From the last time I published a blog post, which was
admittedly too long ago (oops), a lot has happened in the world that has
completely changed our everyday lives for the time being; schools and
universities have been closed, exams have been cancelled and many businesses
have had to temporarily close, all as a direct consequence of the spread of
coronavirus across the world. Despite the obvious physical impacts of the
disease, such as the symptoms that everyone should be keeping an eye out for
(and I have included here as a friendly reminder), coronavirus is also having
quite a severe impact on peoples mental health too. The uncertainty surrounding
the situation is unloading a lot of unnecessary stress onto everyone, which I
am going to look into further in this blog post.
At the time of writing this, we don’t yet know when the
lockdown we are currently under will be lifted or when the tight government
regulations that have been imposed on us will be relaxed slightly. This has
caused some ridiculous carnage in stores globally, with people stupidly
panic-buying products in bulk and leaving shop shelves looking eerily empty and
abandoned. What seemed like a smart idea, stocking up on ‘necessities’ to
endure the several weeks, possibly months of lockdown, has ended up rendering
so many vulnerable people in society helpless and without essential products
such as non-perishable foods, soap and toilet roll. This unwittingly caused
severe anxiety amongst people who are left wondering how they are going to
survive on the bare minimum, while others have piled high enough stock to last
them a long time.
Another big mental impact that has been caused by this
pandemic is the isolation and the loneliness that comes with it. Crucially,
people have had to isolate themselves away from the world and their friends and
not immediate family, and have been doing so for a considerable period of time
now. Social contact has been limited to with just those in your household, with
the only exceptions being those who are classified as key workers and still
have to go out and work while socially distancing, and that leaves an
unimaginable amount of people completely alone during this crisis. For myself,
I live in a house with 7 other people and I am fortunate enough to still have a
job in a busy supermarket, yet I still find myself experiencing moments of
solitude when I think about how much I miss all my friends, especially the
girls I live with in my student house which we can’t go to for the foreseeable future.
That’s only the case for me, which makes it even harder to comprehend what
people who live on their own are going through, or the elderly in society who
are very high risk to the disease and can’t make contact with anyone. Intense
loneliness is both a physical and mental issue, and it can lead to depression which
can obviously lead to even more serious issues.
That being said, our National Health Service is at present
completely stretched out as far as it will go, struggling desperately to treat
people who are suffering from the physical symptoms of the virus and putting a tremendous effort in. But that
makes it easy to forget to look after our mental health during these
unprecedented times, and so I am going to end this blog post with a picture I
saw online that provides some good advice on how to look after your mental health
according to CAMHS. Until next time, where hopefully the world will be a much
happier and safer place to live in.
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