Shiekh Nahida Banu
We have already completed two months of coronavirus lockdown in our effort to fight against the pandemic. As the coronavirus lockdown is keeping everyone indoors in Nepal and around the world, it is important that we keep ourselves safe and healthy while spending quality time at home with our family members and engage in creative works. Though staying indoors and keeping physical distance will save us from the deadly coronavirus, its side-effects may be heavy. Staying indoors can lead us to sedentary lifestyle with drastically reduced physical activities. Day by day coronavirus deaths are increasing in the world and infected cases also climbing in Nepal and other countries. Under these circumstances, it’s understandable that people would be frightened.
When I turn on the TV or scroll through social media, it’s all pandemic talk, all the time. News media, social media, twitter and Facebook are full of information about coronavirus related casualties. On the positive and encouraging side, the frontline workers are doing phenomenal works around the world and considerable number of infected and corona sick people have recovered and discharged. For these people, it is a big battle won and inspiration for wary others. Taking a time-out from consuming news related to deaths can be good for your mental health. We all know that the negative information affects our mind readily. But we should not let our mind be affected by all the negative things as we have a long way to go and this is not the end. Maybe this crisis time could go a bit longer, but we should be prepared for what will be coming next.
Boredom, irritation, stress, loneliness and even symptoms of depression in some cases are some of the visible side-effects of lockdown. Most of the people in Nepal think talking about mental health is like going mad, but that is not true. Having a difficult mental situation is not that you have gone mad but just that your mind is reacting a bit more to the situations which are just as normal as being alive, and that is important too.
There are various methods for managing mental health problems. Among them spiritual motivation and counseling could be one. There are several religions in the world having different sets of beliefs, traditions, and practices. They have different types of community-based worship programmes. But there is one common central factor in all these religion and that is spirituality. Spiritual guidance could sometimes help people to cope better with stressful situations and maintain their mental health. Spirituality could be an important aspect of nurturing mental health and wellbeing.
It involves the belief in God and it involves the ways in which people fulfill what they hold to be the purpose of their lives, a search for the meaning of life and a sense of connectedness to the universe. Spirituality produces in man qualities such as love, honesty, patience, tolerance, compassion, a sense of detachment, faith, and hope. Being spiritual is all about being loving, thoughtful, mindfulness, understanding, content, harmonious, and responsible.
Spirituality can have a positive effect on all of us and all our life – our work and our private life as well. When we improve our level of spiritual practices, our frequency to tackle issues will rise and we will soon see that everything in our life is improving. People with these conditions and beliefs have significant positive changes in mood and mentality which ultimately governs our physical state.
Spiritual leaders can inspire others to seek meaning and value in life and guide our motivation when investing in our daily roles in our family, community and work, especially during challenging times like this. The leaders of different faiths have now golden opportunity to serve individuals people and communities to spread positivity by their spiritually motivating speech or counseling through social media.
Faith provides hope and morale to fortify those people who are struggling to keep going in front lines in difficult circumstances of lockdown whether it is in economic, social or personal levels. There are many reasons why a strong faith can assist to boost the quality of life of the believers.
At the end, being stuck at home will be difficult and people are faced with a sense of uncertainty of how long the coronavirus epidemic will last and how long the lockdown will be extended. But we need to be spiritually involved and feel strong to deal in these difficult situations because this will come to an end. Getting busy in art also provides a lot of benefits to mental health. Then life will flow with full dynamism and a sense of purpose. It helps to fight all kinds of diseases.
(The author is a development worker and women rights activist.)
