Whenever a crisis hits, it’s very normal to feel stressed out or anxious. Especially in times like this when nobody can predict what will happen next. As human beings, we are susceptible to new viruses, but we’re also prone to be hit with emotional contagion. And we’re even more likely to fall under that spell when it’s an anxious or worrying emotion, rather than a positive one. Our brains are trained to pick up on danger and uncertainty gets your mental red flags waving hard.

I see that media is getting blamed for this as well. For publishing and broadcasting live images of people panic-buying in supermarkets. Newsflash! Media does not set these shots up, they are holding a mirror up to our society. If it’s happening, its their job and duty to report it. That said, the nature of 24 hour news cycles mean that some people can begin to feel psychological distress if they are constantly digesting this kind of media.

The internet is both our friend and our enemy. It gets information out there fast, but that means misinformation and panic can spread rapidly too. Get your knowledge from trusted sources, don’t retweet anything without checking its veracity and if someone sends you a ridiculous COVID-19 cure via whatsapp, ignore and delete. Limit worry and stress in your home for everyone by having conversations about other things.

With everyone playing their part, it means our usual routines go out the window and a new normal must happen for the next few weeks.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle as much as you can. That means getting your exercise in, either indoors or preferably outdoors (if possible). Eat as well as you can. One of the great things about social media is the amount of help being offered to get good food to people.
Keep your social interactions going, just not in person! Use social media to talk to people, pick up the phone or bang out emails. Human beings need to talk.
If keeping up to date via social media and online news platforms is causing your anxiety to increase, implement measures to protect yourself. Delete apps except for one good news source www.rte.ie/news and a few times a day check into your local health authority www.hse.ie just to make sure you know everything you need to know.
Draw on skills you may already have from some other challenging times to help manage your emotions.
If you can (may not be possible, especially if you have kids at home too!) use this time to do something life never let you do before. Read more, get some DIY done, brush up on a language, binge on your YouTube makeup tutorials so you’ll be only beautiful when we’re all allowed to return to socialising. But set yourself a daily target to ensure you keep to some kind of schedule. Your mind will thank you for it.

If there’s one thing we know about the world we live in, it’s that things are constantly changing, but for the most part, we have dedicated leaders who will work their socks off to try to help us out of this. That means that while doctors, nurses, hospital cleaners and all healthcare workers go to work, we do what is asked of us as well.

Why Covid-19 is increasing your anxiety