The lockdown has brought to surface a lot of our tendencies, both negative and positive, while exacerbating several others that might or might not be visible on the surface. In today's episode, we talk about how the pandemic, and the subsequent lockdown, might be worsening or putting to test the mental health of countless Nepalis around the world. Losing structure, balance and the much-needed social touch can potentially have impacts on our individual and collective psyche much worse than the physical manifestations that the virus can have.

Disclaimer: We apologize if any of today's content has hurt or disrespected anyone in any possible way. The goal with today's episode was not to demonstrate our proficiency in regards to issues surrounding mental wellbeing but to initiate a conversation on them. This episode is not exhaustive and we invite all of you to build on this and help eliminate the shame attached with mental illnesses. The need of the hour is not to stigmatize or romanticize those with mental illnesses but to create enough space to normalize the dialogues around them and promote collective mental wellbeing.

We are focusing on how individuals can take charge of their own mental health and that of the ones closest to them. On a broader scale, community interventions, support groups and therapeutic efforts through mainstream media, among others, can potentially be effective measures to tackle mental illnesses.

Read this report by the Centre for Mental Health and Counselling - Nepal (CMC-Nepal) on how community scale psychological interventions helped relieve the post-traumatic stress disorder, stress and anxiety, among others, in thousands of survivors of the 2015 Earthquake: http://www.cmcnepal.org.np/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Report-on-PSI-of-Earthquake-Survivors.pdf