The fifth wave that has swept the world since December is once again swallowing up people’s morale. After almost two years, we cannot ignore the magnitude of what has come to be called the other pandemic: the impact of COVID-19 on mental health.
At times like this, our brains can play tricks on us and disrupt our perception of events. After almost two years of stress, adaptation, vigilance and pandemic fatigue, he lacks oxygen! When we struggle to keep our heads above water, when we are overwhelmed by fatigue, we can mistake the smallest wave for a tsunami.
From the first pandemic weeks in 2020, psychological health has become an issue. And for good reason ! A situation serious enough to deprive us of acquired freedoms for so long creates anxiety and depression in many people.
In addition to normal and anticipated anxiodepressive elements, pandemic fatigue did not fail to generate tensions, emotions and extreme behaviors: for some, intolerance to health measures, to the radicalization of thought and behavior. behaviour ; in others, heightened anxiety, which leads to total isolation. These phenomena are easily explained in the context.
But why, after all this time, does this fifth wave seem to be the final blow to the morale of those who have been holding it up all along?
People who, during their lifetime, have experienced black series, successive major trials, know it: however resilient we are, our adaptive capacities have their limits. When our brain is tired for too long, it loses its ability to step back.
This fifth wave is all the more cruel as we expected more “normal” Holidays. It had a massive effect on our collective morale. We have all felt and observed two intense emotions: fear and despair.
Fear that, even if properly vaccinated, we or a loved one may be infected; fear of reliving the extreme constraints and having to deprive ourselves once again of all contact with our loved ones.
Despair, because after having done everything necessary – confinement, distancing and deprivation of family and social contacts, patience in the queues, repeated hand washing, wearing of a mask, screening tests, vaccines -, we have the impression of having returned to the starting point.
Exhausted brain, wrong thoughts
We now know that along with the elements of anxiety and depression were added certain difficulties in the executive functions of the brain – our abilities to organize, plan, think, reason, solve problems, put in perspective, step back and of discernment.
In this context of great fatigue and constant and lasting stress, the brain is more likely to create distortions, to produce effects similar to those of depression: we become more vulnerable, more worried, we tend to see only the glass half empty, and again, with dark glasses.
This is how the brain is made: it records negative and difficult events quickly and deeply in memory. He “over-invests” them, leaving less room for all the positive that happens to us.
This is why negative emotions are the ones that resurface at the slightest start. In times of chronic stress, as we experience with the pandemic, the brain becomes hypervigilant, constantly on the alert. This is what, in the long run, breeds irritability and intolerance.
Disruption of executive functions, over-investment in the negative: these two phenomena cause us to lose our perspective and cause cognitive distortion – irrational and erroneous thinking. However false and erroneous these thoughts are, they nonetheless influence our actions, our emotions, our relationships.
This is why it is essential to bear in mind this phenomenon of cognitive distortion when we are overwhelmed by negative emotions. Although these distortions are coping and protective mechanisms, they become harmful when they are disproportionate and constant.
By becoming aware of these phenomena, we can better manage our own emotions. You have to remember this, when you feel like you are hearing the same litany of bad news over and over again.
First, we must remember that objectively, we are in a much better position than in 2020. The vast majority of us are adequately vaccinated, which limits the severity of the infection, if not completely preventing its transmission. .
We must of course continue to protect ourselves: physical health, but also mental health. We must not stop living: we must move, get fresh air, talk to those we love, relax, have fun, be indulgent for ourselves and for our loved ones, develop a tolerance to ‘uncertainty.
And above all, above all, let us remember that it will all come to an end. Even if, in times of crisis, everything seems urgent, I prefer, like Edgar Morin, to remind myself that “by dint of sacrificing the essential for the emergency, we forget the urgency of the essential “.