No matter how strong and pragmatic you may try to be, the stress of lockdown and the accompanying global uncertainty are a threat to your health, warned Shelley Hall, a clinical psychologist.
Shelley said there are five reasons why you should make a plan to deal with lockdown stress now.
1. It lowers your immune response
Ongoing stress is known to diminish immunity.
In a stressful situation, your brain releases cortisol, adrenalin and other chemicals for the body to prepare you for those primitive survival responses of fight, flight or freeze. During lockdown you are not physically taking any of those actions, so the chemicals are not used up and remain in your body.
This leaves you feeling keyed up, and it can interrupt sleep, and affect appetite and mood. Over time these increased levels may also damage organs, cause cancer or a heart attack, or even lead to medical conditions such as diabetes.
What’s more, ongoing stress interferes with the production of helper T-cells and other cells essential for a healthy immune response.
2. It disrupts and damages relationships
Over time, the ongoing lack of sleep increases irritability can make people short-tempered, irritable and sometimes even irrational.
When you are living in close quarters with others for extended periods of time, such as in lockdown, you don’t have the opportunity to leave the environment to unwind or decompress. This puts additional pressure on relationships and can add tension to an already uncomfortable situation.
3. It can bring old ghosts and/or old patterns of behaviour to the fore
People in lockdown live in a perpetual state of stress. The risk here is that old issues or behaviour that may have been successfully alleviated through therapy in the past, can resurge as the brain battles to combat the concerns of our current, unprecedented day-to-day reality.
4. It increases the potential for substance abuse
Using anti-histamines, cough medication and alcohol to facilitate a sense of calm and ease with your situation often increases. These are recognised pitfalls on the path of people self-medicating as a means to counter hyper-vigilance, and de-stress temporarily.
The ban on alcohol and cigarettes during lockdown in South Africa has potentially also increased people’s sense of being distanced from normal habits and comforts, possibly leading to those with access to either over-indulging as a reflex response.
5. In an unpredictable reality, the unknown can be more devastating than the known
This virus creates pre-emptive trauma because so much is still unknown – and the information seems to keep changing every day. This creates an ever-increasing level of stress and fear as we consider a future we can’t adequately predict.
We need to get ahead of the stress by putting coping and stress management strategies in place proactively; creating resilience for the weeks and months ahead.
There are many ways to counter stress, such as exercise, taking up a hobby, engaging in coaching or even therapy,” Shelley suggested.
