Mind-Body Connection: COVID & Mental Health

By Ilyana Rich, Rise Against Hate Research Intern

Over the last 7 days, how often have you been bothers by having little interest or pleasure in doing things? Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless? Not being able to stop or control worrying? These questions might seem familiar to you. They’re part of the PHQ-2screening instrument for depression, usually administered by a health care professional.¹

Prior to COVID, Gen Z was leading the fight on the age-old taboo of mental health care. Today, nearly have of American teenagers report that the pandemic has increased the number of conversations they have around mental health, and more than half say they are comfortable discussing their mental health with their family members.²

Making self-care and resilience mainstream terms, and the endless list of apps, such as Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer, began the shift from inequitable care to accessible from the palm of your hand. While technology has its flaws, many specialists say it has created a space for a sense of shared awareness. This awareness has become important in addressing a number of the barriers in providing and accessing mental health care.

Now after nearly two years of isolation, worry and loss, the number of people worldwide struggling with mental health only continues to grow. People continue to report symptoms of anxiety, depression.³ Substance abuse numbers have also become alarming, as more teens are arriving to emergency care facilities seeking treatment.⁴

Back in October 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added mood disorders, like depression and other mental health conditions to the high-risk COVID list.⁵ In 2019, over 47,500 people died by suicide in the United State.⁶ Public health experts are concerned hat if left unaddressed, some people’s struggles with mental health will only get worse, building risk of addiction, and violence to self and others.

As the general stress of the winter holidays comes to a close, people may find themselves still under obscene amounts of worry. Financial uncertainty, the health of their families, distant and at home, looming school and workplace closures, not to mention the civil issues at hand including a national uprising over the killing of Black Americans by police, violence against Asian Americans, continued gun violence, and growing concerns about political polarization, climate change and plenty of misinformation⁷; the fear and loneliness may start to creep in little at a time, or all at once.

Though we can’t make conclusions to causation versus correlation, we can definitively conclude that the pandemic has been a source of trauma for many people. To continue to build resiliency as we face the stressors of this pandemic, we must act on plans to embrace a stronger mind-body connection. By placing value on mental health services and addressing whole-person health, we can be proactive, rather than reactive. While washing your hands regularly is one of the most important things you can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19, here are some other tips to keep your mind-body connection at top performance:

• Keep practicing healthy behaviors, eat well, exercise, get some sleep.
• Go outside. Walking in nature yields measurable mental benefits and may reduce risk of depression.⁸
• Step back, in this age of social media, remove yourself from the doom scroll. Research scientists at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, note that while a lot of the news is bad, “as humans we have a ‘natural’ tendency to pay more attention to negative news.” So, give yourself a break and step away from the screens when you can.⁹
• Social support/connection… storytelling saves lives. The human need to connect is as fundamental as our need for food and water. In sharing stories of hope, we not only put a relatable face on challenges that we encounter, but we build connections with others.¹⁰
• Follow the CDC guidance. Get vaccinated — with initial doses and boosters — and take preventative measures, such as masking and social distancing as necessary.

If You or Someone You Know is in Crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1–800–273-TALK (8255), or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741). Both services are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

References

1. “Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2),” National HIV Curriculum, accessed December 9, 2021, https://www.hiv.uw.edu/page/mental-health-screening/phq-2.
2. Marisa Fernandez, “Children and Teens Face Unequal Mental Health Realities,” Axios, October 12, 2021, https://www.axios.com/childrens-mental-health-back-to-school-065a9806-ff56-488b-9267-9455a4da544c.html.
3. “Mental Health — Household Pulse Survey — Covid-19,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October 20, 2021), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm.
4. Caitlin Owens, “Mental Health Problems Have Become America’s Shadow Epidemic,” Axios, October 30, 2021, https://www.axios.com/mental-health-pandemic-shadow-epidemic-51f98123-ae6b-429f-8d40-4c2c8270e7de.html?deepdive=1.
5. Korin Miller , “CDC Adds Depression and Other Mental Health Conditions to High-Risk Covid List,” Health.com, October 2019, https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/cdc-adds-mental-health-conditions-to-high-risk-covid-list.
6. “Suicide Prevention,” National Institute of Mental Health (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), accessed December 9, 2021, https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/suicide-prevention.
7. Shawna Chen, “Covid Exacerbated Young People’s ‘Unprecedented’ Mental Health Challenges, Report Says,” Axios, December 7, 2021, https://www.axios.com/covid-young-people-mental-health-vivek-murthy-adb3c04f-d994-4328-b6cd-7a6b48182f61.html.
8. Rob Jordan, “Stanford Researchers Find Mental Health Prescription: Nature,” Stanford University, June 30, 2015, https://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/hiking-mental-health-063015.html.
9. Angela Watercutter, “Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health,” Wired (Conde Nast, June 25, 2020), https://www.wired.com/story/stop-doomscrolling/.
10. “Department of Mental Health Law & Policy,” CBCS Intranet, accessed December 10, 2021, https://intra.cbcs.usf.edu/MediaTracker/common/cfm/Unsecured/mhlp/ViewNews.cfm?NewsID=2768.