Health and fitness plans

Today you live in a surreal world where you wake up to a day with no fixed routines and very limited contact with others. With lockdown in place, everything around us is changing rapidly and it is hard not to worry because of the uncertainty in your life. Humans like to think ahead and plan but this is not possible at the moment.

Anxiety can be contagious too. With people having a lot of time on their hands, you are being flooded with information on the pandemic from reliable as well as unreliable sources.

There are a hundred different remedies being circulated on various chat groups. All this information seems to heighten your senses and creates a feeling of uneasiness. This can be seen as physical symptoms like muscle tension or aches and pains, an inability to relax, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping and feeling easily fatigued. The first and simple step with anxiety is to identify whether it is a real problem or a hypothetical one.

A real problem would be something like “ I have to go out to get essentials I must remember not to touch any surface or touch my face.” This is a natural anxiety and it will help you to remain safe.

A hypothetical problem would be imagining a worst case scenario like “what if my essentials get over and the shops have no stock or are not open?” This can leave you exhausted, upset and demoralised.

Management:

Start by asking yourself can I solve this problem? If the answer is YES, you know what to do. If the answer is NO, then it’s best to let it go. The catch is to avoid “what if” thoughts. A traditional cognitive behavioural therapy technique for working with negative, anxious, or upsetting thoughts is to write them down and find a different way of responding to them.

Here are some productive things you can do to ease anxiety:

I’d like to end by saying that keeping your mind open and accepting the change that is taking place in your life can help you feel more in control.

Sujatha Kumar, Clinical Psychologist, Mind Your Fitness!

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