# Mental Well-Being Can Protect You During the Coronavirus Pandemic - URL: https://alisanburak.com/en/korona-gunlerinde-ruhsal-iyilik-sizi-koruyabilir - Language: en - Last updated: 2026-09-07 - Page title: Mental Well-Being Can Protect You During the Coronavirus Pandemic | Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alişan Burak Yaşar > 2020 truly caught us off guard with one disaster after another. News of earthquakes, wars, and epidemics keeps coming, both nationally and globally. All of This page was translated automatically from Turkish. [Read the original](https://alisanburak.com/korona-gunlerinde-ruhsal-iyilik-sizi-koruyabilir) [← Back to blog](https://alisanburak.com/en/blog) # Mental Well-Being Can Protect You During the Coronavirus Pandemic September 7, 2026Articles in Bilim ve Ütopya 2020 truly caught us off guard with one disaster after another. News of earthquakes, wars, and epidemics keeps coming, both nationally and globally. All of it leaves a mark on our mental lives, too. We are living through extraordinary times. Even so, our species, which has survived for 250,000 years, and mammals more broadly have weathered many such ordeals and worse. We have lived through and survived worse, including the Ice Age. But if we suffer as much harm today as people did back then, if we are as profoundly affected as our ancestors despite all the culture and science we have developed, we will have done ourselves something of a disservice. Our bodies and minds are constantly alerting us to help us survive. Some of the traits we ordinarily regard as illnesses occasionally emerge as abilities that help us survive. For example, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder may struggle greatly with everyday routines and may not be able to do things as quickly or efficiently as others. While other people spend half an hour in the bathroom, they may feel they need to stay there for 3–4 hours, even when they know this is unhelpful. While others wash their hands in a few minutes, they may feel they must wash their hands for long periods and very frequently. Under ordinary circumstances, this can make life difficult for people with OCD. Yet the need to wash our hands more frequently and with extra care, for example, is something modern medicine strongly emphasizes during epidemics. Encoded in our biology, inherited from times when medicine was not so advanced, are these abilities that may often be unhelpful but can prove useful during epidemics. Nevertheless, although illness anxiety disorder and panic disorder can sometimes benefit our species—and, as common disorders that have persisted to this day, there must have been circumstances in which they were useful—they can make things harder for us in the face of today's global threat, the “coronavirus.” In the modern world, we may need to take a little care to draw on the advanced knowledge of our forebrain—our modern brain—before automatically acting on the urges our biology generates as a strategy for fighting threats. When we feel threatened, we are a species capable of acting impulsively and responding to danger with sudden, intense feelings of anger and fear. If the threat is overwhelming, we can sometimes bypass all this behavioral and emotional intensity and become frozen and numb (psychologically paralyzed). Nevertheless, the scientific guidance on what to do about the current viral outbreak is very clear: 1) reduce social contact to prevent the virus from spreading widely in the community and being transmitted by infected individuals 2) isolate and quarantine people who are ill to prevent a sudden outbreak from overwhelming intensive care bed capacity 3) in situations involving possible exposure to the virus, prevent transmission to people from contaminated surfaces by; washing our hands frequently with soap and water or disinfectants, not touching our mouths, noses, or faces with unwashed hands, and keeping as much distance as possible when meeting others. We know and learn all this through our modern human capacities and our forebrain. We can also use our forebrain to organize these measures. But in a state of fear and panic, the emotional brain (the limbic system and other structures), which has been with us since ancient times, takes over. We cannot think rationally. Imagine that a friend you met in the morning, from whom you were unable to maintain social distance, tests positive for coronavirus and that you are coughing. Your first impulse will be to rush to the hospital. (You may also find yourself doing something else irrational.) But as you rush, it is very difficult to consider how close you are getting to the people around you, whether you are using public transport or a private vehicle, and the need to wear a mask to protect others. In other words, when you feel threatened, your connection with your rational side, your modern brain, may short-circuit. Reducing your exposure to messages that make you feel threatened will therefore benefit your rational brain. Distancing yourself from unreliable and false or misleading information can also help. Finally, accessing accurate information systematically at set intervals will help your modern brain learn the most rational course of action for that moment. You can experience the panic and irrational behavior described in the example of becoming infected even without having contracted the virus. What is more, this can actually lead to infection. Sometimes the survival strategies our minds have developed through evolution can paradoxically put us in danger. For example, imagine that a parody or false message in a WhatsApp group, on Twitter, or on Facebook tells you that everyone in your neighborhood has contracted the virus. If you have not previously had enough exposure to reliable information, as described above, and have not done much to protect yourself from an excessive perception of threat, your first impulse will probably be to rush to the hospital, just as in the earlier example. But in this panic, as you rush, it is very difficult to consider how close you are getting to those around you, whether you are using public transport or a private vehicle, and the need to wear a mask to protect others. Even though the news is false and you know what precautions are needed, going to the hospital without taking them (you might do other irrational things, too) will put you at risk during the journey. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, a false news report may lead you to abandon your modern defenses and find yourself putting both yourself and those around you in danger. Psychologically, people are a source of healing for one another, and socializing is genuinely good for us. When people feel threatened, contact with loved ones helps them recover. But if we know that socializing is temporarily risky because it can fuel the outbreak, we should seek out and expand opportunities for safe social contact. If you share your home with others, you can plan more enjoyable activities to do together. Any activity at home that makes you smile together or gives you a sense of togetherness will benefit your mental well-being. Telephone calls and other video communication options can also offer opportunities to socialize at a distance. You can organize regular virtual get-togethers with loved ones. So, when considering how to live during the coronavirus pandemic, regularly checking selected sources of reliable information is a useful way to keep up with messages from health authorities. Limiting our exposure to news and media networks so that they do not create a toxic sense of threat, and protecting ourselves from false news, will safeguard both our mental and physical health. If your work requires frequent contact with people, carrying out your duties while following the recommendations of scientific authorities will protect you as much as possible. Remembering that our species has dealt with threats like these for centuries, we can accept that our only option is to do our best, drawing on all that history and trusting in the resources of modern medicine. We must remember that activities that soothe our minds, which can sometimes become confused under threat, can help us emerge from this battle successfully. To ease this confusion, if there are others at home, you should explore ways to spend more enjoyable time with them; if you are alone at home, you can plan varied, regular get-togethers by telephone or online that help you feel connected to your loved ones. As human beings, we have survived many disasters like these. We will get through this one, too. The point is that, as people with modern medicine who are reaching toward Mars, we should get through it with as little harm as possible. And we know how to do that… To come through with minimal harm, we may have a chance of winning this battle if we act together with a shared strategy, each listening to our modern human brain while also respecting our emotional brain, and work hand in hand. --- *This article was originally published on the web portal of the journal Bilim ve Ütopya. As the portal has been taken offline, I am republishing the text here.* [← Previous The Brain’s Illusion: The Neurobiology of Extraordinary Experiences](https://alisanburak.com/en/beyin-yanilgisi-olagan-disi-yasantilarin-norobiyolojisi)[Next → What is obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), and what are its symptoms?](https://alisanburak.com/en/obsesif-kompulsif-kisilik-bozuklugu-okkb-nedir-belirtileri-nelerdir) --- Kaynak / Source: https://alisanburak.com/en/korona-gunlerinde-ruhsal-iyilik-sizi-koruyabilir İletişim / Contact: Bağdat Caddesi, Veli Güneysu Apt. No:453 K:4 D:9, Suadiye / Kadıköy, İstanbul · +90 532 642 95 25 · info@alisanburak.com · https://alisanburak.com/bagdat-caddesi-psikoterapi-iletisim