How to deal with Depression and Anxiety during Covid-19 Pandemic?
When unexpected things occur
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Happy New Year 2020!
I still remember vividly about that moment. Bali, new year eve with close friends. Beautiful fireworks at the beach. It was magnificent. We hugged each other, wished for a successful, blessed and blissful year ahead. Some of us were planning for holidays, while some were planning for their wedding. For me, I was planning to find a new job opportunity and planned to visit my son and my mother in January (luckily, I did), before traveling to New Zealand for a friend’s wedding.
I was excited to welcome the new year…until…that pandemic came to strike the world. Covid-19. I have never seen anything like this before. I read about the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. I thought Covid-19 would be milder. I thought it wouldn’t be this deadly and globally. But it is. All countries started to do lockdown and closed their borders. People were hoarding essential stuffs. Offices and schools were closed. People were not allowed to go out of their house unless it was essential. Each country reported new cases and death tolls every day. Covid-19 patients started to occupy the hospital rooms. Some hospitals couldn’t accommodate patients anymore. Essential workers started to work endlessly. People were scared and worried.
However, those were not the only issue. Since the countries were on lockdown, economic started to feel the impact. Business couldn’t run well. For example, for flight industry. As what was written by Business Wire on their article on April 22, 2020, “The key factors affecting the aviation industry after the pandemic include the decline in tours and travels as a large number of international as well as domestic flights are getting cancelled all across the globe to curb the transmission of the virus. The government all across the globe are cancelling the visa of foreign people and locking down affected area which is also one of the major reason behind the slowing down of the aviation industry.”
Furthermore, they wrote, “Effect of COVID-19 on the aviation industry can be observed in each region including North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World. For instance, in the US, since the national health emergency due to the COVID-19 outbreak, most of the region is on complete lockdown, which is in turn restricting the domestic travel in the country. Countries such as Italy, France, Spain, and India are under complete lockdown and all kinds of flights are stopped until further notice”.
Hospitality is one of the affected industry as well. Taylor & Francis Online wrote,” Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s economy was shut down almost overnight (UNWTO, 2020). The pandemic has confronted the hospitality industry with an unprecedented challenge. Strategies to flatten the COVID-19 curve such as community lockdowns, social distancing, stay-at-home orders, travel and mobility restrictions have resulted in temporary closure of many hospitality businesses and significantly decreased the demand for businesses that were allowed to continue to operate (Bartik et al., 2020). Almost all restaurants were asked to limit their operations to only take-outs. Restrictions placed on travel and stay-at-home orders issued by the authorities led to sharp decline in hotel occupancies and revenues”.
Moreover, as consumer demand drops and difficulties to deliver goods due to lockdowns, other businesses were impacted also. For example manufacturing and construction, start-ups, logistics, properties, and many more.
As Covid-19 is impacting businesses, they couldn’t have income. Therefore, they need to reduce cost. Retrenchment is one of the way of reducing cost. Yes, I see some of my friends and relatives were retrenched. Some of them have families to support and they are the only source of income. It is devastating for them.
For me, because of the lockdown, I couldn’t fly back home when my step father passed away. I couldn’t be with my mother when she was grieving. My friends who live abroad had the same experience.They couldn’t embrace the last moment with their parents when they passed away. It was sad.
Apart from that, I am not able to see my mother and my son back home. Usually I visited them at least every 3 months. Due to Covid-19, I haven’t seen them for almost 7 months. It caused depression and anxiety for me. Especially, I haven’t seen how my son’s growth physically, even though we have video call almost every day. Sometimes there is a thought coming to my mind, to fly back home, which wouldn’t be that easy. A lot of approvals I need to get and also quarantine in both country. Also, I am not sure if the government in the country where I live now give me approval to comeback, which can cause me losing my job.
Despite the unexpected, stressful, devastating occurrences during Covid-19 pandemic, we will still have to deal with it. Yes, it is bitter, but life still goes on, right?. Here’s some ways that we can do to deal with depression and anxiety during Covid-19 pandemic:
Acceptance and Positive Mantras
The feeling of depression and anxiousness can attack our mental and body health. For instance, I was pissed all the time, I could barely sleep or sometimes I could sleep so long because I feel so tired, I cried for no reason, lose my creativity and working spirit. In addition, it affected my body health too. I often feel stiff on my shoulder and back, severe migraine, easily got sore throat.
