Mental Health During The Pandemic

In the last two years, most of us would be able to resonate with this, “Life is what happens to us when

we are busy making other plans!”. Amidst the plethora of thoughts are emotions that we all are

managing, each one of us is trying our best to adjust and acquaint ourselves with the “new normal” way

of living. Until the first wave, for many COVID just seemed to be a statistic, but it was the second wave

that shook people’s psychological well-being. We all have either been a witness to the loss of a loved one

or a loved one being tested positive, being hospitalized & critical, or being the victim of COVID

themselves. It’s been a tough year for most of us!

It is said all battles are either lost or won in the minds! With so much fear attached with COVID, been

tested positive acts on your mind first rather than your body! It just makes a way for all the negative

thoughts to step in! Fear of losing life, fear of not getting treatment on time, lack of clarity in terms of

what needs to be done can completely lower one’s morale.

Today there is no second thought that COVID has taken a toll on most of our mental well-being. Hence

rather than focusing on how it has affected us, we need to change our focus on fighting this by equipping

ourselves with some strategies that will help us to cope with these difficult situations better. Prof. Harari

spoke about how the biggest danger is not the virus, but the lack of compassion & empathy shown by

humankind! We need to understand that the virus is incapable of communicating with others, but we

are! We all need to come together if we need to fight this! But then the next big question would be,

“how do we make ourselves more resilient or compassionate or empathetic towards self & others?”.

One of the tools for facilitating emotional resilience is Rational Self Analysis (RSA). Based on the scientific

premises of Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), RSA would help people to become more aware of their

thinking and its consequences on their emotions and subsequently their behaviour. The awareness of

the ‘Five Rules of Rationality’ will facilitate in making people aware, acknowledge, accept and address

their thoughts and the consequent emotional states.

The five golden rules of RSA are: My thinking should be:

1. based on what the fact or what the reality is rather than based on perception

2. able to protect my life i.e., my mental & my physical well-being

3. help me achieve the goal of the situation

4. able to eliminate any significant emotional conflict with self

5. able to keep out of trouble with others

Out of these 5 golden rules, my thinking should follow at least 3 of them. Using these rules on a

day-to-day basis would go a long way in shaping the individual responses and subsequently the

community responses not only in face of this crisis but also in the challenges thereafter. We all must

understand that just like physical health, mental health at the society level is the responsibility of one

and all.

Last but not the least, a big round of applause to all those people who have fought this, who are still

fighting this; the journey isn’t an easy one for sure!

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