Coping With Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives and livelihoods and is causing a lot of stress and anxiety. Psychotherapist H'vovi Bhagwagar advises people on how they can learn to accept uncertainty and channel unproductive worrying into problem solving.  As humans, we find safety in predictability and certainty. We prefer having information about our family’s whereabouts, making a list before going shopping and knowing we have a stable job. The COVID-19 pandemic has made life uncertain and…

As more and more people get infected with the coronavirus and are asked to home isolate, it is often unclear as to how one should go about it and when to seek medical help. Dr Anita Kumar talks about home quarantine guidelines during the current Covid pandemic. While the guidelines are vastly the same for the country, the methodology of application may vary and hence the doctor’s advice needs to be tailored to your situation. What does home quarantine for a COVID patient entail? Who is eligible…

Dr Kalyani Nityanandan, 85-year-old cardiologist, who lives independently, shares with us some valuable tips on how to prepare yourself for cardiac emergency and keep spirits up during the Covid-19 lockdown. By the time my mother was a senior citizen she was a widow with no house to run of her own. Two of her children were local in Chennai and the other two were elsewhere in India. She split her time between them. At each house she left a change of clothes, a dinner plate and curved drinking…

Ketak Thakur, 36-year-old chain smoker, stopped smoking during lockdown for fear of getting infected with coronavirus and dying due to respiratory inflammation and collapsed lung. He shares his tips on quitting smoking.  I started smoking in 2007. I was on a visit to the USA. One evening, I was attending a party and my friends persuaded me to try one cigarette. I didn’t want to smoke, but there was a celebratory mood all around, and I didn’t want to be a dampener. हिंदी में पढ़े : मैंने…

Rima Desai Rao, a registered dietitian, nutritionist and National Executive Member of the Indian Dietetic Association explains how your diet works to keep you healthy and help build immunity.   Keeping our immune system in prime condition is always of top priority in these challenging times. Any mention of boosting immunity, one starts thinking of superfoods and thinks it is a very quick job. Immuno boosters are not a magic potion that would provide immediate protection from disease.…

हम सभी अब वर्क फ्रॉम होम (घर से काम करना) के आदी हो गए हैं, पर फिर से ऑफिस से काम करना तो शुरू करना ही होगा। वापस ऑफिस से काम करने की अपनी चुनौतियां होंगी। आइए देखें कि इस प्रक्रिया को आसान बनाने के लिए और सुरक्षित रहने के लिए कौन-कौन सी सावधानियां जरूरी हैं। काम करने के लिए आना-जाना: यदि आप सार्वजनिक परिवहन का उपयोग कर रहे हैं - जैसे बस या ट्रेन - तो हर समय मास्क पहने रहें, अपने आस-पास की सतहों को छूने से बचें, और सोशल डिसटेंसिंग - सामाजिक दूरी - यानि कि दो गज की दूरी बनाए रखें। दस्ताने पहनना…

Dr. Anita Kumar shares her experiences and challenges as a doctor on frontline Covid-19 duty and how the few happy moments motivate her to keep going. Working as a frontline worker during the Covid pandemic has perhaps been my most adventurous work ever. There have been several highs and lows that I have faced in life but none like the emotional mental and physical upheaval experienced during this pandemic. A lot of times patients and their relatives feel/wonder if doctors have feelings. Do…

Dr Ankit Jitani and Dr Ekta Jajodia from Ahmedabad, who had to reconcile to a small temple wedding during lockdown, were struck by covid-19, recovered and are back on duty helping other patients. They also describe their experience of donating plasma. Read on:  Ekta and I had been in a long-distance relationship for over two years. I was a Clinical Hematology post-doctoral trainee at NRS Medical College, Kolkata, while Ekta, now my wife, was pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship programme in…

When the lockdown was announced,  Pradnya and her family of 8 people made elaborate plans to limit movement, adopt safety measures to protect the two elderly people in the family. But despite their best efforts, one by one they started developing symptoms. Read about their ordeal and how they coped and survived Covd-19 in Mumbai.       Covid-19 has really taken over our lives, hasn’t it? It doesn’t need to though. These are really difficult times on us, and the very…

Usha Jesudasan, who is affected by polio, diabetes and breast cancer and is an author of many self-help and inspirational books, talks about Covid-19 lockdown woes and how this is the best time to make those changes we would like, but never get round to doing. Covid-19 crept up on us didn’t it? I saw the heart breaking numbers of people dying, rising every day in Italy- it was so far away from us. Then suddenly one day it was in our midst. On the first Sunday of the lockdown, when the Prime…