Dr Yousuf Ali Al mulla
Looking at the coronavirus pandemic, people still look worried and confused about the future. Despite that few of us are trying to stand-up and keep people around us safe. You may wake up every day now with doubt, wondering when this nightmare will end. You heard from me lately about the number of cases, you read the headlines with deep sadness of leaving loved ones or a family member and definitely the ambiguity around news about the release date of possible vaccine for COVID-19.
Usually, when you see your patient, you absolutely know and he knows what is the next plan of management and the clear dialogue with the patient about do’s and don’ts.
However currently and amid unknown in the last months, you look to be certain in your things and easier life, if I could say. We as community underwent social distancing with specific and clear guidance and then came the re-opening phase and wearing of face mask, which is absolutely necessary, but unfortunately, it came like in other parts of the world with more stress and ambiguity.
Dramatically, such explained challenging time should remind us, with our friends who may suffer more life-threatening illness and who may be admitted in the intensive care unit with COVID-19 and its complication living in uncertainly, but still we need to adjust and as you see every day we are trying to cope !
What I am trying to express here while we are in COVID-19 pandemic, we need to recognize uncertainty as part of our life and cope with it. Instead of fighting with your feeling of uncertainty and anxiety, it is better to learn some strategies to take off those fears which come to you from time to time. Of course, such fear of getting infected or death and uncertainty if you did not get salvation, you will drown in it. Nevertheless, such escape can be guided by your psychologist for instance or adapting some strategies like for instance, practicing breathing exercises to calm yourself (Inhale four counts, hold for seven and release for eight).
I believe that some time, you reach a point hoping for a control, saying if I could see the virus ,I might avoid it. If I could know when the vaccine will be released, I could plan my coming years? However, for me it seems that you are trying to create a hope in this gloom. Importantly, what is required now is to move away from negativity with everything possible, to inflict defeat on the coronavirus and defeat it by making thoughts positive, so that positivity in our thinking can raise the level of body energy and immunity.
Interestingly, the pandemic has also shown in many ways how hope and optimism can appear in dark times and how in some cases this can become a force for social change. Still optimism should not be confused with naive phrases such as everything will be fine. Indeed, this naive optimism can paradoxically lead people to accept the world as it is and to rule out an alternative, rather than to change for the better.
In the end, we learned that when things are very difficult and scary and the outcome is generally not good, hope sometimes lies in the unknown. I think mysterious and unexpected –abruptness and shock, are where there is a slot or a door for hope. As much as we need right now hope for ending of the pandemic, as much I believe that uncertainty can be a possibility.
Dr .Yousuf Ali Al Mulla , Physician, medical innovator and writer.
