Pandemic Depression Symptoms During COVID-19

Throughout the pandemic, there have been numerous reports on varying symptoms:

・Poor sleep
・Poor appetite
・Prolonged low moods
・Difficulties going to work or school
・Lack of motivation in work, studies, or housework
・Diminished focus leading to increased mistakes
・Diminished enjoyment in previously fun activities
・Increased consumption of alcohol or tobacco products

There are many other symptoms, but in general, the more of these symptoms that apply, the higher the risk of developing depression.

Excessive worry and overcautiousness can also cause additional stress. In a study across the elderly population in Japan, one woman reported that she wakes up many times throughout the night to make sure her sense of smell is still functional. She lost her job due to the spread of COVID-19, and when she finally found a new job, she was nervous about whether or not she was infected before her first day of work.

Many of us have become more sensitive to the little things, more easily irritated, and more short-tempered. This pandemic has changed our lives so drastically. The challenges in adapting to these new circumstances could manifest into increased sensitivities to what we were okay with previously. This is why we could be much more susceptible to depression than usual.

3 Ways to Prevent Pandemic Depression

Regular stress relief becomes essential to avoid pitfalls into depression. Below are three useful techniques for relieving stress.

1. Write Down Anxieties

Write down all fears and worries that come to mind on a piece of paper. Then, divide them into two groups of “resolvable” and “unresolvable.”
The COVID-19 pandemic is something that no one could have predicted. Sometimes there are limitations to what we can resolve under these unforeseen circumstances beyond our control. Make the decision to let go of what cannot be fixed and focus on what’s possible. Organizing these thoughts will help calm the mind because it visually clarifies our fears. Once we’re clear on our next steps towards bettering a situation, our follow up action will help combat these depressive states.

An easy stress relief method similar to this is the “negativity trash can” technique. It’s as simple as writing down the negativity we feel and physically throwing it away. It can be practiced simultaneously, so give it a try as well!

2. Journaling to Create Healthy Routine Habits

Keeping a daily journal is known to improve mental health. Journaling helps reconsider the way we live our lives and assists in stabilizing healthier routine habits. This can serve as a deterrent to excessive drinking, mild addictions, and binge eating.

A color-coded format for journaling is encouraged. For example, we can categorize by color:

• Black ink for work-related
• Blue ink for family relationships
• Yellow ink for personal matters
• Red ink for health-related

This way, it’s easier to reflect and reevaluate the activities we go through and develop alternative ways to make improvements.

3. Exercise

The spread of COVID-19 has made it challenging to communicate in person. As a result, many of us have fewer opportunities for physical activity.

Here’s an interesting study result. A large cohort study in the United Kingdom in 2020 found that people who walked slower had about a 66% higher risk of contracting COVID-19 than those who walked faster. It’s still unclear what the causal relationship is between walking speed and the risk of infection. Yet, studies have shown that walking speed is closely related to aerobic capacity. People with high aerobic capacity are reported to have higher respiratory, circulatory, and immune function, which suggests that people with slower walking speed may be more susceptible to infection due to lower levels of these functions,

Physical exercise is known to help with depression and improve our mental state. A lack of exercise can lead to various adverse effects, such as hormone imbalance and sleep disturbances. As we spend more time indoors, we need to find creative solutions to keep ourselves physically active while maintaining social distance regulations.

Surviving Pandemic Depression with an AI Counseling App

Unlike physical discomforts, mental discomforts are much more difficult to recognize. If discomforts persist and you still feel “off,” don’t be afraid to ask for help. The special circumstances and restrictions under COVID-19 can quickly cultivate a state of isolation and depressive moods. Make sure to communicate with family and friends by phone, email, and social media. Don’t be afraid to reach out to a specialist if support is necessary. There are plenty of online counseling services and medications available, so don’t hesitate to consult a doctor.

However, some people may feel uncomfortable talking to friends, family, or a counselor. For such people, we recommend an artificial intelligence (AI) counseling app. In the era we live in now, an AI can easily provide personalized counseling and support our daily journey towards bettering our mental health. Since it’s an AI app, there’s no fear of judgment, and we can seek help anytime, anywhere, whenever the need arises. SELFMIND is a fantastic AI counseling app if you’re facing mental struggles and have no one to talk to.

Let’s make sure we care for our mental health as we survive through this pandemic and navigate through the mental pitfalls.

If you’re looking for more tips on how to care for your mental health, check out some of our past blog posts!
→ Looking to improve your mental health? Try the SELFMIND app FREE for a week!

Image: Unsplash
Reference:
Kimura, M., Ojima, T., & Kondou, K. (2020). Implications for Older People’s Lifestyle During the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic: The Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES). Japanese Journal of Health & Research, 41, 3-13.  doi:10.32279/jjhr.20200602

The post Pandemic Depression: COVID-19 and Mental Health appeared first on SELF MIND.

Do You Have a Constant Feeling of Anxiety?

