When we perceive a threat to our wellbeing, our bodies activate the acute stress response, also known as the “fight or flight” response. This is designed to give us a burst of strength and energy, and impacts systems in our bodies. For example:
Our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing increase, to deliver oxygenated blood to our muscles…
Living through a pandemic has forced me to take a new look at coping, particularly since my life has been spared many of the things fate can throw at you: wars, loss of a career, severe illness. I was not really prepared mentally for living through a pandemic, but I have always looked at philosophy to help me live better – by reading and extracting interesting ideas that I can try out. Let me introduce you to a few practical points that I gleaned from Stoicism as a way of coping with our current pandemic…
As we surpass the 6-month mark of the COVID-19 pandemic, some people’s lives are affected to a small degree while others are facing serious social, emotional, and/or health challenges. For all of us, there is uncertainty with no clear “end date.” A key task during the pandemic has been, and will continue to be, minimizing distress and maximizing resilience. Resilience refers to the ability to mentally and emotionally cope with a crisis, such as COVID-19. With this in mind, people have started to ask: “What can we do to build and maintain resilience over the long-term?”…
So here we are, over 200 days into experiencing COVID-19. In some ways, it is true that we are all in this together, yet we are also painfully aware of the uneven community level impact of COVID-19 depending on social factors—the neighborhood you live in, your race/ethnicity, and your socioeconomic status. We know that people of color are at higher risk of becoming infected and dying of the virus. Vulnerable communities are experiencing proportionally greater…
Personal Account:Adapting to Therapy Outside the Office Sandra Whitney-Sarles is a Peer Consultant for the COE. “Facing each other, my therapist and I have shared 26 years of hard and intense therapy. The dynamic space between us has been powerful as
COVID-19 is impacting the mental health of people on a global scale that has never been seen before in modern history. In both resource-rich nations like the United States and resource-poor nations like Bangladesh, we see an unprecedented increase in the number of children and adults with new or worsening mental health as a result of the pandemic…
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been academic interest in the study of loneliness, as an increasing number of Americans, at all ages, are living alone. It turns out that this “loneliness epidemic” exacts not only a psychological price but appears to be a risk factor for premature death, comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes per day (1). Why should loneliness literally kill people? One explanation…
COVID-19 has increased the need for persons with mental health challenges to receive care. The use of digital health during a global health crisis is critical for access to urgent care (Torous & Wykes, 2020). Telehealth enables clinicians to continue providing treatment for persons in need of mental health care during a time when in-person visits are very limited. Telehealth helps people remain in contact with clinicians and peer support networks, while they navigate the difficulties generated by COVID-19…
Digital health has increased the range of mental health care options and offers promise as healthcare enters a digital age. However, when considering virtual mental health care, both benefits and/or barriers must be considered. We have outlined the commonly described benefits and barriers to virtual mental health care based on the existing research and our own clinical experiences…
Telemedicine: A brief glossary of terms infographic
