Don’t get stressed by COVID-19
COVID-19 poses multiple forms of challenges to the humankind.
Apart from having a deteriorated economy due to the worldwide lockdown and intense disturbances caused in the supply chains, its invisible psychological and mental strains also must be understood.
It is inevitable that global pandemic crises shall pose a challenge to the pattern of social behavior. Due to the large restrictions imposed by the states upon its citizens’ routine social movements and activities makes their mental health much more susceptible and weaker.
Following the global financial crisis of 2007-08, many countries reported higher rates of depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug use. Apart from that, the crisis resulted in a 13% increase in suicides which can be attributable to the mass unemployment and sharp decline in the demand. (Mckinsey & company report – 2019).
By looking at these facts, one thing becomes very clear is that any global pandemic like this would certainly cause multiple forms of imbalances and problems among society. Here the solution must be derived from two sources.
1. The government, having a greater role in the matters of its citizens, shall have to try to meet all their essential demands by various means. As it has certain limitations for deeply intervening onto the citizens’ matters, 2. society itself can bring a lot of changes in their normalized social way of behaving patterns. For that, they may be in need to re-look at their family and social relationships.
In a technology-reliant world, we can hardly find time to spare with our families and people around. In fact, we are in that stage where all the events taking place right beside our residence are also updated through technology and not through a face to face conversation (example- WhatsApp). This generation feels technology connects people better than in person and most of the mental disturbances which have been caused due to the lockdown can be attributable to the overdependence on technology.
While all of us were going through such a way of living, COVID-19 made us realize that we have more to learn than just scroll and like on social media. The present generation tends to lose its roots and the sense of emotion as they depend on technology and browsing more than personal conversations.
As all human beings’ relationships have largely dwelled into the virtual world, the beautiful stories and experiences that our parents and grandparents were sharing started to be mere distant memories. Lockdown has made us realize and learn the importance of offline life. On the other hand, the busy schedule of every individual and a routine life along with external disturbance like traffic causes stress and mental breakdown. But, due to the lockdown, all the employees are asked to work from home, which has not only reduced traffic on roads but also has reduced the employees’ stress and tension. Also due to reduction of junk and outsourced food, the health of the people is also under check.
The lockdown has helped people to focus on their mental and physical health, with regular exercises and meditation as well as the allocation of time. As a token of gratitude, all we can do is to help mother nature recover soon while we stay back and stay safe indoors.
