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Coronavirus, the media and mental health

I recommend the book "Mindfulness" by Mark Williams and Danny Penman for anyone who prefers a less "new-age" or buddhist take on such things (nothing wrong with those BTW, it's a matter of personal taste).

It's an 8 week structured course including audio files with guided mediation (eBook works on Android not iOS, book comes with CD).
 
Del monaco said:
Of course. One of the most well known and used apps is Headspace, often recommended by practitioners. It takes a while to get used to the voice but once you have progressed it works well alongside other activities. Others include Breathe2relax and Calm though IMO Headspace is the best. You can also use the breathe app on Apple Watch if you have this. It appears a very simple technique but can be highly effective in allowing you to have a break and lower your breathing and heart rate. It helps to have a close friend or partner to share your concerns with and activities recommended include walking, running, doing weights at the Gym,listening to calming music, sharing activities with others, projects including tidying, organising(hi fi!!!!) or projects(Pi projects for hi fi!!!!), having nookie(if you're lucky), spending time with pets, animals(in a purely plutonic way) and a regular focus on breath control. Above all, if you are constantly anxious and this is affecting your everyday life, see the GP. There are some effective medications on the market.
Hope that's OK.
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Cheers for the post, very OK thanks.

Good point about animals... I find my cats immensely calming and all the birds we have too.
 
Excellent thread. I know lots of people, including me, who feel the same way as @tiggers and other here.

If the virus doesn't get us, the panic and depression will!

I know it's a bit corny, but I'm 70 now with kids, grand kids , great grand kids (I've lead a complicated life) and and 92 year old parents and I'm rapidly descending into kay sera sera whatever will be will be mode! I can't get the song out of my head!
 
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guest said:
Oh, and if anyone needs advice hints or tips on car detailing and refinishing - including polishing, waxing and nano paint sealants, am happy to oblige. I am a bit of a detailing fetishist.

It's both very therapeutic and satisfying to spend a few hours transforming your cars appearance.
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guest, I've never really understood what car detailing was all about. I think I've seen it mentioned on pfm, and having just Googled it I imagine my twice yearly wash and anual polish of the Astra, whether it needs it or not, doesn't count? Is this something I should be looking at while self-isolating ?
 
I've tried a lot of the relaxation podcasts / apps etc. available on the Apple App Store and they all suffered from the same problem. They'd work brilliantly well first time but then decline rapidly. It turns out that relaxation simply by thinking about it with your conscious mind is bloody hard work. Listening to your breathing is so BORING after a while.

I think it's better to do something with your hands if you are so blessed, re-read a good book, listen to some music, play a computer game even, but the most powerful one is to simply pick up a phone and talk to a friend or relative, so long as they are one of those stable, practical people.
 
Laptop or me playing up, but attempted to quote MikeMa (no26) and failed, anyway, I felt like this for a few days, mainly due to feeling a bit dicky,
I carried on with yoga and meditation, and this is paying off now.
Also will go back into the workshop to continue with my veneering/parquetry, it makes a lot of sense me to get a system for everyday when isolating.
i.e, get up, eat, shower at the same time every day, and split day/night with interests at set times. working well so far.

Bloss
 
I think there's a certain part of "the human condition" where we in some ways revel in crisis and disaster... as a gossiping point, as a "holier than thou" thing over individual responses etc, as a frisson of excitement over unprecedented events etc and the media stirs all this up to another level.

I'm sure I can't be alone in recognising in myself a certain excitement etc (hard to put into words) which I simultaneously find disturbing/wrong, of that moment when you say to someone "hey isn't it terrible what happened today yeah?" and they say "what's that then? I haven't seen the news yet", and you realise you are about to be the first person to tell this other person or group of people that eg a 1000 have died in a disaster or that the PM's been assassinated or some such such similarly momentous piece of news... you feel almost an adrenaline hit, there's a sharp intake of breath etc, as you start on the "WEll!! you're not going to believe this, BUT!"
 
Doesn't seem 5 minute since the media were being panned for the mental health situation/demise of Caroline Flack, yet here they are stoking it up with the constant 24 hour rolling doom.
 
The big mental health issues, I think, are going to be around supporting the people working in the hospitals, and supporting the families who have to deal with a death.
 
Roger Adams said:
Ah! I'm hoping to move to the mainland. There's a smaller Koh Chang there - on the border with Myanmar. It's surrounded by 3 national parks and the tourists haven't found it, or its neighbour yet :) A good way to protect one's mental health in times like this.
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Hope that goes well for you. It's a beautiful part of the world to live in. I was in the north of Thailand for a few years after leaving Koh Chang. Again, great location and I too wanted nothing to do with tourists so was in a town off the beaten track, but the lack of contact with English speaking people I could have a proper conversation with in the end led me into quite a reclusive lifestyle, which made it all the more difficult leaving that to come back here to work.

As others have said above, wherever you are you do need something to occupy and interest you.
 
deebster said:
Yeah, good post @tiggers

When the world was about to go to hell in a handbasket at the turn of 1999/2000 new year I was living on a small island off the coast of Thailand, with no access to any news beyond the occasional day-old copy of The Bangkok Post.

Now in Birmingham with a wife and two kids all in the house together for the foreseeable future and with two parents in their late 70s up the road I'm trying to hold a little of the feeling I had then for the times when anxiety strikes.

