New Delhi: Dr M. Qutubuddin, a US-based psychiatrist, has called on people to fight against COVID-19 by conquering, taking precautionary measures and having positive thinking.
“People across the world are scared in this era of COVID-19 and it is a natural reaction. However, growing fear can harm their health adversely and may result into death” he told.
”When our brain is very scared it can lead to the eruption of many problems such as breathing issues, digestion problems. Fear can also impact our nervous system,” he added.
Dr Qutubuddin, who has also served as a president of the American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI), stated that fear creates a vacuum in our nano-transmission system and it impacts the functioning of our brain. Lots of people are dying out of fear resulting into cardiac arrest .Overcoming fear is the first step to defeat coronavirus infection. Irrational fears of COVID-19 could harm us even more.
Research over the past three to four decades has clearly established that psychological stress affects clinically relevant immune system outcomes, including inflammatory processes, wound healing, and responses to infectious agents and other immune challenges like vaccinations, autoimmunity and cancer. Fear psychosis plays crucial role on our immune system, he added.
Measures suggested to conquer fear
He suggested a few measures to conquer fear
1-Though blocking: COVID-19 patients tend to be troubled by the fear of death etc. But they should try to disrupt such thoughts and get away with such negative thinking. They can find various ways to do so.
2-Reading and thinking about powerful people in the world: Those who become influential in human history have achieved their respective positions by conquering fear. Fear has never deterred them. We can read powerful quotes, from history and religious books.
3-Supplications: We can keep repeating various Duas such as la hawla wala quwwata illa billah [There is no might nor power except with Allah]. They can help people overcome their fear.
Dr Qutubuddin added that three main parts of our body, lungs, heart and brain are most affected by COVID-19. So, he suggested measures to deter the impact of the virus on our body.
People should do exercise to strengthen their lungs, adopt measures of mental defence to keep their brain stable and take nutritious food to save their hearts from the effects of the virus disease.
Apart from that fear of COVID-19 is killing patients with other serious diseases. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a surge in anxiety across the globe. Much of the public’s behavioural and emotional response to the virus can be understood through the framework of terror management theory, which proposes that fear of death drives much of human behaviour. In the context of the current pandemic, death anxiety, a recently proposed transdiagnostic construct, appears especially relevant. Fear of death has recently been shown to predict not only anxiety related to COVID-19, but also to play a causal role in various mental health conditions.