Feeling helpless and overwhelmed with each passing day, Is COVID hitting your ‘Surge Capacity’?

When the pandemic started, we all were gathering the power to deal with it, and the phrase, ‘This too shall pass’ was a qualifying reaffirmation. But now, with more than one year into the pandemic, and the conditions getting worse than ever before, we wonder how much strength people actually have, to actually deal with the situation at hand for more than a year. And if now, it is making you feel anxious, angry, helpless, exhausted, or overwhelmed to a level that you are numb and distracted all the time, then perhaps, COVID is hitting your ‘Surge Capacity’.

What is the surge capacity of Humans?

When it comes to dealing with pressure, humans have a “surge capability.” For short-term survival in acutely challenging environments, we have a set of adaptive mechanisms — both behavioural and physical — from which we draw strength to deal with any alarming situation immediately. This capacity is basically the surge capacity. Humans generally get to their maximum capacity of dealing with stress because of an urgent situation for a short period of time, like that of a natural disaster.

Natural disasters are the one that occurs for a short period of time, and to deal with it, the human brain develops the mental capacity, and the resources in stock are used to deal with the acute situation at hand. Where impacts of the situation can be long-lasting, but the situation generally exists for a short while, unlike the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID is also hitting the ‘surge capacity’ of the hospitals

The ability to evaluate and care for a significantly elevated number of patients—one that challenges or exceeds usual operating capability—is referred to as medical surge capacity. Hospitals have been functioning at their surge capacity for more than a while now. And as the situations are worsening at the hospitals, they are also in an overwhelming situation as no one was prepared for a long-lasting disaster.

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But the reaffirmation we need is, just as the hospitals have been trying to work on their surge capacity, so can we.

The ‘new normal’ is not normal, it is uncertain!

For a while, people had started to find stepping out with the mask covered faces, and a sanitiser in the pocket as the new normal. For a while, things were coming under control. But then, the thing went back to ground zero, to rocketing high cases and deaths. And not just that, a heel of uncertainties, among a time that itself has been uncertain. So, in these uncertain times, when COVID is hitting the surge capacity of all, what you need to do to just said through it is as follows –

Don’t push yourself to be productive

Indias is really gasping for every breath today, and if at this point in time, you are breathing fine, that you are doing more than enough. We all have been listening to how we should be pushing ourselves to do our best, to be productive all our lives but now, this should not be so. At a time when survival has become a crisis, you are managing to get through it is more than what you can do. Allow yourself to be at peace for not doing anything.

Accept the situation

Denial won’t do any good to you. So it’s better, you accept the situation. The times are not pleasant and the situations are different now. So, if your progress rate varies, that is allowed to vary.

Help others if you can

The best of all that you can do at this point in time is help others in which every way you can, and only if you yourself are in a state of helping.

What you need right now is to be kind to yourself. You each of us do so, maybe we will be able to deal with this disaster too.

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