{"id":15841,"date":"2020-08-10T16:24:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T10:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/?p=15841"},"modified":"2025-10-06T15:56:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T10:26:49","slug":"lockdown-fatigue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/lockdown-fatigue.html","title":{"rendered":"What You\u2019re Experiencing Could Be Lockdown Fatigue"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the time of writing this article, we\u2019ve been 5 months into the COVID-19 pandemic since it was declared by the WHO. Have you felt your stress levels rise in this period? Maybe your anxiety too? Have you been experiencing frequent emotional outbursts? Chances are you\u2019re suffering from \u201c<\/span>Lockdown Fatigue.\u201d Lockdown fatigue is more of a mental fatigue and exhaustion as opposed to physical fatigue, caused by the psychological aspects of lockdown. This can be appropriately explained by the following analogy – Just as a hiker, after a long and strenuous trek up a steep hill, against gravity, feels physically exhausted, when a person is constantly trekking against the various psychological stressors such as fear and loneliness, they eventually end up mentally exhausted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Majority of Indians Are Stressed Due to the Pandemic<\/span><\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, you\u2019re not alone in feeling this way. In fact you\u2019re one of the majority of our country\u2019s inhabitants who\u2019re going through the same struggles. That\u2019s what YourDOST\u2019s recent study titled “Mental Health Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic & Nationwide Lockdown in India<\/a>”\u00a0found.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to this, \u2153 rd of Indians reported experiencing high stress when the nationwide lockdown had just started. However,over the approximately two month period starting from lockdown 1.0 on 25th March, 2020 to unlock 1.0 on 7th June, 2020, over 55% of Indians reported an increase in their stress levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Net<\/p>\n

The aspect of lockdown fatigue is not just limited to stress levels. India\u2019s inhabitants have also reported a significant deterioration in feelings of anxiety, anger and loneliness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Stressors<\/span><\/h2>\n

So what exactly is the cause of this fatigue? According to the study, there are 3 major causes of stress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fall in work-life balance<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"59%<\/p>\n

The contributing factor towards this include prolonged work-from-home which leaves many individuals feeling like they\u2019re in an \u201calways on\u201d mode. Additionally, the lockdown led to a drastic change in most people\u2019s lifestyles and routines. Many continue to struggle to maintain a proper routine in the modest of these circumstances. Multiple studies have shown that poor work-life balance can directly impact people\u2019s mental health and can also adversely affect the prevention and management of mental illness. This makes this trend all the more worrying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Postponement of exams<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"1\/3rd<\/p>\n

These were mainly college students whose colleges were shut down due to the nationwide lockdown and thus there continues to be a lack of clarity on when and how their exams will be conducted. Exams in general are tremendously stressful. According to an earlier study conducted by YourDOST among Indian college students, 60% report experiencing high to severe stress from exams. The pandemic added an additional element of uncertainty to this whole situation which of course has been tremendously distressing for individuals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pay cut\/Job loss<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Pay<\/p>\n

At YourDOST we experienced an 87% rise in the number of sessions related to job loss in the period of March to June 2020 as opposed to the same time frame in the preceding months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Losing a job can be a very traumatic experience for many. According to a review of over 4000 research papers, conducted by the University of East Anglia and the \u201cWhat Works Centre for Wellbeing\u201d, losing a job may even take longer to get over emotionally than a divorce or the death of a partner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pay cuts were another major cause of stress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"2<\/p>\n

This adds all the more uncertainty with individuals\u2019 personal finances and affordability affected directly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Impact on Lifestyle<\/span><\/h2>\n

Lockdown fatigue has significantly impacted the lifestyles of most Indians.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Net<\/p>\n

Deterioration of Sleep Quality<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Insomnia\"<\/p>\n

For most people, their sleep quality has experienced significant deterioration with a net change upto 11%. A major reason for this is a lack of exposure to sunlight. Lockdown and the fear of contracting COVID-19 have forced most of us to spend the majority of our days indoors. Infact, the study<\/a> found that even in areas where lockdown has been lifted, 90% of the people are unwilling to venture out<\/a>. This means that their exposure to sunlight has gone down as well. Sunlight plays a major role in setting and resetting our \u201cCircadian Rhythm\u201d. This is our \u201cbody clock\u201d that helps us maintain our sleep-wake schedule. Reduction in exposure to sunlight can severely disrupt this rhythm thus leading insomnia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another reason for the deterioration of sleep quality is stress. Chronic stress causes our minds to be in a heightened state of alertness. This delays the onset of sleep and causes rapid, anxious thoughts to occur at night. Also, Insufficient sleep causes further stress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rise in Emotional Outbursts<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Parenting<\/p>\n

Most Indians have also experienced a drastic increase in emotional outbursts. These outbursts occur in the form of angry outbursts or crying fits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From a psychological point of view, this too is expected. Studies have shown that it\u2019s common to experience a failure of cognitive emotion regulation especially when it comes to unpleasant emotions under stress. The reason for this is that cognitive emotion regulation is controlled by our brain\u2019s prefrontal cortex. When we\u2019re stressed, stress-related neuroendocrine hormones tend to impair the prefrontal cortex thus affecting cognitive emotion regulation which consequently leads to emotional outbursts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Fight Back<\/span><\/h2>\n

Given the onset of lockdown fatigue, it’s clear that the commonly used coping strategies have proved inadequate, thus leading to impairment in different areas of our life. There is thus an urgent need to adopt a holistic management strategy to ensure the Indian population\u2019s overall mental wellness. Depending on the level of functional impairment of each individual, self-care, peer-support and professional-care interventions would be effective.<\/span><\/p>\n

To access resources for self-help during this pandemic, please visit\u00a0our COVID-19\u00a0emotional wellness<\/a> page for FREE resources.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Would you like to read the full report of YourDOST\u2019s study on \u201cMental Health Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic & Nationwide Lockdown in India\u201d?\u00a0click here<\/a><\/a>\u00a0to download\u00a0your copy today.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the time of writing this article, we\u2019ve been 5 months into the COVID-19 pandemic since it was declared by the WHO. Have you felt your stress levels rise in this period? Maybe your anxiety too? Have you been experiencing frequent emotional outbursts? Chances are you\u2019re suffering from \u201cLockdown Fatigue.\u201d Lockdown fatigue is more of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[159,170],"class_list":["post-15841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-anxiety","tag-mental-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35506,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15841\/revisions\/35506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yourdost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}