When we are feeling anxious or worried about something, it tends to consume our thoughts, making us feel uncomfortable. As a result, we become easily irritated, have trouble sleeping, and feel various kinds of stress. The field of psychology defines “worry” in the following way:

A chain of thoughts and images, negatively affect-laden and relatively uncontrollable. The worry process represents an attempt to engage in mental problem-solving on an issue whose outcome is uncertain but contains the possibility of one or more negative outcomes.

Borkovec, T. D., Robinson, E., Pruzinsky, T., & DePree, J. A. (1983).

The field of psychology considers “worry” as a way of coping with stress in itself. If anxiety is understood as a natural protective reaction, it would be more of a friend, not an enemy.

What Happens When We’re Feeling Anxiety?

Even though feeling anxiety and worry are ways of coping with stress, the fact remains that they are accompanied by negative emotions. And negative emotions can sometimes drive us to act in ways that are detrimental to ourselves and others, and society. What do we do when anxiety takes over our minds? Knowing exactly how to respond is the key to avoiding unwanted reactions and remaining calm when anxiety strikes.

1. Collecting and Sharing Too Much Information

Anxiety is an emotion that arises in response to a problem that may have an undesired outcome. To relieve the feeling of anxiety, we need to counteract the uncertainty of the outcome. As a result, anxious people try to gather a lot of information and share it with others. Especially in times of disaster, when the whole society is facing a great sense of anxiety, the internet becomes overrun with information much more than usual. False information is sometimes spread in the form of rumors and false accusations, causing people to fall into further confusion. This has been observed throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as well.

It may be fresh in your mind that during the initial spread of the coronavirus pandemic, many people bought up and hoarded toilet paper. This was because of a rumor that there would be a shortage of toilet paper. In times of emergency, many people tend to collect and spread information excessively as a result of their constant anxiety feeling. This increases the need for higher “information literacy” (the ability to collect, organize, and disseminate necessary information).

2. Transferring Your Anxiety Into Aggression

When people have a strong anxiety feeling, they may try to resolve it by translating it into aggression toward others. In these situations, as the person becomes overwhelmed with an anxiety feeling, they lose their mental capacity to stay calm. As a result, they can potentially become easily irritated or even aggressive over trivial matters. In addition, when they are attempting to take action to relieve their anxiety, and they perceive other people or things as interference, they seem to fall into the psychological trap of wanting to attack and eliminate them. Many infected people and healthcare workers experienced discrimination and slander during the initial spread of the coronavirus pandemic. This may have been the result of many people’s attempts to relieve their pervasive anxiety feeling by transferring it into aggression.

3. Inspiring Support and Solidarity

When a major disruption occurs in a society, overcritical and aggressive feelings increase among people. On the other hand, calls for support and unity increase as well. Participating in support activities such as volunteering is a direct effort to solve whatever problem may be at hand. It is also an action that reduces the “uncertainty of the event” that causes anxiety feelings.

Support typically comes from good intentions to help those in need. It is, however, also a self-help action to alleviate one’s own sense of anxiety through helping others. In times of social turmoil, there are also people who inspire unity in order to dispel anxiety. According to a survey conducted across Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, researchers found the following results.

Over half of the respondents called for the necessity of “unity” and “support” from the country’s leaders, through survey responses such as “I believe that politicians who cannot unite in this national crisis are a problem” (54.3%) and “The government should do more to support the disaster-stricken areas” (46.5%). In addition, “Japan should be united” (38.7%) and “I am proud of the Japanese people” (25.8%) were two examples of the heightened awareness for the need of “unity” and “support,” likened to the heightened sense of nationalism associated with mid- and post-war Japan.

Sekiya, N. (2012).

It is important to note, however, that while many people use the word “unity” in a positive sense, calling for unity out of a sense of insecurity can lead to peer pressure. This can, in turn, lead to the exclusion of those who do not share the same values.

How to Dispell Your Anxiety

When we experience heightened anxiety in our daily lives, it is important to deal with it appropriately. Following this, we must first determine if the problem is one that can be managed through individual actions alone. For example, you may have a personal financial situation or health problem that you can solve or improve through your own actions. In this case, you can ease your anxiety feeling by taking coping actions focused on solving the problem. This includes actions such as saving money or going to the hospital for a checkup.

On the other hand, in the midst of social turmoil and economic uncertainty caused by natural disasters, including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it is difficult to deal with the problem through actions on an individual level. In such cases, instead of focusing on the problem, one may be able to reduce anxiety by focusing on one’s own physical and mental state. For example, keeping a regular routine and finding appropriate ways to change one’s mood when necessary. In summary, the keys to effectively alleviating or reducing your anxiety are as follows:

• If you can solve the source of anxiety through your own actions, you should focus on solving this problem.
• If the problem is beyond your control, focus on your own physical and mental state.

In order to properly deal with a pervasive anxiety feeling, it is important to first determine the nature of the root cause.

Living Alongside a Pervasive “Anxiety Feeling”

Anxiety is an emotion that arises from the uncertainty of the future. However, since no one can predict the future, it may be impossible for us to completely eliminate anxiety in our lives. To avoid a pervasive anxiety feeling that hurts ourselves and others, we need to face our own actions more calmly and carefully than when society is in turmoil, especially now that we are in the coronavirus pandemic. However, it can be said that it is precisely because of our anxious nature as humans that we prepare and make efforts towards a brighter future. If this results in a happier future, then perhaps anxiety is a driving force for us to lead better lives.

