Supporting your mental health after lockdowns Those who already experience mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression and stress in their lives may feel overwhelmed by all that is surrounding us right now. And many of us who took our mental health for granted, are having to acknowledge the fact that it can be tricky not to feel overloaded with lots of information, testing our resilience by constantly having to adapt to what we are being guided to do by the government and the media, whilst dealing with peer pressure and feeling the effects of isolation and lack of contact

Stay connected

Social isolation and loneliness have been associated with negative health outcomes, including a higher risk of cardiovascular disease as well as a higher risk of a mental health condition surfacing if it was “bubbling under the surface”1. Perhaps it’s no surprise that during lockdown virtual connections have blossomed and everybody has embraced videoconferencing as part of their new normal. This is not just a consequence of COVID, in my view, but a reflection of the need for contact that humans have. We’ve missed out on being in the close proximity of those we love, so we’ve swapped some of that need for social interaction with seeing each other on a screen. The effects on brain areas that control emotion, e.g. the limbic system including the amygdala, of this new way to interact with each other are still unknown, but we should assume that direct eye contact should still make us relate to the person we’re talking to, and that this will have effects on the plasticity of our brain, or neuroplasticity, that are beneficial