Coronavirus: how to manage anxiety, fear and social isolation

by Gianluca Castelnuovo

Clinical Psychology Service and Laboratory - IRCCS Italian Auxological Institute - San Giuseppe Hospital - Verbania

Full Professor of Clinical Psychology - Catholic University - Milan

as a dangerous unstoppable predator, we risk engaging in impulsive, frantic and irrational behaviors that, if they made sense in cave times, now risk being counterproductive. Here we often pass to panic or generalized anxiety, for which a limited and contained danger of contagion is generalized, perceiving every situation as risky and alarming.

Your perception of your energy level may also be affected.

We are not made to withstand situations of alertness or tension for too long: in the past they were resolved with attack (if the predator was less strong than us) or escape from the dangerous situation, but in modern times it often stays in stressful situations for too long . In some subjects, a situation of hypochondria develops, understood as a tendency to excessive concern for their health status, perceiving every slightest symptom as an unequivocal sign of Coronavirus infection. In some cases, fortunately limited, there is then a degeneration towards hatred on the alleged modern foreign or Italian "smearers" in the wake of the human need to always find an alleged culprit, preferably far from oneself and from one's social group.

A "last note on the nature of this danger: the Coronavirus is small, elusive, invisible to the human eye, unknown, easily transmitted and this triggers the deepest fears of some uncontrollable element that from the inside that can destroy us (and there are several films that have fueled these emotions).

This situation of perennial stress also affects the quality of sleep, which often becomes more agitated. In fact, it seems that dreams have changed due to the pandemic, becoming more and more disturbing and agitated.

It is also important to ask yourself a question. Covid-19: what are the effects on body and mind without sport? The absence of movement, in fact, only worsens the state of anxiety.

, as the WHO defined it.

or negative stress) is subtle.

The "important thing is to understand" who is controlling what ", as in addictions: am I still managing and choosing what to do, or am I implementing behaviors following a mass of people who are doing just what should be rationally avoided? to be clearer: no health authority has advised crowding supermarkets to obsessively stock up on food, yet this "psychosis" has spread, leading to multiple negative effects, such as concentrating several people indoors with the possibility of favoring the spread of the virus or make certain foods lack for those who had not immediately rushed to the supermarket.

Another example is the race to grab the masks, not a logical but emotional choice: the final result, in full compliance with the principle of self-fulfilling prophecy, is that the masks ended up in the hands especially of the healthy (for whom they are less suitable) , failing for the sick (for whom they are more useful to limit the infection).

Even the episodes of hatred towards the "greasers", as well as being shameful from an ethical and moral point of view, have caused exactly the opposite effect: the poor wounded "greaser", necessarily ended up in the emergency room, would have only increased the possibility to infect others.

frequently, do not touch your mouth and eyes before being sanitized, do not go to the emergency room but call the dedicated number in case of suspicious symptoms, respect quarantines, etc.

To keep anxiety at bay it is also useful to rely on the immune app, which, through a notification and advice from a call center, alerts anyone who has come into contact with a positive.

Here, I also allow myself a suggestion to journalists: as Marshall McLuhan said, "The" action of the media is to make things happen, rather than to give news ", so it is important that news trends at all costs are mediated by a wiser, moderate, scientifically based approach to the news. Phrases such as "the bulletin of the dead has risen to ..." or "the contagion is spreading ..." or "this region is on its knees ...", create alarmism at a time when the health structures, while suffering, are reacting with great sacrifice and coordination (both between different territories, and between public and private). ", so I ask the mass media to spread more positive news as well, such as the high number of donations made for our hospitals or the return to normalcy for those who are coming out of the disease.