Staying at home feels good for a while, but staying at home all the time makes you feel depressed? If you don’t want to become emo, please keep this guide

Expert of this article: Fu Lu, Master of Neurophysiology, Sun Yat-sen University, Deputy Secretary-General of Shanghai Neuroscience Society

This article was reviewed by: Xu Tianle, distinguished professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; Zhu Jingning, professor of Nanjing University

"If you suddenly sneeze, take a nucleic acid test to see if it is negative or positive..."

In early summer, staying at home to fight the epidemic disrupted our daily rhythm. Every day, we were either queuing up for nucleic acid tests or on the way to get nucleic acid tests.

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In addition to daily nucleic acid testing, there is also a flourishing range of home office and home online classes.

At first everyone found it new and exciting, but as time went on, the space for activities became smaller and many people inevitably became irritable and anxious and became emo.

Why do you feel emo after staying at home for a long time? How to relieve it? Also, do you want to know why you are "addicted" to nucleic acid testing every day?

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Let’s talk about home epidemic prevention today.

Why do you become emo after staying at home for a long time?

Emotion refers to a person's subjective reflection or attitude experience on whether objective things meet their needs. If they can be met, positive emotions will be generated (such as pleasure, happiness, satisfaction, etc.); if they cannot be met, negative emotions will be generated (such as anxiety, anger, fear, etc.). When we often say "I am emo", we are referring to negative emotions.

For example, during the lockdown, in order to protect ourselves from infection, our normal social, entertainment, travel and other needs could not be met, and daily necessities were also affected. Therefore, we often felt uncomfortable. In addition, the number of infected cases continued to rise every day, and the lockdown was nowhere in sight. How to pay the mortgage, wages could not be paid normally, and we were facing life and economic pressures, as well as fear of the new coronavirus, which made everyone accumulate a lot of negative emotions. This is actually a normal emotional response.

The Lancet published in 2021: Due to the severe impact of COVID-19, anxiety disorders increased by 26% worldwide in 2020.

Why does excessive use of nucleic acid lead to addiction?

At this point, friends who are quarantined at home may ask, is daily nucleic acid testing addictive?

The so-called addiction is actually the loss of control of the reward system. Gambling, shopping mania, drug abuse, etc. can make the reward system lose control, thus leading to addiction. The reason for addiction is generally that people can experience pleasure when doing this thing.

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Although nucleic acid testing is done every day, it does not make everyone feel happy, so daily nucleic acid testing will not become addictive.

If someone says, "I test nucleic acid every day, and I feel like something is missing if I don't test it one day," this should be a habit rather than an addiction.

How to relieve emo emotions?

Change your cognition and believe in science

Emotions are a kind of ability or instinct, and they are neither good nor bad. Even fear has its necessity. For example, mice will be afraid when they see a cat, and will run faster to avoid their natural enemies. Humans are also afraid of danger and disease, so appropriate fear is an instinct for the human body to protect itself, but excessive fear will cause mental disorders such as anxiety.

Scientific methods can eliminate fear emotions, thereby achieving the extinction of fear memories. The extinction of fear memories is the guarantee of healthy emotions. Generally, most people can adjust themselves to eliminate fear memories.

Therefore, we must understand, accept and allow ourselves to have such emotions, and vent them in a moderate way. We should learn about epidemic prevention information through official channels, and avoid believing in or spreading rumors. At the same time, during the epidemic period, previous needs and goals may not be suitable for current life. We should adjust our goals appropriately, lower our expectations, and it will be easier to meet our needs and feel happy.

Be the master of your emotions

For example, you can use breathing relaxation methods and meditation methods to maintain emotional stability, or you can use exercise, music, etc. to divert your attention and increase positive experiences.

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By understanding emotional needs, being aware of the reasons, and then finding deviations, we can conduct some cognitive training to dig deep into our own deep cognition, thereby changing our behavior and adjusting our emotions, which is what we usually call "mindfulness."

Shift your focus to other things

Invest your limited energy into the career and life you love, avoid paying too much attention to negative news, learn to vent your emotions appropriately, and transform the sense of deprivation brought about by the epidemic into a sense of control over our lives.

Let go of your fear and be the master of your emotions. For example, try to cook a new delicious dish for your family, pick up the interest of playing the piano, painting or calligraphy that you cannot normally do, or cultivate a new hobby.

Exercise is a good medicine to overcome negative emotions

The pandemic and modern life have made sedentary lifestyles one of the biggest "threats" to our long-term survival. Various studies have shown that lack of exercise not only leads to poor physical fitness, but also damages our brains - even causing substantial brain shrinkage.

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Therefore, we say that exercise is the best "brain pill". Intensified exercise can produce brain-derived neurotrophic factor and increase synaptic plasticity and promote neurogenesis. In 2000, a research team at Duke University confirmed that exercise is more effective in curing depression than antidepressant drugs (sertraline).

So how much exercise is best? It is recommended that no matter what kind of exercise you choose, you must choose moderate-intensity aerobic exercise that suits your heart rate, 3-5 times a week, 15-30 minutes each time.

Divide exercise into three types: (A general formula for calculating your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age.)

55%-65% of the maximum heart rate is low-intensity exercise;

65%-75% of the maximum heart rate is moderate intensity exercise;

75%-90% of your maximum heart rate is considered high-intensity exercise.

The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that you get 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise at least 5 days a week.

Image provided by Professors Sun Biao and Xu Kai of Nanjing Institute of Physical Education

Studies have shown that moderate to high-intensity exercise can better protect the brain than low-intensity exercise, and the recently popular high-intensity interval training (HIIT) may be more helpful in increasing the level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the brain.

If these methods still cannot relieve your emo emotions, seek help from a professional psychologist in time.

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Don't let negativity get the better of you

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