Building emotional immunity amid Covid 19 scare

The year 2020 has exposed us to two pandemics, ‘The Coronavirus’ that we all are aware of, and the other one is the ongoing silent Psychological Pandemic. Coronavirus has brought extreme changes in our lifestyle, psychologically impacting through constant negative thoughts such as uncertainty regarding medical care, jobs, fear of losing a loved one, appearing for exams, and the constant pressure of strict COVID precautions. Our desire to remain updated has also impacted our mental well-being during COVID. We spent more time watching or reading the continuous flow of negative news ranging from suicides, Bollywood deaths, and regular updates of COVID positive numbers. All these events impacted our emotional immunity, reducing the protection of our immune system, and fight back ability.

Impact Of Coronavirus On Emotional Immunity

According to research at Pennsylvania State University, negative moods lead to inflammation, which further results in poor health and physiological disorders like arthritis. An Ohio state university research results suggested that negative emotions are linked to lower immune response, and another study by an Italian researcher demonstrated that those diagnosed with depression in old age tend to have reduced WBCs (fighter cells).

As per the estimation of the World Health Organization, depression and stress-related diseases will be the primary health concern followed by auto-immune diseases and allergies. Researchers also found that the hunger hormone not only regulates appetites but also has a significant role in mood and the immune system. A study found that it is quite hard to recover from exam-related stress as slow as three days with a reduction in beta cells.

Now, the most popular question these days is ‘how was the lockdown?’ ‘Which online course you enrolled for?’ We are presumed to evolve continuously with or without lockdown. We expect ourselves to be much fitter, prettier, skilled and loved and evolve constantly. While some of us are enjoying the staying-in scenario, others are feeling disturbed or worthless. More than a million people lost their jobs or had significant reductions in their salary. People are questioning their self-worth, their ability to learn, cursing themselves for procrastinating, being harsh on themselves, struggling to work from home (especially in remote areas), and whatnot.

While some are trying to maintain sanity by fighting the stress and anxiety caused due to the pandemic, others are dealing with the fear of being trapped (Cleithrophobia) and obsessive-compulsive behaviour (fear of infections, cleaning, and re-cleaning). A lot of people are struggling with loneliness or depressive symptoms (living alone and away from family, while the rest are concerned about getting infected from COVID-19 and are continuously trying to boost physical immunity.

How To Protect Your Emotional Immunity?

However, as emotional immunity gets ignored in all this, here are few tips to stay protected and take good care of your emotional immune system during and after the pandemic:

Set limits around news utilization by restricting how regularly you check for new turns of events
Be particular about the source of news and stick to confided sources in wellsprings of data, such as WHO
Make a proper routine for yourself and try sticking with the same
If you are working from home, designate a place and time for work to maintain a healthy work-life balance
Understand that certain things (such as the end of covid or development of vaccine) and hence avoid being worried about it
Make time for exercise or some form of work-out even if it’s just going for a walk
Communicate coherently, forgive often, and avoid holding grudges
Stay connected with your friends and family, if not physically, at least emotionally
Explore your creative side by engaging in childhood hobbies or try your hands on new ones.
Eat well and follow a proper sleep schedule

Seeking help from experts is always a sign of strength, and you can always reach out to a professional mental health practitioner. Help yourself to protect your emotional immunity. The best you can do for yourself is to free yourself from the trap of stigma and freely speak about your mental health concerns if you or your loved ones are developing one. Reaching for professional psychological support should be the first option, not the last one.

Source: | This article originally belongs to thehealthsite.com

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