Minding mental health in hard times

Lifestyle – Psychiatrist Brendan Kelly, an expert on treating anxiety issues, has written a simple guide to navigating the unknown territory we’re all in at present. His short book includes practical advice on caring for our mental and emotional health and keeping our worries in perspective. He tells JUDY MURPHY that we have more power than we think and that our small acts can make a world of difference.

Limiting your news intake on Covid-19, getting that news from reliable sources, being compassionate towards yourself and others, and recognising that your thoughts and feelings are merely thoughts and feelings and not actual reality, are all ways of helping to stay mentally and emotionally healthy during the current shutdown.

Those tips from Renmore-born Dr Brendan Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, are included in a slim book, Coping With Coronavirus, which he wrote in response to this crisis. It offers practical, helpful advice, presented in an accessible way.

As Consultant Psychiatrist at Tallaght University Hospital, Brendan uses a range of techniques to successfully treat people with anxiety issues. He has modified these to help with the current pandemic.

“It’s an unusual situation and it’s getting more unusual,” he says of the coronavirus and resultant lockdown. “Who would have ever predicted we’d be living this way in Ireland?”

His book has been published as an e-book on Amazon, topping the bestseller list for New-Age publications at one point – it pleases Brendan that something “so short, readable and simple”, reached that spot.

It’s now being distributed in the US too in response to the situation there, and is being issued in paperback and as an audio-book.

It costs €1 and it’ll be money wisely spent. Brendan had wanted to make Coping With Coronavirus available for free, but that wasn’t possible on Amazon, so he and the publishers, Merrion Press, opted for a minimum charge. Any royalties that accrue, will go to the Irish Red Cross to assist its Covid-19 efforts, he says.

For Brendan, whose extensive post-graduate qualifications include having Masters degrees in Epidemiology, Buddhism and Healthcare, as well as Doctorates in Medicine, History, Governance and Law, this unprecedented situation is really tough. And especially for anyone who might have anxiety issues already.

For instance, if you already have agoraphobia – fear of going into crowded spaces – there’s now a real reason to be fearful.

But, he stresses, it’s important to keep our anxiety levels proportionate to the risks we face as we adapt to living with some level of worry and uncertainty.

And there’s certainly uncertainty.

“We don’t know how long this will go on for, or if any of our relatives or ourselves will get it.”

His advice is designed to help us cope with this situation in the best way possible.

“Proportionate, considerate and responsible behaviour is what we need; not denial, not complacency, not panic,” he states in the book’s introduction.

The simple fact is that most of us are not under a serious threat from Covid-19, which is good. However, people who haven’t got it, might feel discommoded or curtailed, angry or sad, due to the current restrictions, according to Brendan. “Then, they feel guilty about having those feelings.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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