Global Health Asia-Pacific July 2020 July 2020 | Page 65
Mental Vaccine’ for Covid-19: Seven Psychosocial
Strategies for Virus Nosophobia
- Dr Phang Cheng Kar (M.D.), Consultant Psychiatrist & Mindfulness-Based Therapist.
Nosophobia is the excessive fear of contracting a
specific disease like HIV, tuberculosis, cancer, heart
attack, and of course, the novel coronavirus infection.
People tend to react to the current pandemic
COVID-19 with fears and anxiety. However, excessive
fear can impair our physical immunity, lead to mental
health problems (e.g., panic attacks and depression),
and trigger mass hysteria. Below are seven psychosocial
strategies to help you cope with the emotional
distress associated with the virus outbreak:
1. Focus on what you can do.
Instead of panicking, which is unhelpful, let’s be proactive
and channel our energy to do what we can to
minimize the risk of infection.
2. Remember – You’re not alone.
Since we're living in a global village, we’re all negatively
affected. Communicating our negative feelings
is good for emotional health. In expressing and sharing
our concerns, we realize we’re not alone in our
struggles.
3. Practice mindfulness & self-compassion.
Try the following ‘kindful hand’ mindfulness-based
exercise:
• Pause and take a few slow, deep, and mindful
breaths.
• Tune in to your experience and pay attention to the
part of the body (e.g., chest) that feels the distress the
most.
• Place your hand on that part of the body and soothe
it (e.g., massage, stroke, or pat the chest, sing a song,
or say something positive).
• Remind yourself that many people around the world
share similar unpleasant feelings; you’re not alone.
• Radiate kind thoughts to everyone with the same
experience, “I wish myself, you, and everyone well.
May all people infected by the virus anxiety be safe,
healthy, and happy."
4. Be aware of corona cyber infection.
Far more infectious that the virus is the fear associated
with the illness due to spreads of stories through
the internet and social media. Here are some ways to
curb cyber infection and prevent mass panic such as
checking the facts with reliable sources from
renowned institutions, new agencies, third party
independent sources and etc. For example,
snobes.com is a useful internet fact-checking
resource to identify fake news.
5. Pray and radiate loving-kindness.
As I continue my service as a psychiatrist in the hospital,
I continuously emit kind thoughts to everyone who
is emotionally affected by the outbreak.
6. Be grateful and pay attention to the positive.
Experiments showed that our brains are ‘negativity
bias’, it means that we tend to pay more attention to
adverse events, like the Covid-19, than positive
events. Luckily, our brain is also neuroplastic and can
change throughout life. Therefore, we should cultivate
gratitude to reprogram our brains positively such as
coming up with a gratitude list.
7. This shall also pass.
Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, says, “change is the
only constant in life.” Just like the Ebola, SARS, and
MERS coronavirus, the Covid-19 outbreak will eventually
stabilize and come to an end. Remembering the
natural law of impermanence helps us to stay hopeful
and ease anxiety.
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