The South African health ministry detected the new covid-19 variant (omicron), putting nations on red alert. We all experienced the lengthy global lockdown of countries and cities that happened not too long ago, and the sad news is that some countries have started shutting their borders again.

Many phobias were associated with the initial outbreak as people struggled to cope with being locked out of their lives. While we may not be heading for another lengthy lockdown, we decided to bring you tips to cope with various phobias should another lockdown happen by chance.

How to Effectively Manage the New Covid-19 Variant (omicron) Phobias

1. First of all, we have to understand that phobia is an irrational reaction (in the sense that we react disproportionately to a stimulus that is not going to put us in danger) and derived from what we have experienced in recent years months. No one was prepared for this that has happened, and it is logical that if we have a more anxious personality or in our environment, we have had to live closely with some negative consequence derived from Covid-19, we may have been more susceptible to experiencing some phobia such as the described above.
2. Phobias don't usually go away on their own: Some people say, "the day will come when I lose my fear of elevators, and I will go visit that friend who lives in the ninth." This is a mistake! The phobia will not go away if we do nothing. What's more, generally, when we have a phobia, we avoid that stimulus that scares us because that makes us feel calmer and safer. This feeling of tranquility when we resort to avoidance makes that fear even more reinforced and lasts longer.
3. You are not crazy: There are people who, when they react in such an aversive and disproportionate way to a phobia, think that they are losing their mind and that they can go crazy. It is essential to remember that it is just an overreaction, but that does not mean you're crazy.
4. Set a realistic goal: I mean, for example, the person who is afraid of open spaces and crowds may never go to a macro concert in the open air due to the new covid-19 variant. Likewise, the objective is not to achieve that, but if we are taking a walk down the street and there are more people than usual, we can be calm without having a reaction that could put us in danger.
5. It can also be helpful to learn relaxation, breathing, or meditation technique so that each time you see that stimulus that you fear, you can relax and feel more secure in that situation. The phobia, typically, generates a very high level of anxiety, which entails that our body reacts (our heart beats faster, we tighten our muscles), that we want to run out of the situation, etc. Practicing some relaxation, breathing, or meditation techniques can help us relax our nervous system. This, in turn, will help us so that when we expose ourselves to fear, we feel more secure and calm.
6. In psychotherapy, an exercise that we carry out to treat phobias consists of making a hierarchy or list of what is least afraid of us to what we are most fearful of. That is, in the case of a person who has agoraphobia, it may be that the least scary thing is to see images of open spaces, photos where crowds appear and perhaps the scariest thing is to be at an outdoor event with hundreds of people around. Between what scares you the least and what scares you the most, there will be several other situations that you should also note.

In summary, we advise that you keep calm and have a free mind, it would soon be in the past.