As a student, the biggest socio-psychological variable that affects health is stress. Managing daily tasks, looming deadlines, and social engagements can prove to be very stressful. In light of these struggles, however insignificant these may be, self-care becomes an added task and slowly this self-neglect starts to affect the overall health and can also contribute to low self-esteem. Poor eating habits can lead to more health issues such as bloating, constipation, indigestion, diarrhea, etc., furthermore, these lead to irregular sleep patterns, fatigue, and anxiety, which in turn causes extreme mood swings. There has been very little time to organize the living space and all the clutter around me makes me feel as if I have no control in life.
In the recent past, there have been several deaths due to cancer, and this has caused me to develop an innate fear of getting it. These days you see it everywhere, news reporting on discovering a certain environmental factor that causes cancer or someone in your social circle develops it. You hear about someone you know, going for a normal visit to a doctor and ending up finding out that they have cancer. This fear has been becoming a source of concern and at times becomes unmanageable.
The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has also added greatly to the stress. Worldwide lockdown and lives coming to a halt, made the future seem uncertain. Everyone had to suddenly conform to a new way of living and everything was performed online. During these times, having a group of friends and family for support can be a great source of help, apart from this, de-cluttering and organizing the living space can also help in establishing a feeling of control in life. To boost self-confidence, taking up a self-care routine and developing a proper diet plan can be very beneficial. As for the fear of cancer, researching about the disease and reading research papers that debunk myths about cancer may help in overcoming this fear and regaining control of my life.
The covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the entire world and has done irreversible physical and mental damage, especially to the people that were exposed to this virus. In the beginning, this pandemic was not taken seriously. Lack of proper precautions led to a sudden escalation in Covid-19 cases resulting in worldwide panic (Chen & Yu, 2020). Global quarantine was announced to prevent a further rise in the cases and to decrease public fear. This sudden change in life affected people severely, adapting to a new lifestyle and fear of the virus resulted in prolonged exposure to stress. Social distancing was announced as a means of prevention. This meant that everyone was unable to see their loved ones and were unable to be there for them in the time of need, this further added to their stress.
This virus took the lives of millions and in some cases wiped out families, in such cases, the level of despair has been immeasurable and the effect, no doubt is going to be long-term. Lives became difficult but these became more difficult for the people who lost their loved ones to this pandemic.
While things are becoming better, it does not mean that everything will be going back to normal anytime soon. It is not wrong to assume that there is going to be post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression (Saladino, Algeri, & Auriemma, 2020). One can only hope to overcome it through getting emotional support from loved ones, providing it in return, and hoping that the future will slowly help ease the trauma and stress left by this pandemic.
References
Chen, X., & Yu, B. (2020, March 2). First two months of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) epidemic in China: real-time surveillance and evaluation with a second derivative model. Retrieved from glob health res policy 5, 7 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41256-020-00137-4: https://ghrp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41256-020-00137-4#citeas
Saladino, V., Algeri, D., & Auriemma, V. (2020, October 2). The Psychological and Social Impact of Covid-19: New Perspectives of Well-Being. Retrieved from Frontiers in Psychology: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.577684/full
