It is normal to worry as you read the news about the corona, especially if you have a physical illness or have mental problems. Naturally, like all of us, you worry about your own health and the health of your loved ones, about the impact of the virus on your future life. This worry causes anxiety and stress in all of us. To alleviate the effects of this anxiety, let’s take a look at the psychotherapists’ advice:
1: Share Your Feelings
When you feel your anxiety growing, when you feel overwhelmed, do not try to deal with these feelings on your own. Before your anxiety passes, tell a loved one, a friend, a family member how you are feeling at that moment. Accepting your feelings as they are, talking to someone you trust is one of the most effective ways to deal with anxiety.
2: Learn true Information
It is imperative that we learn the most accurate information about the virus, as real information will lessen our anxiety. There is a lot of information about the virus on the internet, and much of this information is not demonstrable. However, we can obtain real, reliable and up-to-date information from the sites of health institutions.
You may be encountering a lot of news on social media that scares you. It is very difficult to know and prove whether these news are true or not. So try not to trust such news.
3: Learn What You Can Do
If the corona virus scares you very much and you often panic, learning what you can do to take precautions will reduce your anxiety. Learn practical and effective methods you can do. For example, now almost all of us know that we need to wash our hands with pure soap often throughout the day. You can get useful information like this from the websites of all health institutions.
4: Don’t Keep Watching News
Overexposure to the news will trigger your fear and anxiety. Try to get information from institutions’ websites, not from news. If you can’t stop watching the news, at least try to limit the time you spend watching the news. For example, just spend 30 minutes every day on the news, use the rest of the time for watching movies, reading, chatting with friends, various activities with your family.
6: Curfew has been declared in many parts of the world. Everyone is in panic, in fear… A friend of mine was talking on whatsapp the other day; “It’s like they locked us up in our homes to die, I feel like we’re all going to die,” he said. I think most of us feel like this, as if we are going to die… It is as if we are quietly waiting for death and this feeling increases our anxiety.
7: Well, are we really going to die? According to the Harvard epidemiology professor; no, we will not die …
8: The world is changing, people are dying, most of us act as if the world has come to an end. We survivors are the facts; Even if we know that the world is not at an end, we are experiencing a severe panic. However, we must be strong for both ourselves and our loved ones, and manage to reduce our anxiety.
9: In order to reduce our anxiety, we must first listen to the advice given by experts to minimize the virus risk and take the necessary precautions. Below you can find expert advice.
10: We should not neglect antivirus while razing our concerns. Mask, distance, cleanliness should always be our helpers.
Tülin Özçakır
