7 mental health coping tips for life in the time of COVID-19
7 mental health coping tips for life in the time of COVID-19
By Linda E. Carlson
Professor, Department of
Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Half of Canadians reported a worsening of their mental health due to the COVID-19 pandemic in an April poll. In Alberta, a similar government poll found 74 per cent of Albertans felt the pandemic had negatively affected their mental health.
These stats are not surprising, because a pandemic is a perfect “anxiety stew.” It has all the ingredients that go into causing worry even in people who are not typically anxiety-prone. These include: uncontrollability, uncertainty and high consequence.
Besides following public health guidelines, there is little any one individual can do to control the spread of the virus or the magnitude of the pandemic. How this will unfold locally and around the world is highly uncertain, and there is no shortage of speculation (much of it not based on evidence). Humans dislike uncertainty and tend to “fill-in-the-blanks” in situations like this, which often results in highly improbable worst-case scenarios.
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