Ways to Maintain Mental Health During the Covid-19 Pandemic

When we are faced with any crisis, fear and anxiety cannot be avoided. This is a normal and natural response to challenging situations filled with danger and uncertainty. While it is perfectly natural for us to worry, worrying alone won't help. The more we focus on worrying, the more hopeless or anxious we will be.

Mental health is not something other people strive for. According to Lifehack, stress, worry and anxiety must be dealt with on a regular basis - and even more so during a pandemic. Pandemics do make it difficult for us to focus our minds and bodies, but there are practical ways you can try to manage your mental health. Here are mental health tips for dealing with a pandemic.

1. Focus on What You Can Control
The first thing you can do is focus on what is in your control. We can't control what happens in the future. Nor can we control the virus itself, the world economy, or how the government is managing the situation. But we can control what we do in the here and now, and that really matters because what we do here and now can make a big difference for us and for the people around us. behavioral health telehealth

Focusing on what we can control will help us maintain our well-being during periods of self-isolation, quarantine, or lockdown.

2. Overcome Negative Thoughts and Feelings A
second mental health tip is to pay attention and acknowledge the uncertainty in the thoughts / feelings that come to your mind, pause, and breathe. Tell yourself that this is just anxiety talk - it is just thoughts, and thoughts are not statements of fact. You don't have to believe everything you think.

These thoughts or feelings will pass, and you don't have to respond to them or do anything. You can try to imagine the thought / feeling floating in a bubble or cloud.

3. Mindful Relaxation
Mindfulness is about taking in non-judgmental awareness of the moment, including your thoughts, feelings, body states, and sensations while encouraging openness, curiosity, and acceptance.

Explore and connect with the present moment. Pay attention to your breathing, slowly count your breaths, and the sensation of inhaling through your nose and out through your mouth. Try counting to 20 while taking slow, deep breaths. The goal is to calm the mind by using the five senses to focus on the environment rather than disturbing thoughts.

The key to realizing consciousness is to be a keen observer. Using your five senses, look around and notice what you see, what you hear, what you can touch, what smells you notice are completely absorbed in your sense experience. You can also set a timer for a few minutes, close your eyes, and try to do this exercise using all of your senses by visualizing the places you've been, like your favorite vacation.

4. Dealing with Anxiety
Anxiety and stress present a threat to us, and at the same time, make us underestimate our ability to cope with the stress caused by that threat. Of course, it is very difficult to imagine how to deal with it during a pandemic, but you have to remember that you are coping and will be coping.

Here's one way to challenge a threat and connect with your ability to overcome it: visualize coping. Start by getting into a comfortable position. Take a deep breath in through your nose for a count of 5 slowly, holding your breath for a count, before exhaling slowly through your mouth. Repeat this several times.

Then, think back to a situation you had that was stressful or difficult for you, think about what it was, how you felt at the time, things you might have said to yourself, and whether you would handle it or not. Then, share in as much detail as possible what you did to solve and manage the problem, how it turned out, and how you felt at the time.