different rhythm of life, a chance to be in touch with others in ways other than the usual ones. Be in touch with people on social media, or via e-mail or phone, as these are good ways of being close to the people who matter to you.

While it is important to stay informed, there are also many things we can do to support and manage our wellbeing during such times

Create a new daily routine. You could try reading more or watching movies. Have an exercise routine, try new relaxation techniques, or find new information 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. Rumour and speculation can fuel anxiety. Having access to good quality information about the virus can help you feel more in control.

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? How do we calm our anxiety and what are the psychological effects of being quarantined? Psychiatrists have warned against the “coronavirus phobia” as it results in self-testing and self-medication. Do not panic, they advise people. They urge them to stay home and adopt a social distancing approach until the pandemic is over. People continue to throng laboratories to get tested, which is against the common medical advice.

One aspect is that people are underestimating the intensity of the pandemic of coronavirus. It is a severe virulent infection, but they don’t take necessary measures to prevent its spread. Some people 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 a severe panicky state and got palpitation, dryness of mouth and numbness of the whole body, besides interrupted sleep and waking up during the night with panic attacks. Such people get worrying thoughts as to what will happen to their families if they die. They rush to hospitals with suffocating and respiratory distress, psychological in nature, for diagnosis and treatment.

Some people think that their family members are going to die; even some well-educated persons have 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 paper, toilet paper, and sanitizers. Masks and sanitisers have disappeared from markets.

A psychiatrist said that people having a phobic anxiety disorder about the infection could give suggestions to themselves. They have fever, cough, throat or chest infections, but nothing will happen to them. They should lie down, take deep breaths and hold on as long as they can, releasing it slowly and repeating it thrice a day. They could do relaxation and desensitisation therapy by that practice and through imagination by taking themselves to a comfortable place of choice. Only five percent infected people get lungs and respiratory entailed complications. A person having a severe phobia should consult a psychiatrist.

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, Illinois, notes that an 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 adds.

The mental health implications of isolation do not mean that we shouldn’t quarantine. It’s essential to follow medical professionals’ guidance on combating coronavirus, just as it’s important to recognise the difficulties. In times of isolation, we can support each other by recognising mental health struggles and providing comfort even from afar.

The writer is a retired doctor of the Sindh Health Department