Dr A S Bhatia
The worst impact of Corona pandemic is not the number of fatalities it has caused all over the world, but the most important is the havoc caused by the corona fear psychosis on the mental health of the inhabitants of this planet. Never ever in my life during past about fifty years, I have witnessed such type of fear psychosis among people. I was a child of about five years, when the Indo -Pak war of 1971 was fought in the chilling month of December 1971, which lasted for thirteen days and it shook the subcontinent. The fear of war faced during my early childhood still haunts my memories. The announcements of “Black Outs” from All India Radio,( Aakashwani- the voice from the sky), which all our family members used to listen in the backdrop of the breathless deadly silence of midnight. My mother used to paste darkpaper on the windowpanes of our one room accommodation at Bakshi Nagar. The picture of my father, an engineer by profession digging deep pits (called Morcha, then) in the lawn of house and literally dragging me and my elder brother to that deep pit on hearing the thundering sounds of fighter planes in the sky, that fear still sends a shivering wave down my spine.
The next fear I witnessed was the fear of “SKY LAB” in July 1979. The NASA’s first space station which had become defunct after completing its mission was falling towards the Blue Planet. It was widely rumoured to fall over India These rumors created panic all over India. People used to walk in streets with their heads tilted towards sky and their eyes scanning the sky deep to find out the falling space station. The sky lab crashed across western Australia’s south east coast, the debris were scattered across Nullabor and eastern goldfields. The fear psychosis was high at that time. These two were among many social and political disturbances I had seen as a growing child , and the impact is still there in my subconscious mind. As I grew older, I witnessed many world crisis, including emergence of militancy in Punjab, the genocide of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 and surge of terrorism in Kashmir, , mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in 1990s. Now once again in 2020, the corona pandemic has succeeded in creating the fear psychosis among people across the Globe. The worst impact of the corona fear is a that it has torn the very social fabrics of Human relations. People are not allowing the funeral to take place in the area of a person died of corona. Doctors are being trolled, haunted and evicted from their houses. Children are not accepting the dead bodies of their parents. I was ashamed to read a news whereby a Mother was not allowed inside the house by her son and daughter in law, suspecting her to carry corona virus. The poor hapless women spent the whole night in front of the door of his home, she must have constructed with great dreams along with her late husband. All these unfortunate events revealed the extent to which the fear of corona pandemic has percolated into the psyche of the people.
As a result of this fear psychosis most of the tech savvy people have driven to look for excessive information about corona symptoms on the internet which has led to the emergence of new disease, now labeled by many psychiatrist all over the world has “Cyberchondria,” which is presented as high blood pressure, stress, anxiety, headaches and insomnia. And the bitter truth is all these stress factors ultimately lead to deterioration of immune system there by exposing the person to more fulminant outcome of the infection. So, instead of compulsive checking about pandemic on internet and watching TV Talk shows about corona scare, people should listen to positive news. There are hundreds of patients above ninety years of age who have recovered from the disease, only because of their positive attitude. A 95 years old War – Veteran, William Kelly of world war II and who was also an witness to the Great Depression of1930, has fought successfully with Corona virus. Kelly attributed his recovery to his family that was the biggest support in his fight against the infamous virus. Then there is another 100 years old man from Wuhan who celebrated centenary and conquered the corona virus in the same year. Another Itallian woman Italicca- Grandone, 102 years old survived the corona virus after being admitted in the hospital. Surprisingly, she had also suffered from, “Spanish Flu” at a very young age in 1918, thus becoming one of the very few patients throughout the world to have survived the two pandemics of the recent history. The list of such people is endless, but the most common characteristic among all these people is their desire to live and their positive attitude towards life. None of them was witnessing scary TV talk shows, none was searching internet to get the latest about sign and symptoms and most important the fear psychosis component was absent. According to Dr Ishany Raj, a psychologist at MLN hospital New Delhi, “Anxiety, at times is good because it pushes us to deal with potential emergency but, at the same time, too much anxiety is overwhelming and can cause more problems than the objective fear.”
One thing which I have noticed personally in this pandemic is that older people are seen to be more positive than young people. In my personal view the older have seen many ups and down in their life and have more tendencies to laugh their way back to life.
Many studies, during past decade all over the world have shown that a positive attitude can improve your immune system and may help you live longer. This has led to the emergence of a new science called, “Psychoneuroimmunology” which shows how our thoughts and feelings (Psyche) influences our brain and nervous system which modulates the body’s disease fighting capacity. In sacred Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna said, “Whatever happened, happened for the Good. Whatever is happening, is happening for the the Good. Whatever will happen, will also happen for the Good.” If we let negative thoughts take our mind we will feel unhappy, insecure, depressed and miserable. Instead as preached by Lord Krishna, we must feed our mind with positive thoughts. Our mind is under our control, so be a master of your mind.
Its better to be aware of the latest, but the unnecessary fear may disturb your psyche which may lead to deterioration of your immune system. Be very intelligent in safeguarding yourself and your family by following the guidelines issued by government agencies, wear masks, keep social distancing and be optimistic, as Mirza Ghalib said;
Bure Waqt Zara Adab se
Pesh Aa, Kyonkee Waqt
Nahin Lagata Waqt
Badalane Mein.
(The author is Vice President Indian Academy of Biomedical Sciences, India and Professor and Head Department of Biochemistry, Government Medical College Jammu.)
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