Mental health

My wife told me there is a call for more volunteers in her church group to act as counselors in an online service for depressed people. There has apparently been an upsurge in such cases during the last four weeks of lockdown.

Initially, I wondered why that was happening. The lockdown didn’t change my routine much. I have been working a lot more from home since I retired. The only thing I miss is my daily walk at a mall to complete my 10,000 FitBit steps.

Then I remembered that after former President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, I was also in deep depression for months. That lowered my immunity and I had to fight a bad case of flu. I was depressed about losing my job when ABS-CBN closed down. There was anxiety over the future under martial law.

Feeling depressed is bad for one’s overall health. In these days of enforced social distancing, you have to make sure you don’t end up with a medical issue after depression sets in.

Forcing people to spend time in quarantine and following social distancing measures slow the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19. But experts also say we could see an increase in depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse. Previous similar pandemics led to an increase in mental distress.

A recent issue of The Economist talked about how depression lowers a person’s immunity to diseases.

A team of psychologists, neuroscientists and immunologists found that “lonely people have unusually low numbers of a type of myeloid cell that generates what are known as interferon responses, which hamper viral replication. This makes them particularly vulnerable to viral infections.

“They also have an abundance of a second type of myeloid cell, one that promotes the activity of genes which drive inflammation – and it has been known for years that those who feel lonely experience more inflammation than those who do not…

“They found that, initially, volunteers’ feelings of isolation coincided with an increase in their inflammation genes’ activity and a concomitant increase in the circulation of immature immune cells, called monocytes, that are involved in inflammation – and which are also known to travel into the brain and promote anxiety.”

I guess that’s why the World Economic Forum considered the lockdowns as the world’s biggest psychological experiment. There are some 2.6 billion people, one-third of the world’s population, in some kind of lockdown.

The WEF worries that the lockdown will result in a secondary epidemic of burnouts and stress-related illnesses.

In short, people who are quarantined can develop a wide range of symptoms of psychological stress and disorder, including low mood, insomnia, stress, anxiety, anger, irritability, emotional exhaustion, depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Low mood and irritability specifically stand out as being very common, a study published in Lancet, a medical journal, notes.

“In general, we know at-risk groups for long-term mental health issues will be the healthcare workers who are on the frontline, young people under 30 and children, the elderly and those in precarious situations, for example, owing to mental illness, disability and poverty.”

The Financial Times had a recent article that interviewed employees working from home. It is not without problems.

“Forcing everybody home, often around kids, in shared rooms or bedrooms and no escape socially in non-work time will be generating major mental stress…This typically leads to loneliness and depression which is mentally costly and often leads to physical health declines too.”

One interviewee in the FT article remarked that while technology allows him to do the majority of his work remotely, it doesn’t replicate the day-to-day human interaction the office brings.

“I miss gossip, laughing, bouncing ideas off people and general small talk. That’s difficult to replicate on Zoom. Everything has become diarized, to the detriment of spontaneity,” he says.

What should be done? The WEF offers some ideas:

Make sure self-help interventions are in place that can address the needs of large affected populations.

Educate people about the expected psychological impact and reactions to trauma if they are interested in receiving it. Make sure people understand that a psychological reaction is normal.

Launch a specific website to address psychosocial issues.

Make sure that people with acute issues can find the help that they need.

A research, published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), recommends steps to lessen the impact of social distancing on our mental health.

They recommend the use of digital technologies to ensure social connection still happens, even if it cannot be through physical interaction.

The experts suggest adjusting around this new normal but maintaining a routine – so, for example, if you once went to the church, the gym, or a yoga studio on a certain timetable, try bringing these activities home for the same schedule.

Children not at school will also benefit from a structured routine, similar to that of the school day they’re used to. It’s also vital that there are ways to monitor, report and intervene in cases of domestic violence and child abuse.

One other thing a group of researchers found out in a series of experiments is that “simple acts of kindness help keep one’s mental health… things like running an errand for an elderly neighbor or helping a colleague with a computer problem.”

Another experiment proved the role of kindness. “The saying it is more blessed to give than to receive is true. Asking lonely people to perform acts of kindness to others significantly reduced the offeror’s feelings of loneliness as well as the myeloid response that drives inflammation.”

The study’s results also suggest that online kindness has the same beneficial effect as the face-to-face variety, and that could help to address fears of a post-COVID loneliness epidemic.

“Asking lonely people to use whatever means to do random acts of kindness to others might be just what the doctor ordered.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco