Mental Health

The coronavirus pandemic has brought about a resurgence of mental health disorders that we thought were atypical or unlikely. With half the world locked up and isolated in quarantine, habits and customs that we thought unlikely have been changed.

Although isolation has been the best defense against the coronavirus, it has also been harmful in other ways, and especially in matters of mental health. They have caused the appearance of syndromes, fears, phobias, manias and loneliness.

No one knows what will happen once the pandemic ends, but the truth is that, at least for now, the coronavirus has changed people’s lives in every way.

José Ángel Arbesú, member of the Committee for the National Mental Health Strategy of the Ministry of Health, has commented in an interview for Redacción Médica that “common and serious mental disorders can be duplicated after Covid-19”.

“After these pandemic situations that generate suffering at the social level, the data indicate that the problems of anxiety and depression can be multiplied by two, as well as the exacerbation of serious mental disorders, derived from stressful situations. And it is that the existing risk factors are many: social isolation, fear and uncertainty at work and economic level, with catastrophic projections for the near future.

A new confinement?

Experts have seen how obsessive behaviors, phobias or temporary psychological disorders have affected the population to a greater or lesser extent, with or without previous symptoms, and they warn that a possible second confinement could reopen sequelae, which could be much more harmful to mental health than the first.

Society has faced an emotional lack of control that has been alleviated with lack of refinement and holidays, a new air, a return to old routines and social encounters that allow us to feel vestiges of a pre-covid state. However, with the arrival of outbreaks, the return of restrictions and partial confinements, the alarms go off again.

Maria Teresa Álvarez, Psychiatrist at the Sisters Hospitallers Center in Palencia, announces that “if there is a new confinement, it will help to know that there is an end.” The specialist believes that anger can be combined with previous fears, but “everything that has worked must be started again.”

Hope and learn from what has been lived

According to the data collected in recent months, 7 out of 10 patients appreciate the situation and the way they have been able to live during the confinement that began in March, accepting the circumstances and handling them in the best possible way.

The Spanish have gradually adapted to the circumstances and assure that now they could better apply what they have learned. We leave you a series of tips to better deal with the new restrictions that appear with the new outbreaks that have occurred:

1. Organize your day so that you always know what you are going to do, to gain a sense of control. Always with flexibility, if you don’t have time to finish something, I’ll finish it tomorrow.

2. Try to do things that until now could not be due to lack of time. Now that you have it, you have to enjoy it.

3. Keep in touch with the people around us.

4. Try to find a time to exercise, even if it is indoors.

5. Make sure that staying informed is not the only motivation of the day.

6. If you have children, try to transmit calm and control to them, always telling the truth if they ask.

In these moments of uncertainty in the face of situations that may arise, we must not lose hope, and we must pray for all those people who have suffered and are suffering the consequences of this pandemic. We must remain calm and act in the most responsible and safe way possible.

Dr. Álvarez, from Hermanas Hospitalarias, collects an important reflection on this situation: “in this time we have all developed tools on a personal and collective level to face a situation that we have already experienced” and that these tools are the ones that must be put into march “to carry this new stage in a more adaptive way.”

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