Mental Health during a Pandemic

During the global pandemic of Covid-19, many people have described how they felt in different ways about being in quarantine for such a long period of time.  Many people saw this as an opportunity to fix up their homes, but many people also saw this as mentally difficult.  This experience has left many people to have felt trapped and feel like they aren’t important.  People not making contact with one another, makes one feel alone and unwanted.  The global pandemic has made many people’s anxiety and stress increase because of social distancing.  This extra stress has caused many people  to have a change in their day to day lives for example, sleeping and eating.  This refers to people eating more or less or people having irregular sleep schedules caused by the pandemic.  The stress that is being caused by the pandemic can make your heart rate increase for no sudden reason, your muscles suddenly become dense, get irritated easily, and have many repetitive thoughts.  The pandemic has also caused many people to be scared because they can potentially get the virus of covid-19.  Many people in America lost their jobs, making their life financially unstable.  This has affected many people’s mental health because they start to worry about what they have to do, this can make the person start to find bad ways to cope thinking it helps them out or calm them down, while living throughout this pandemic.  Yale medicine Psychiatrist, Kimberly Yonkers said, “There is a field called disaster psychiatry , and the Covid-19 pandemic falls within its preview,” (Taking Your ‘Mental Health’ Temperature during Covid-19).  Many people that have mental illnesses(depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia) have thoughts that affect them even more because of the environment around them.  Overall, this global pandemic has taken a toll on a lot of people changing our day to day lives,  messing with our mentality and questioning our survival, but to overcome this pandemic and make the best of it, is by being positive and looking at this in a different perspective.  Actually, doing something you always wanted to do or work on yourself.  This year was nothing anyone expected, but we all have to work with one another to overcome this change. 

MLA Citation

“Mental Health and Coping During COVID-19.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html.

Katella, Kathy. “Taking Your ‘Mental Health’ Temperature During COVID-19.” Yale Medicine, 5 Aug. 2020, www.yalemedicine.org/stories/mental-health-covid-19/.