Pandemic fatigue: what it is and how it affects us

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been incorporating all kinds of habits into our daily lives to protect ourselves and reduce the number of infections. Masks, social distancing, and frequent hand washing became behaviors we did every day.

Over time, the fear of the beginning of the pandemic has been transformed into exhaustion, fatigue from living in a crisis that is lasting too long and that we have lived with a lot of stress.

People have started to be less careful in recent months despite the fact that we are already in the second wave of the pandemic. It seems that sanitary measures are no longer taken so seriously, a mixture of distrust towards the authorities and the exhaustion of not being able to recover our old normal life: it has arrived pandemic fatigue. Let's see what it consists of.

• Related article: What is social psychology?

What is pandemic fatigue?

After almost 10 months of pandemic, taking care of ourselves in every possible way to avoid contagion by COVID-19, not being able to lead a normal life and facing significant economic losses,

Many people have begun to be a little careless and measures to avoid contracting the coronavirus are no longer taken so seriously.

Although the data indicates that we are experiencing the second wave of the pandemic, many people are beginning to think that "if I have not been infected before, why should I be infected now?"

The World Health Organization has started talking about a new term to describe the situation psychological and sanitary neglect that many people are beginning to manifest: pandemic fatigue. It is about demotivation to follow the protection and prevention recommendations, a demotivation that increases as time goes by.

According to experts, pandemic fatigue is a natural response to the crisis. Confinement, social distance, having to wear masks and not being able to do many of the formerly normal things has meant a very profound change in our lives. As the crisis has been lengthening, the longer its capacity to affect our mental health, which has resulted in this situation of demotivation and lack of interest in what to do to avoid the virus or how the situation is going in general.

The WHO has already carried out several surveys to find out in what percentage the population is manifesting the symptoms of pandemic fatigue. In the European case, it has been seen that about 60% of the population manifests this problem as a consequence of sustained and unresolved adversity which is supposed to be the coronavirus crisis, with data that indicates that emotional exhaustion is even worse than it was at the peak in March.

Symptoms of pandemic fatigue

As we have commented, pandemic fatigue can be defined as the emotional exhaustion produced by the current pandemic situation, in especially due to the concerns that arise around restrictions and measures imposed to reduce infections by COVID-19. This fatigue leads to loss of motivation to stay informed about the pandemic and we can even stop following preventive measures to stay healthy.

The main consequence of pandemic fatigue is that the population is reducing the risk of COVID-19. That is, more and more people do not see contracting the virus as something so serious or do not believe that there is high potential for infection, despite global epidemiological data indicating just what contrary. As the population stops following the measures to avoid contagions or they do not strictly comply with them, these measures proposed and imposed by governments are losing effect.

Although the idea of ​​pandemic fatigue could be considered as something quite recent, a series of symptoms that define it have already been proposed:

• Sadness and worry
• Frustration and irritability
• Sleep disturbances: sleeping much more or much less than usual
• Lack of concentration
• Nervousness
• Loss of motivation
• Frequent negative thoughts

Pandemic fatigue and stress

As we mentioned, both in a pandemic and in any other crisis situation, it is normal that, in the long run, there is a loss of interest and spirits are low with properly depressive symptoms. If the crisis is very long, it is normal that the population begins to take the situation less seriously, although they do not stop living it with concern and their mental health is affected.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the most common feelings were fear, because it was not known how events would evolve; resignation, seeing how all our plans and lifestyle fell apart; and surprise, since practically no one imagined at the beginning of 2020 that we were going to experience a long global pandemic.

However, over the months the initial fear has been replaced by fatigue and a certain carelessness, combined with anger as people are sick of having to cut back on social contactsEspecially now that Christmas is approaching.

But despite the fact that there have been several feelings and positions that have changed throughout the pandemic, it has been an emotion that has been by our side all the time: stress. In fact, stress has been the cause of the pandemic fatigue we are currently experiencing.

Stress is a mechanism that is set in motion when a person experiences a highly demanding situation, in which he has put a lot of physical and mental resources and gets tense trying to overcome in the best way the problem that is faces. If the problem that this answer arouses persists for a long time, the person is wearing out physically and mentally, causing you to make more mistakes and become more vulnerable to the damage that this situation may cause you.

In our case, the problem has been the pandemic, which has not yet been solved. We have lived under stress for the last 10 months, a stress that has been combined with other types of stress. staff that we had before, becoming a real time bomb for our health mental. It is a vicious cycle: the longer the stress lasts, the more fatigue there will be and, consequently, more tiredness, exhaustion and irritability, together with less desire to comply with sanitary measures.

• You may be interested in: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

How to avoid it?

Governments and health authorities are obliged to avoid pandemic fatigue in the population by applying measures, educating citizens and taking sufficient prevention with the intention of making sure that people do not take too lightly the great danger that the COVID-19.

Taking this into account and recommended by the WHO in Europe, Governments should consider the following to avoid the effects of pandemic fatigue.

• Identify and understand why the population experiences pandemic fatigue.
• Involve the population as part of the solution to the pandemic.
• Allow a normal life to be carried out while reducing the risk of contagion.
• Identify the difficulties that the population is facing due to the pandemic.

We must understand that the less seriously we take protection and prevention measures, such as getting along put on the mask, wash our hands frequently, go out only for what is essential and reduce contacts social, the more vulnerable we will be to COVID-19. Likewise, to prevent this situation from occurring, we must follow the following recommendations that will help we do not feel pandemic fatigue and, therefore, we do not stop being responsible for our health and that of the rest.

• Sleep between 6 and 8 hours a day.
• Have good eating habits and eat healthy.
• Exercise every day.
• Avoid overexposure to too much news about COVID-19.
• Practice relaxation, breathing, meditation and / or yoga techniques.
• Respect social distance when going out.
• Choose to contact family and friends online rather than meeting in person.
• Accept that you are stressed and turn to a professional.

But what is most important of all this is educating about stress, the main risk factor for presenting not only pandemic fatigue but any other psychological problem. Treating stress properly and acquiring strategies to cope with it is obtaining important protection not only against stress. pandemic fatigue but also against the virus, since as we were saying, the less we let our guard down, the less likely we are to catch.

We must understand that going to a psychologist is not a bad thing, and even less so now that we are experiencing such a stressful situation, only comparable to World War II. That everyone is going through the same thing does not mean that the one who asks for help is weak, but rather on the contrary, it is a person strong that seeks to stay healthy and survive this pandemic that is doing so much damage at an economic, social, health and psychologically.

Bibliographic references:

• Garcia, M. (2020). Pandemic fatigue due to Covid: what are its symptoms and how is it overcome? Spain: medical writing.
• Chavarrías, M. (2020). Pandemic fatigue; what it is, how it manifests itself and how to treat it. Spain: elDiario.es.
• Uricare, J. (2020) Pandemic fatigue: what is it and how to treat it? Venezuela: eldiario.