Staying connected is crucial for our mental health
Mental health professionals are in solidarity with the rest of the medical community in our care and concern over the current coronavirus pandemic. We care about the dangerous physical consequences of contracting this illness and its potential for widespread harm. We’re concerned about what we don’t yet know about this particular virus and how to treat it. We also care deeply about its psychological impact, as well as the mental health consequences of needed community actions to quell its spread, such as quarantine and social distancing.
Along with the biological effects of this illness, it is triggering fear, anxiety, anger and feelings of frustration at not being in control of one’s health and safety. We need to be aware of these undercurrents and be thoughtful about how we present and enforce guidelines and rules for interaction.
While physically necessary, labeling a prevention measure “social distancing” in a society already suffering isolation is troublesome. A 2018 national survey by Cigna found that half of the 20,000 adults surveyed reported feeling lonely. An alltime high. Loneliness is a byproduct of isolation. Add to that feelings of prejudice or blame experienced in some communities during this health crisis, and certainly economic hardship. Of course, we must employ sound disease prevention practices. We also need to be mindful of undesired side effects and work to mitigate them.
Isolated, lonely people are more prone to depression, and depression shortens lives. Several years of studies and data up to 2018, aggregated by a branch of the National Institutes of Health, determined social isolation to be one of the main risk factors associated with suicidal outcomes. Young people and the elderly are particularly at risk.
We have also long known there is a physiological link between mental well-being and physical health, and vice versa. A 14-year study, of which a Stanford psychiatry colleague (Spiegel) was a principal investigator, clearly showed depression as a risk factor for shorter breast cancer survival time. The same is true for those with heart disease. Another study from Brigham Young University found that loneliness and social isolation are twice as harmful to physical and mental health as obesity, smoking 15 cigarettes a day or having an alcohol abuse condition. Finally, depressed people suffer suppressed immune systems. Just what we do not want during a viral pandemic.
What is needed right now is physical separateness, but what is also needed in a time of such stress is emotional and mental connectedness. We should encourage communities of all kinds — geographic, religious, hobby clubs, school-related groups — to set up regular forms of nonphysical interaction. Check in on each other via social media or with a phone call. Our civic leaders need to rally us to do what needs to be done as a team, even if not in close proximity. Consider these suggestions:
Measured — Do not escalate the gravity of what is already evident. This would only increase unnecessary levels of anxiety that may interrupt the appropriate implementation of this intervention.
Informed — The more truthful, useful, available information should be provided; not only of the current risk, but of why the measure taken is a useful way of minimizing that risk. The more information we all share,
the more competent we become.
Time-limited — Humans are social beings. Knowing that the loneliness, boredom, lack of social connection will end at some point provides a sense of hope that will be needed during this time.
Participatory — When we are all working together for a cause that provides each of us with control and a sense of contribution to society that can help mitigate the impact of the isolation.
How we present these practices, how we ask people to carry them out, even what we name them, makes a difference. By being responsive together we can maintain social connection.