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Writer and mental health counselor Maria Nilad shares her advice for managing our mental health during hard times.
In 2020, the world slowed down when COVID-19 was announced as a pandemic. In 2023, the current Israeli-Palestinian war began. This year, the U.S. and Israel are waging war on Iran, leading to the current global oil crisis. And in all those years in between, devastating environmental, health, economic, educational, and political news plagues our screens, sandwiched in between memes and pop culture happenings.
The constant exposure has brought new words into our mental health lexicon, such as “doomscolling” and “headline anxiety.” In a 2020 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, researchers found that the more frequently people sought out information about COVID-19 across different platforms, the more likely they were to report emotional stress. Although the pandemic is over, crises continue to haunt our everyday lives, straining our mental health.
With the world continuing to face hardship, how can we carry the mental burden without looking away? In an interview with Vogue Philippines, writer and mental health counselor Maria Nilad weighs in with her professional advice.
Where is the emotional distress coming from?
According to Nilad, as human beings, we have animal responses, such as the classic fight-or-flight instinct and the freeze-and-submit response. When humans feel helpless, it stems from a desire to submit to the threat rather than fight it. “It would be easier if the threat or the problem were something we could physically fight, then it either goes away, we lose, or stop feeling that heightened emotion,” she explains. “But when it’s helplessness and that feeling of submission, it feels as if we are being attacked by another animal, so to speak.”
Along with these feelings also comes the need to dissociate, or to ignore what is happening and try to move on with their lives. While it may help others cope temporarily, the psychological burden takes a toll, especially in long-term situations.
How should we manage our mental health?
For starters, Nilad advises people to sit and acknowledge these feelings of distress and to understand where it’s coming from. “It comes from caring for other people in the world, which is valid, and it’s a good sign. You’re still human, and you want to do something about the state of the world,” she says.
Everyone has different capacities for how much negativity or stress they can handle, she says. When scrolling through social media, watching TV, or reading news articles, she reminds people that information isn’t just there for you to spiral. “It should empower you to do something or empower you to make better choices for yourself and for your community?”
And while she jokes that dissociating or cognitive dissonance is sometimes necessary, she advises focusing on productive actions and having a “flexible” perspective. “Putting things into perspective and applying information, rather than using information as a way to spiral,” she says. “With this knowledge, how can we build alternatives to these destructive systems? How can we do this with other people around us?”
“Fighting isolation is cultivating community and fighting hopelessness means building a better world bit by bit,” she continues, “It’s getting out of our heads and trying to build a better world tangibly.”
