While anxiety symptoms differ, chances are you’ve experienced physical and mental distress signals like panicked breathing, your heart beating in your chest, difficulty sleeping, thoughts of dread, or even worry loops at some point. That’s quite typical.
Anxiety isn’t a problem in and of itself. As your body prepares to fight or run, it anchors the protective biological response to danger, which increases heart rate and respiration while pumping oxygenated blood to your muscles. A healthy dose of anxiety can persuade you to arrive on time at work, motivate you to study hard for a test, or deter you from walking the dark streets alone.
What are some of the various kinds of anxiety disorders?
Panic disorder is characterised by recurrent panic attacks that occur at inconvenient times. A person who has panic disorder may always live in worry of having another panic attack.
Phobia is an abnormally strong disinclination to a sure thing, place, or activity.
Social anxiety disorder. It is an extreme fear of being judged by others.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterised by recurrent illogical beliefs that lead to the repetition of specific behaviours.
Fear of being away from home or your loved ones is a separation anxiety disorder.
Illness Anxiety disorder is characterised by worry about one’s health (formerly called hypochondria)
Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs after a traumatic event (PTSD).
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Feeling of anxiety due to Pandemic
It is an emotional response to a perceived threat with physiological and psychological characteristics. Chronic and out-of-proportion dread can be damaging and lead to various psychiatric issues. Fear heightens anxiety and stress levels during a pandemic. According to history, the effects of earlier pandemics have lasted longer and spread broader than the pandemics themselves. Almost half of the participants had moderate anxiety, while one-third had severe anxiety.
Moreover, during COVID19, there was an upsurge in infodemia, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) defines as the dissemination of excessive and inaccurate information or news. Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat with physiological characteristics. Chronic and out-of-proportion dread can be damaging and lead to various psychiatric issues. Fear heightens anxiety and stress levels during a pandemic. According to history, the effects of earlier pandemics have lasted longer and spread broader than the pandemics themselves. Almost half of the participants had moderate anxiety, while one-third had severe anxiety.
CYB is characterised as people’s excessive and repetitive searches for health information on the Internet in the hopes of alleviating health concerns, resulting in them becoming more worried and afraid. The extent to which CYB constitutes a novel, distinct, and autonomous condition or a shared phenomenological indicator in numerous existing mental disorders is being explored.
Following the advancement of information and technologies and the widespread usage of the Internet, people began to seek information online to meet their knowledge, entertainment, and communication demands.
Individuals seeking health information should turn to the Internet, such as new symptoms or diagnoses, treatment options, and medication. Although the Internet provides considerable time and costs savings for consumers seeking information, telemedicine, and online psychotherapy, it also has drawbacks such as disseminating inconsistent, ambiguous, or incorrect information and the potential to disrupt the doctor-patient relationship. When an online health source is thought to be trustworthy, it is more likely to raise health concerns. Regardless of the primary reason for seeking medical information online, the search outcomes may inspire the individual to seek more information, resulting in increased dread and anxiety.
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How to overcome it?
Reframing fear
“Giovambattista Presti et al. “(2020) examined the dynamics of fear during COVID-19. They began by observing that a surge in anxiety and panic accompanied the viral outbreak. They observe that people react to dread symbolically, arbitrarily associating it with other events and objects via “derived verbal relations,” resulting in language altering our perception of events. They wanted to create an intervention paradigm that would increase psychological flexibility and more functional value-based acts, both of which are important for adjusting to (hopefully temporary) new ways of life during pandemics and afterward.
Psychopathology and Pandemic Pressure
During pandemic, health care personnel, patients, and the general public face “intense psychological pressure,” according to Presti et al. The social and behavioral modifications that people must undertake to prevent the spread of the virus are in addition to the losses ascribed to the infection itself.
According to research, long-term quarantines have a detrimental psychological impact, including rage, bewilderment, and even post-traumatic stress symptoms. Fear of infection, insufficient knowledge, boredom, financial loss, insufficient supplies, and stigma were the most common stressors noted after lengthy isolation among the sick and the healthy.
The Power of Psychological Flexibility as an Antidote to Anxiety
But there is hope—albeit in a form that is very simple in the big scheme of possible replies. According to Presti et al., the flexible reaction can effectively cure anxiety-induced stiffness. They define psychological flexibility as a set of skills that enable us to “recognize and adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioural repertoires when these strategies compromise personal or social functioning; maintain balance among important life domains; and be aware, open, and committed to behaviours that are congruent with deeply held values,” both inter-and intra-personally.
Conclusion
Fear and anxiety are frequently the outcomes of a sense of being confined. During this Pandemic, when we are merely nodes in an infinite network of the sick, the infected, and those infected but do not appear to be sick, it is critical to feel that we are not entirely powerless. Resilience stems from the belief that we can still assist ourselves and others.
