In these days of the pandemic, without any doubt life can feel more fraught than ever and many people around the world may be feeling anxious about the new normal. The most important thing that we want you to remember, is that it is normal to feel a whole range of emotions during these extraordinary times. Feeling stressed and anxious is not a sign of you not coping. It is as important that you look after your and your children’s emotional well-being as it is your physical health.
Let’s be honest: there is no right way to face an unprecedented global health crisis and everyone has been dealing with the situation since almost half of this year in their own way. The scale of change in the way we live, work and socialise has changed dramatically and adapting to those changes has not been an easy task, to say the least. The Open University of Catalonia, has said that 41% of the United Kingdom population is at risk of mental health issues during the pandemic. The study highlighted that the majority of those surveyed in the UK had reported feeling down, depressed, or hopeless about the future at some point during this on going pandemic .
Anxiety is an emotion we perceive any kind of threat-it is a feeling of apprehension about what will happen. In some cases, it can be a helpful emotion as it can spur us to take action, but when we experience anxiety for long periods, it can be emotionally draining and physically challenged or uncomfortable. Majority of people have said that the imposed lockdown has been particularly triggering for anxiety because we have been bombarded with threatening news stories about the dangers of coronavirus,and we have had to deal with a lot of uncertainties.
I hope that these resources help you to talk about what we are going through together, find healthy ways of coping and ideas for managing the isolation that we are experiencing from our usual support networks.
SELF-CARE:When you say the term ‘mental health’, things can sometimes get a little bit awkward. According to a survey carried out by the mental health charity Time to Change, just under one in three UK adults would put off talking to a friend who is struggling with their mental health. According to Dr Heather Bolton , Head of Psychology at Unmind,’ people can be trigger in many different ways,a and a thing that makes one person anxious may not be the same for another’ “ We often notice physical symptoms of anxiety before anything else-things like feeling tense, a churning stomach, loss of appetite or a dry mouth”,she says. “ If you are anxious , you might find yourself making a lot of negative predictions and expecting bad things to happen etc.
The first most important thing for you to do is, try to pinpoint excatly what it is that you are anxious aboout, and put it into words in a sentence or two the simple act of putting it into words will make it less abstract.Yes, it is a a concrete task , start taking steps to problem solve, working out what you can do to limit the impact of the worry. You also need to check yourself or mind on whether you are doing anything that actually makes your anxiety provoking news?If you are able to identify things that feed your anxiety, you will be able to make some pratical changes.Coping with stress in a healthy way will make you, the people you care about, and your community stronger.