COVID & Mental Health
I recently had a conversation with a client whose mother had just passed away. Living on opposite sides of the continent had always caused inconveniences when he wanted to visit. But because of COVID-19, he wasn’t able to fly home and self-quarantine to see her one last time. Because of hospital restrictions, his siblings weren’t allowed to visit her either. In her last moments, the closest a family member could get to her was a video call.
COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the way we live our lives. From the bother of forgetting your face mask when going for groceries, to stories like the one above. When is the last time you were physically close to someone outside of your household without that nagging fear that you were being irresponsible? Regardless of where you stand on the physical threat of COVID-19, the threat of a pandemic to our mental health is undeniable.
So, what can we do to bolster ourselves when we’re feeling under pressure? If you’ve been following the GoGet.Fit blog, some of this might be review. But now is a good time for a couple of simple yet important reminders.
Slow Down and Assess
As countries go further along the path of reopening their economies, there’s a lot of pressure on us every day folk to make sure we’re following the guidelines prescribed by the various levels of government. Responsibility is being placed on business owners and employees to keep each other safe.
With such strong distractions, it’s easy to forget to monitor our own wellbeing. Fortunately, it takes as little as a few minutes to use any number of online resources that have been made available to get that inward focus. The Canadian Mental Health Association has developed a COVID-19 Mental Health Check-in tool that runs through a short series of questions about a variety of areas of life. The best aspect of the CMHA tool is that you aren’t directly scored at the end of the survey (Who likes to be told they aren’t doing well?). Instead, based on the answers you provided, the tool suggests avenues of support. Moreover though, the check-in is simply an excellent means of making us stop what we’re doing and look at ourselves through the lens of mental health.
Mental Strength through Exercise
You had to know this was going to come up! We’ve talked in past articles about the benefits exercise provides in maintaining our mental health. Positive effects such as better sleep and higher energy levels are only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to these corollary gains, studies have shown that exercise has a physiological impact on our mental health, physically improving the way the brain responds to stress.
More and more doctors are prescribing exercise to combat mental health issues, and monitoring the progress of their patients using community-building apps such as our own GoGet.fit.
Limiting Substance Use
COVID-19 has deteriorated the work week that most of the industrialized world has been following for over a century, and a life clearly defined by routines is no longer the norm for many of us. On top of that, the added stress of living through a global pandemic has many people looking for ways to cope. Alcohol has long been over-consumed in Canada, but a recent Nanos poll shows that 20% of Canadians surveyed indicated that their alcohol consumption has increased during COVID-19.
Just as exercise improves long-term brain function, alcohol dramatically reduces it. Itself being a depressant, it goes without saying that drinking more (or drinking at all) during unstable times is going to have a negative effect on your mental well-being.
Fortunately, there are plenty of online tools to help us curb our alcohol consumption. And if you need more help, there are a handful of prescribed medications that are increasingly being used to help individuals reduce or eliminate the amount of alcohol that they drink. If you feel you are having trouble controlling your consumption, it’s worth a call to your doctor.
Building Community through Technology
At the time of this writing, we’re roughly six months into COVID-19. By this point if you haven’t at least heard of online video conferencing you probably aren’t reading this.
What started mainly as a trend to help with business continuity has blossomed into one of the safest and most convenient ways to keep in touch with others. As we’re forced to isolate and maintain physical distances, video conferencing has found a way to mitigate geographical barriers, creating a space for everything between birthday parties and book clubs. Apps like Zoom, Google Meet and Facetime have seen usage increases during COVID-19 that rivals any technology uptake.
Beyond video conferencing, companies like Telus Health and GoGet.fit are building innovative ways of making sure the Canadian Health system can still take care of the population. By meeting online or via phone, and then monitoring health progress securely over the internet, we are still able to seek and receive medical care.
Learning how to use this technology will not only keep your brain thinking and active, it will open up ways to connect with distant family and friends, and to maintain the sense of community that is so important to keeping our spirits up and our hearts strong.
The future of how we live our daily lives is still uncertain. We might not return to the carefree social days we remember so fondly. And as such, there’s never been a better time to regularly monitor how we are doing mentally and physically, and to seek solutions when we don’t feel our best. As they say, we’re all in this together, and by taking care of ourselves as individuals we’re helping our social fabric stay bright and vibrant.
Kevin Dyck
Kevin owns & operates TheWriteCheese.com, a communications company that specializes in clients trying to further inclusion, diversity, and overall community good. He lives with a brood of animals and his tolerant wife on a small acreage in the mountains of British Columbia.
