Abstract
In the past year, COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a major biomedical, economical, psychological, and social threat. The contagion has radically impacted and altered the lives of billions of people around the world. Due to strict government policies, most individuals have found themselves confined indoors with limited movement permissible. Although these measures are enforced to help abate the rate of infection, such restrictions have huge implications for psychophysiological health, lifestyle, and overall quality of life. Various epidemiological, experimental, clinical, and longitudinal studies on confinement and isolation have reported profoundly detrimental effects on the psychological and physical health of individuals. This has also been consistently linked with a range of risk factors for poor health, undesirable health outcomes, increased morbidity, and early mortality. Furthermore, the current altered, confined, and isolated lifestyle globally has also impeded people’s ability to invest in their physical health, fitness, and movement. The current confined and isolated circumstances, coupled with the gradually declining levels of physical activity and rising levels of sedentarism that is already prevalent in the modern society, can have deleterious effects on the psychological, physical, and social health of individuals. Given current confinement and isolation requirements, limited freedom and space for movement, and severe punitive actions for breaching lockdown measures, along with globally declining levels of physical activity and increasing amounts of sedentary behaviours, there is an insistent need to develop novel and innovative approaches that can simultaneously foster a sense of positive health and well-being and alleviate adverse health effects caused by confinement, physical inactivity, and sedentarism, under the current circumstances. This paper argues for essential measures to be introduced that would not only mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 confinement, physical inactivity, and sedentarism in the short-term, but also promote psychophysiological health and well-being in the long-term. This paper advocates the practice of mindfulness as a potential strategy considering the current context. This paper further discusses the health benefits of mindfulness practice and introduces two effective and novel exercises - mindful breathing and mantram chanting - that could be suitably utilized under current altered and confined COVID-19 arrangement. Novel ways to introduce mindfulness at individual and community levels have also been addressed.
Keywords
Mental Health
Wellbeing
Athlete
COVID-19
Pandemic
Author
Journal
International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Discussion