How to prepare for a pandemic winter
How to prepare for a pandemic winter
The next six months will be a greater test of mental wellbeing than the initial Covid-19 lockdown, suggests a new survey. The shorter, darker days being faced by a workforce already worn down by the first wave experience are seen as an additional factor for concern.
Weather warning
Of 2,000 employees surveyed by Vision Direct, 41% said they were feeling “more anxious and isolated” than ever before; 40% that WFH for a further six months will be damaging to their mental health. The biggest challenges were seen to be missing out on office banter; the poor substitute for communication of using video and voice calls; and issues being created by balancing work and home life pressures.
Psychologist Dr Becky Spelman said: “It is understandable that people are feeling low. We’re not just still dealing with a frightening pandemic, but also with the onset of the winter months. The world can seem a less friendly place when it is dark and cold outside. In the summer, long walks out of doors – with or without friends – were a real lifeline to most of us.”
Baby steps
With progress on dealing with the pandemic stalled and the likelihood of more spikes of infections and stricter restrictions for the autumn and winter, employees need to be supported to deal with the challenges one day at a time, argues EAPA UK chair Eugene Farrell.
“The coming months look daunting for all of us, whether you’re WFH or needing to go into the workplace under Covid-safe conditions. How are we going to cope if restrictions ratchet up even further? What happens at Christmas when we’ll want to be with our friends and relatives, including those who are most vulnerable to the virus?
“March was a series of shocks: threats to health and threats to our ways of working, financial security and mental wellbeing. We’ve all learnt a great deal from that experience, however not everyone coped well, and some continue to struggle. EAPs really came into their own as an essential employee benefit, helping more staff deal with all the difficult personal issues that the crisis has caused, keeping people at work. And many more people have become aware of the dangers of poor mental health and the importance of maintaining good mental wellbeing both for themselves and others around them.
Resilience defences
“Now will be the real test of that new resilience. That includes understanding how we all need to stop thinking about the pandemic as something we need to take on as a single, giant problem. We need to keep on living from one moment to the next, to remember we cannot control everything and only bother with those things we can have some control over.
“Many of those will be positive moments, all the ordinary things we enjoy about our daily lives, the people we see, the conversations and fun, the rewards from making a contribution through our work. And then there’ll be the difficult moments, worries, arguments, the limitations to what we want to do – but all of them small and temporary, things that can be fixed or forgotten.”
“It’s a time to look differently at things, not at what we don’t have or cannot do, what we have been denied and things we might miss, but get the most out of all the things we can do. When you look back in the future: what do you want to remember about this time and how we made it through Christmas?”