By Dr Jupitora Dutta
With lockdown 4.0 effectuated to the crew of 1.38 billion people nationwide, we have natively been moulded to a clique. The fight against the unseen have been so overwhelming by the denizens but being metaphoricallyhousebound is something everyone didn’t dreamt of this spring.
Practicing social distancing or to be less offending let us say physical distancing for what number of weeks we merely lost a count of. There’s rather a psychological crisis, which is being tolling over if not the virus on first hand. Why would I call this unwanted, unaddressed mental breakdown as corona’s second cousin because we all have not planned of or thought life on this accord.
It’s kind of strange how something barely visible could toss all our lives upside down. Every morning we wake up to a storm of updates regarding this evolving pandemic and how vulnerable and petite our lives are and there we lose the track between how to line our emotions from fact. We overconsume too much of information which cultivates anxiety and gloominess and sediment our mental health. The WHO has also highlighted the importance of encouraging mental and psychological well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak, stressing “this is not going to be a sprint, but a marathon”.
The worrisome pinnacle is the stressful nature of the healthcare professional during this time and how important it sums that ‘caring for our carers’. The humungous burden on the healthcare professionals and the stigma being an added cherry to the cake! Healthcare professionals are at the frontline of tackling this pandemic, and in a country with shy amount of them, and a massive diseases burden, they can also become overwhelmed and stressed or experienced burnout.
Disbelief, anger, sadness, acceptance and hope are the five waves of emotion we will experience as coronavirus forces large swathes of the globe into the lockdown. The extraordinary challenges and monumental disruptions to daily routine thrust on us by the COVID 19 pandemic cause us to feel overwhelming emotions as we suddenly lose agency over our lives and our future. The reactions may vary from person to person and we do not experience emotions in any sort of linear order.
Yes, we can’t put a time frame to this nor we can bear the brimming, bouncing thoughts of the mind walls. So we got to do something for this unprecedented circumstance we are in. Here’s a couple of them:
1. Mindfulness: To practice this you actually don’t need quarantines, but since time is hitting hard a little of mindfulness can pronounce so much of a difference. Meditation, kindness, 3 big hugs, breathing techniques, self-affirmation, writing a diary, the raisin exercise, the stretch yawn every alternate hour are quick and few to mention.
2. Practice gratitude: Focus on the goods in your life. It can be easy to get swept away in the fast lane and forget to stop and show your appreciation for what you have, so gratitude doesn’t have to be saved for the “big things in life”. If possible keep a gratitude journal.
3. Focus on present: The only way to dispel fear is to be focused on present. There’s no point of mentally rehearsing what we don’t want to happen or over exaggerating the worst case scenario.
4. Talk to family and friends: Keep in touch with everyone. Face time your loved ones, assure them you’re near and we all are into this, talk about after lockdown plans and laugh over a gone gold memory. Once in a week check your phone log and call the unwonted number. Talk to a distant relative and keep a check in their well being.
5. Customise a home routine: Surely we don’t have morning classes to rush or attend an otherwise nerve wrenching meeting, no jammed metros, unending queues in security check in, no honking traffic that almost take our lives but if we don’t keep grounded to a structured Routine of everything boredom can cause potholes in Depression and Anxiety. Try to make to do list, count on your daily chores while going to bed and be generously forgiving to yourself if you couldn’t keep up to your own deadline, making sure you don’t exploit this to procrastinate.
6. Instead of waking up to your phone, try to meditate and do some free hand exercise. Laugh your heart out so that your soul swells.
7. This is also the faultless period to tradition all your hobbies. Doodle, Zentangle, dance, sing, play an instrument, draw, use all this time in your hand to let the artist in you create. You never know you may surprise yourself. Pursue that hobby you’ve been long ignoring. Try out new recipes, make alternate shifts in the kitchen and cook for your family. A very point to remember, you don’t have to be impeccably good at anything, always keep in mind you’re doing this for fun.
8. Disconnect at times and switch off for your rejuvenation. Choose reliable information source, don’t buy into hype, limit updates and alerts. You don’t have to always do that scroll of terror.
9. Explain and reassure the children, educate them on facts, give age appropriate information.
10. If you’re on medication, remember to take it as prescribed. If on a therapy, try out events which are doable by you, you would never want the half won run to restart.
Ayurveda has duly recognised the individuality of Manas (psyche) and Sareera (body) and their inseparable and interdependent relationship in a living body. It explains how mental hygiene is the genuine need of the hour. At situations and possibilities like now we can predispose to numerous Manasvikara (mental disorders) and we can yet religiously prevent them by inculcating certain measures.
Classics enunciates sooth calming massage, balanced diet conducive to health, practicing Yogasanas such as AdhoMukhaVrkasana, Virabhadrasana, Adhomukhasavasana, SuptaBaddhaKonasana, ViparitaKarani, Savasana and NadiShodhana Pranayama should be daily practised with repititions of cycles.
There’s also mention of AcharaRasayana which adopts such regimens under SatvavajayaChikitshathat include various codes of conduct for maintenance of better mental health. Consumption of Hitkar and PathyakarAhaar is also suggested to maintain the zenith of sound mind.
Finally someday this will be over, and my hope is before we move to the new normal, we should reciprocate on the fact that what kind of person we want to be in a 6 month of time. Before we all move to this unhackneyed tomorrow we got this ample amount of time to mutate or rejig into someone more connected, mellow, affectionate, more centred, more reflective. So the task is how much of us can be that person, time to character musings and contemplation into real.
(The author is a
Guwahati-based
Ayurveda doctor)