Then I was 30 and careless, now 51 and responsible for more than my own big mouth to feed it's a vastly different situation, but after taking all the reasonable precautions I feel I can a little of the what will be will be approach I'm finding helps. Not just for me, but for keeping a positive outlook and sense of calm for the benefit of those who depend on me.

It's clear many of us are feeling anxious and that has come out a bit on some of the virus threads. I was going to suggest we have a thread like this one to just (pun only mildly intended) breathe out on, so thank you for starting it.
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Ha, same age and was in Pattaya then.....I was on the beach with my girlfriend for midnight New Year's Eve 1999 and we were waiting for the lights to go out.
 
The lights was the onIy clue I thought we'd get, but then they went out most nights so my mate ran his sound system from a car battery.

Agreed, not that small an island but I was trying to big up the wilderness adventurer thing :D
 
tiggers said:
Apologies Tony for the new thread and if you want to merge it please do, but I think this may warrant its own focus.

I keep reading and hearing that mental health is becoming an issue already with the Coronavirus outbreak, but I can't help but feel the very people publishing these articles are partly the cause. While undoubtedly the virus outbreak is seriously bad news on several fronts the way it is handled by the media is not really helping those who suffer from anxiety and other mental health issues. They seem to revel in the doom and go to extraordinary lengths to make things sound worst case scenario.

A couple of examples from the BBC (this is not solely a comment on them, but on the media in general, however I have spent some time studying the BBC's response so will use them).

1) Every day they are keen to let us know the age of the youngest person to have died from the virus... they seem to almost celebrate if someone younger than the previous case has been found. Yet try and find the oldest person to have recovered on their output ... I can't (it's a 103 year old in Iran if you want to know).

2) When the virus first started to take hold they gleefully found some scientists who were wheeled on to the TV to tell us all that a vaccine would not be available for testing for at least 8 months and then would take another year to get to market. The vaccines being tested were created in less than 6 weeks. The BBC is still telling everyone it will be 18 months... if you dig you find the words 'up to' mentioned in the detail, but not in the headlines. It may still be 18 months, but it may be a lot less... this needs reporting and they are irresponsible to not give people proper headline information and instead try and bury it in the detail.

Now we hear that the BBC are to ramp up Coronavirus output, taking over existing slots with updates about the virus, phone ins, health programming. If I thought they would use this output wisely I would support it, but instead it will be, at least in part, more shit stirring and doomsday style programming.

Leo Varadkar had this to say in his address to the Irish people a couple of days ago

"Please take regular breaks from watching news and media, and from consuming social media. Constantly scrolling on your phone or obsessively following the latest developments is not good for anyone.

Look after your mental health and well-being as well as your physical health"

I know some on here probably think I'm a bit of a twat as I can be in my posts and for that I apologise to those I have lashed out at. In truth I suffer from anxiety and sometimes my posts are driven by that, but to stay on topic I have found myself in a much more positive place in the last couple of days by trying to only absorb the facts about Coronavirus and staying away from the conjecture (at least to a point). I am going to try even harder in the next few days to further distance myself from the tittle tattle of the media and get on with more positive things as a) it affects me mentally and b) I despair at some of the nonsense going on .. a lot of it driven by the large social media platforms (something I already deliberately stay away from for the benefit of my mental health).

So what is the point of this post... well I guess to say that I am sure there will be others on here that will worry and stress over what they see on the TV, read online etc.

Maybe try and take a break from it if so and don't be afraid to admit to yourself that you are struggling with it all. It's a worrying time on several fronts and no one should ever be judged on how they react to a crisis like this.. we are all different. It is not weak to admit mental health issues despite what society seems to do to stigmatise them in a lot of cases.

Finally we have a PM system on here (conversations) so use it.. get in touch with fellow fishies (especially those who might be more isolated than others) and share some thoughts. If anyone wants to drop me a PM for a bit of shared support go for it (lol at the thought of several posters thinking 'is he mad... he's a twat'). I have already been in touch with one fishie and just a quick personal exchange can be very uplifting... just knowing you are not alone in your thinking helps.

Above all stay safe and try and find some positives in all this. I am finally going to sort my compilation CDs properly... OCD or what? :D
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@Del monaco described this post well - 'excellent, sensitive and considered'. It really is.

And much of this applies to those new to working from home, when usu embedded in collaborative teams (like me!) - finding ways to extend a thought for another out of kinship is never wasted, imo. Since 'we' are now rotating personnel through days working from home, finding ways to share some of the hive hum is a thing 'we're' just finding our way at: while our systems work, everyone who's tried it so far reports missing the closer sociable environment & contributive involvement with others. It's a big part of our company environment, and it's essential we find new ways to extend it - sensitively - in the current circs.
 
I don't think I'm going to be able to cope with this. What are we? Day two? I feel quite 'flat'.
 
I'm a bit ashamed it's taken me so long to 'cotton on' to this thread.. since I've already been in contact with two other members on this topic. Both contacted me and offered support when I was posting my fears.
I absolutely endorse what Tiggers has said.

If anxiety is something you are struggling with.. then you are not alone and you are not a wimp. You are probably more human than you and others can easily deal with.

I'll take a PM any time.
 
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