It’s about time that the world started taking mental health and its related issues seriously. We have swept our emotional issues under the rug for far too long that left deeply rooted scars on our personalities. Modern times have thankfully given rise to awareness movements and educative facilities that teach us the importance of taking care of our mental health. However, perhaps a notoriously challenging yet positive time for the field of psychology came during the pandemic and through 2021 as well. People suffered from psychological issues during the pandemic, but thankfully the field professionals adapted and dealt with the issues the best they could.
By the end of this article, you will have a better picture of mental health during the pandemic and how it is doing in 2021.
- Declining Motivation Levels And How We Overcame Them
Millions of people around the world suffered greatly during the first few lockdowns when the pandemic was rising. Staying at home with nothing to do made people extremely depressed, anxious, and demotivated. These decreased motivation levels could have had a long-term effect if they weren’t taken care of swiftly.
With the rise of infographics, educative videos, and pro-mental health awareness campaigns, people who were once demotivated started to get back their zeal. For example, the number of people going back to college is astounding. With remote learning becoming the new normal, thousands of people decided to take life back into their hands and go back to college. Furthermore, after battling their demons, many people are considering going to school for psychology-related education. People who once suffered poor mental health are now learning the ropes and entering the field to help people just like them.
- Coping With Anxiety
After depression, perhaps the most common mental illness is anxiety. Millions of people silently suffer from anxiety and the physical disability which it is known to cause. Most people don’t even realize that they are anxious and simply assume that it’s part of life. It’s important to be aware that anxiety has a profound long-term impact on your neurobiology, which affects your personality in the long run.Technology played a major role in anxiety reduction during the pandemic. Mobile apps helped people deal with their anxiety and manage anxious situations in the best way possible. There are many different apps on the app store that help you go to sleep, help with meditation and anxiety reduction. You might want to check them out if you are having issues in any of these mentioned domains.
- Medical Health Professionals And Stress
Stress affects us all in one way or another. However, during the pandemic, perhaps no single profession felt the effects of stress as much as health workers. Not only did they have to take care of sick and dying people affected by COVID, but they had to pull double shifts day in and day out. Other than that, they had to spend days away from their family, sometimes sleeping in the hospitals.Sometimes, simply knowing that people appreciate your efforts can help. Throughout the world, people acknowledged and thanked medical professionals for their role during the pandemic. Whether it was the clapping for the NHS in the UK or the constant support for doctors and nurses through the media in the US, they were acknowledged, and surely it would have made coping with the stress a lot easier.
- The Rise Of Remote Therapy
For people suffering from advanced psychological issues and emotional imbalances, the pandemic created a set of challenges that were extremely difficult to overcome. Without access to their therapists, some people relapsed and fell back into a pit of psychological despair. Unfortunately, many people lost their progress and suffered ill mental health for the year to come.
However, for others, online therapy acted as light in the darkness. Therapists started using online video calling solutions to conduct therapy sessions with their clients. Not only did that allows them to maintain a social distance, but clients get the dose of therapy that they were longing for all this time. The benefits of teletherapy were welcomed warmly by the now well-adjusted individuals after the pandemic. 2021 has shown us how even a factor as interpersonal as therapy can make its way online and still be equally successful. With remote therapy, clients didn’t have to drive across town to meet their therapist. The comfort of their own home added to the rehabilitation and aided a fair number of people.
Understanding the progress that mental health awareness has made in 2021 is a step in the right direction. From anxiety reduction to remote therapy, the ingenuity and determination of mental health professionals show in the fact that people are adjusting well. Without the adaptions that we have developed, the world would look very different than it does today.
