Mental health is gaining more and more importance ever since the pandemics started due to very strict measures most countries had implemented: lockdowns, restricted freedom of movement, limited social contact, and of course, the constant fear for your health and the lives of your loved ones. More than two years later, many people are still struggling to cope with all these circumstances, and the number of people who commit suicide is growing through the roof, now more than ever.
Global Issue
If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that mental health is everyone’s concern and requires quality services available to greater majority of people. The experts from World Health Organization affirm that it is true that the COVID-19 pandemic has had important consequences on the mental health of the entire population, but the context of this was already worrying before this situation: “In Europe only, there are more than 84 million people with mental disorders and 165,000 annual deaths from mental illness, 50,000 of them from suicide. In fact, mental illness is the second most common cause of disability in Europe. It must be taken into account that the life expectancy of people with schizophrenia (60 years in men and 68 years in women) is 13–15 years less than the rest of the population. In addition, suicide is the sixth leading cause of death in the general population and the fourth leading cause of death among young people, and in some countries, the impact of mental disorders on young people is greater than all other medical disorders combined.
What to Expect
The predictions for the future are devastating. It is expected that mental health problems will be the main cause of disability in the year 2030 and about 25% of the population will suffer from a mental health disorder during their lives. According to the data, the conversation about anxiety on Twitter shows an increase of 102% in the mentions linked to this term between January 2020 and September 2021, when compared to the same previous period (21 months, between April 2018 and December 2019). Therefore, since the beginning of 2020, there have been 1,391,798 mentions of anxiety on Twitter (tweets, retweets or comments), registering the highest peak in March 2020, at the worst moments of the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown. The thing is that there are many patients who, before the pandemic, not only did not have any type of previous pathology, but also had no sign of ever needing to consult a specialist, and who, suddenly, begin to feel in a way in which they do not know how to manage what is happening to them. Mental illness can also have a significant impact on people’s ability to work, limiting their participation in the job market.
What Can We Do?
The most important thing to bear in mind for people who are experiencing mental health issues of any kind is to seek for help. However, people often don´t have enough resources to hire a professional psychologist, as this type of service is normally not included in a healthcare insurance package. The good thing is that there are many things we can do in order to relieve stress and feel better. For example, apart from doing sports and eating healthily it is essential that we try to find the time for ourselves and do things we really like even if that doesn´t involve doing something productive. Some people prefer to meditate, others to read a good book and others prefer to visit their favorite betting website, such as CasinoReviews where you can find numerous online casinos to choose from. New Zealand players can find many sites that offer generous welcome bonuses with reasonable wagering requirements and many other promotions designed to help them win more.
In conclusion, mental health issues can be hard to deal with, but if we focus on the bright side of this problem, it is true that since the beginning of this health crisis, the stigma of going to a psychologist for help has been reduced and has been socially normalized, as it is affecting a great number of population.