Page 8 - HealthcareNews Jan_Feb 2021

Impact Statements
Providers Grapple with Pandemic’s Toll on Physical, Mental Health
BSy JOSEPH BEDNAR
tephanie Nascimento and Jeanette Wilburn have long explored the connections between physical and emotional health at their
decade-old practice, Be Vital Wellness. These days, they say, with so much anxiety gripping Americans, it’s more critical than ever to understand those con- nections.
“Obviously, mental illness has always been a crisis, but it’s at an all-time high now,” Nascimento said. “We spend a lot of time digging with our clients. They don’t always walk in the door and say, ‘I’m
“Obviously, mental illness has always been a crisis, but it’s at an all- time high now.”
depressed.’”
In fact, the Hadley-based business began as a
weight-loss and nutrition enterprise, and that’s still a major part of it. But Wilburn said it’s gratifying when clients begin to understand how their choices and circumstances affect them in ways they’ve never considered.
“Sometimes people don’t even know they’re depressed; they don’t know they’re anxious,” she explained. “They just know that they can’t fall asleep, or they can’t stay asleep, or they wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning. A lot of people call it ‘busy brain,’ but they don’t realize that’s actually anxiety. I liken
it to a hamster on a wheel, and the hamster is going way too fast. You need to either slow down the wheel or get the hamster off the wheel altogether.”
The problem is, almost a year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impacts on physical and mental health, relationships, and finances, has only cranked the wheel faster, and too many people are coping with unhealthy habits like overeating and alcohol abuse.
“Those bad habits were there before COVID
— then the pandemic arrived,” Nascimento said. “There’s so much fear, not to mention people’s whole lives are changing. Kids are home from school, parents are trying to be teachers while also work-
ing and managing Zoom calls ... there’s been a lot
of stress on families. We’ve had clients who were managing well, but are now struggling to maintain good habits.”
Kristy Navarro, clinical supervisor for BestLife Emotional Health & Wellness Center, a program of MHA, said the causes of increased anxiety are easy to understand.
“A lot of it is the stress people are going through financially. People have had to close down busi- nesses they owned and lost all their income. So that
Jeanette Wilburn (left) and Stephanie Nascimento say the pan- demic has increased people’s anxiety — and the need for self-care.
produces this feeling of anxiety — ‘where am I going to get the money to pay my bills? How am I going to stay in my house? I wasn’t in debt, and now I am, so how am I going to do this?’”
That anxiety can manifest in different ways, she added.
“It can be physical — the shaking, the heart
pounding, sweating. It can look like avoidance —
maybe not checking your mail or not going outside.
It’s not just being worried, but genuine fear. Fear and
feeling worried are two different things“.” It’s a question being asked across the U.S., and it
Dr. Mark Kenton says health- care workers have been feeling
These days, as the pandemic wears on, Kenton,
an emergency medicine physician at Mercy Medical Center, still worries about such issues — and not just for providers.
“I’m definitely worried about healthcare providers getting exhausted or getting sick, but also the mental health of patients, and especially the mental health of children who have to do this remote schooling
for a year and a half. What is the actual impact on children going forward?”
anxious, to varying degrees, since There’s so much fear, not to mention people’s the start of the pandemic.
“The anxiety, depression, and whole lives are changing. Kids are home from
school, parents are trying to be teachers while there’s been a lot of stress on families.”
worry all got heightened,” he said,
especially in the early days last
winter, when so little was known also working and managing Zoom calls ... about coronavirus, and news
media reported on soaring death
counts in places like New York
City. “It made you think, ‘if I get
this, am I going to die?’ You think of the worst-case
scenario. Healthcare providers had that anxiety, and
a lot of us had to find ways to get through.”
has no one-size-fits-all answer. But the overwhelm- ing sentiment HCN heard from health and wellness experts in the region is this: help is available. Don’t
8 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021