One of the way we can do to deal with depression and anxiety during this difficulty is acceptance. Yes it isn’t easy as it’s written. I tried, it works for me. I accept that it has to happen, there is nothing I can change and control. I also put in in my mind that, this shall pass, this won’t be forever and I will see my family once it’s over. Those words become my mantra every time I started to feel depressed and anxious. And it works.
We might have our own depression and anxiety, thus you can modify your own positive mantras. Do it every morning before you start your day and every time you started to get depressed and anxious. By building positive mindset, your mind will be more calm.
Pray
This is not for everybody though. I am not a religious person but I believe God exists and He listens. I pray every morning, before I go to work. I pray for strength to get through the day. I pray so my works would go well and smooth.
I also pray when I need someone to talk to. Well, not all people can understand our situation and they also have their own problems. Sometimes they might think we are complaining, but in fact we just need someone to talk to. That’s why praying has a positive effect for me and it is relieving.
Yoga
www.mayoclinic.org wrote on their articles that Yoga is a mind-body practice that combines physical poses, controlled breathing, and meditation or relaxation. Yoga may help reduce stress, lower blood pressure and lower your heart rate. And almost anyone can do it. Further, Practicing yoga may lead to improved balance, flexibility, range of motion and strength.
If you can’t do it in a yoga studio, you can do it at home. There are a lot of channels on Youtube to guide your yoga poses. My favourite is Yoga with Adriene. She has some type of yoga classes to suit your purpose. For example yoga for weight loss. You can even follow her 30 Days of Yoga classes.
I have been doing yoga even before pandemic, particularly power yoga. For me, it is effective for my relaxation and breathing techniques. Yes the yoga poses are not easy and they are tiring. Yet, I feel relax and peaceful after.
Learn New Thing
Learn new thing helps you to keep your mind and schedule busy, so you don’t have time to be depressed and anxious. Also, you invest yourself with personal growth and new skills. Who knows it could open new opportunities for your future. Furthermore, learn new thing is good idea for those who were retrenched to add your skills and for those who would like to change career path.
There are some online learning platforms you can use, such as Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more. The classes are taught by real creators and you can learn anywhere.
Another platform that you can use is Coursera. Coursera It is now a leading online learning platform for higher education, where 68 million learners from around the world come to learn skills of the future. More than 200 of the world’s top universities and industry educators partner with Coursera to offer courses, Specializations, certificates, and degree programs.
As I have loved interior design since I was younger and I would like to change my career path, I chose to take the online interior design Diploma course from The Interior Design Institute (IDI). IDI Course gives you all of the training and skills you need to create beautiful and comfortable homes.
Their course is delivered online and consists of 12 modules and 12 interactive assignments. You can study in your own time and at your own pace. The modules are designed to be read sequentially and will help build your knowledge to enable you to design a residential space.
There are exercises at the end of each module, which will require you to participate in the design experience. It is through participation and interaction that you will learn to feel confident and find your creative voice. The exercises are designed to help you build your first professional portfolio.
Learn new thing, especially the one that has been my passion for long time, helps me to get through my days. My mind was occupied with my lessons, researches and assignments. I have no time for depression and anxiety. Apart from that, I gained my diploma, to lead me to a new career path.
Reading and Writing
Thrive Global wrote on their articles,” Reading enables individuals to focus on a virtual world as opposed to the challenges affecting them. They forget the things stressing them for a moment when engrossed in their favorite books, blogs, journals, or magazines. It enables people to focus on other things instead of thinking about stressful situations.”.
Furthermore, they also wrote, writing is also a fantastic stress reliefer and also therapeutic and helps individuals deal with the things they cannot disclose to other people. Additionally, both reading and writing have positive impacts to those who choose to employ them as a stress reducing mechanism. They expand one’s vocabulary and are excellent for memory improvement.
Reading and writing have been my new favourite things to do to deal with my depression and anxiety during Covid-19 pandemic. I read about interior design during my online class as research and I read contemporary books during my chilling hours. Moreover, I started to write for my own blog on my website and Medium and I find it is relaxing, I forget about my depression and anxiety. Other than that, reading and writing train my brain to be creative and productive.
As conclusion, we need to learn to accept and have positive mantras for ourselves when we deal with depression and anxiety during Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, we can pray to tell all of our problems because not everyone can listen. Furthermore, yoga helps for our mind and body wellness. Lastly, engaging our mind by learning new things, reading and writing is able to make us forget about our depression and anxiety on this tough time. In the end, it’s all up to you. You can do your research, to find the best thing for you to deal with your depression and anxiety.