→ Looking to improve your mental health? Try the SELF MIND app FREE for 1 week!
If you’re looking for more tips on how to care for your mental health, check out some of our past blog posts!

Image: Unsplash

References:
Borkovec, T. D., Robinson, E., Pruzinsky, T., & DePree, J. A. (1983). Preliminary Exploration of Worry: Some Characteristics and Processes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21(1), 9–16. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(83)90121-3

Sekiya, N. (2012). Anxiety and Information Behavior After the Great East Japan Earthquake. The Journal of Information Science and Technology Association 62(9), 372-377. doi: 10.18919/jkg.62.9_372

Sugiura, Y. (2001). Coping Strategies Related to the Uncontrollability of Thoughts: Information Avoidance, Information Seeking, Solution Generation, and Worry. The Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 49(2), 186-197. doi: 10.5926/jjep1953.49.2_186

The post Feeling Anxiety in an Age of Uncertainty appeared first on SELF MIND.

The Mind and Body Are Connected

Our minds are deeply interconnected with our state of wellbeing. People with symptoms of depression frequently look down at the ground, and simply using facial muscles to fake a smile can reduce stress and induce positive emotions. In the same way, the largest organ in the human body – the skin – is also deeply connected to our mental state when it comes to human contact. The skin acts as the boundary between our surroundings, thus it strongly influences our self-awareness.

Skin: The Body’s Third Brain

The brain is formed from the same ectoderm (tissue layer) as our skin during development, and recent research shows that the same substances are present in the brain and skin. In addition, a very high percentage of the brain area is used to process skin sensations, and therefore the influence of skin sensations on the brain is considered to be very large. There’s ongoing research looking into the possibility of our skin processing a certain amount of information independent from the brain. For these reasons, the skin is considered by some as the human body’s “third brain”, or the “exposed brain”.

(As a side note: The gut, which can act independently of the brain, is considered the “second brain”. This is why we sometimes refer to our instinctive thoughts as “gut feelings”.)

Warming the Skin Warms the Heart

In one experiment, participants were provided with cups of either hot or cold coffee to hold. Then they were asked to give their impression of a fictional person’s biography. The results showed that participants with hot coffee were more likely to label the fictional individual as “friendly” or “generous”. Other experiments have also shown that warming the skin makes people feel closer to build trust. This is because our “insular cortex” in the brain is involved in both “skin warmth” and “emotional warmth.”

How to Perform Therapeutic Touch

The skin understands the softness of an object and this is believed to affect the mind.
For example, if you observe a baby, you’ll see them continuously sucking on a pacifier or holding a blanket. This is because they get a sense of security and satisfaction from touching something soft like a pacifier or a blanket.

The “speed” of the therapeutic touch also affects our state of mind. The appropriate speed of contact to reduce stress and promote mental stability is 2 – 4 inches ( 5 – 10 cm) per second. A good rule of thumb is to imagine gliding the hand from shoulder to wrist over the course of about 5 seconds. It’s also important to use the entire palm of the hand to apply the right amount of pressure at this time. If you are feeling anxious, tense, or stressed out, massaging the limbs with slow, moderate pressure may help calm the nerves.

Soothing Relaxation Effects of 1/F Fluctuation

When we experience therapeutic touch with another human, a vibration is emitted at a frequency called the “1/f fluctuation”. This frequency is often found in nature, in a gentle breeze or a babbling stream, and is said to soothe our minds to induce a relaxed state. When the brain feels a pleasant sensation, it releases a hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin is closely related to our emotions of love and trust, and the secretion of oxytocin helps with mental and physical relaxation. If you see someone who seems upset or sad, you can comfort them by stroking their back or caressing their head. A “1/f fluctuation” touch is sure to give them a sense of soothing relaxation.

Human Contact in the Modern Age

In the field of psychology, ‘personal space’ is commonly understood as a requirement to avoid stress. Some people feel uncomfortable or violated if you touch them out of the blue. Especially since the spread of COVID-19, we are required to be more mindful of reducing contact with others and maintaining a social distance.

However, one thing that will never change for humanity is the fact that human contact is soothing. It’s our natural instinct to seek contact with other people. In this modern age, many of us are overstressed with relationships and social anxiety. More and more, therapeutic touch with our peers becomes an important part of maintaining our mental health. Perhaps initiating meaningful contact with our loved ones will heal our hearts and build trust in relationships.

→ Looking to improve your mental health? Try the SELFMIND app FREE for 1 week!
If you’re looking for more tips on how to care for your mental health, check out some of our past blog posts!

Image: Unsplash
Reference:
Yamaguchi, H. (2014). Healing of mind by body contact. Journal of the Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, 64(3), 132-140. doi: 10.3777/jjsam.64.132

The post Therapeutic Touch Techniques for a Healthy Life appeared first on SELF MIND.