https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f961Tt-6uqY&feature=youtu.beVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: The Long Con: Dr. Agne Matulaitė looks at the psychology of COVID-19 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f961Tt-6uqY&feature=youtu.be)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a huge challenge in so many ways. Personal health, and the capacity of our health care systems, have been tested. The economy is facing a test it has never seen before. Just as importantly, the psychological health of everyone has come to a test that it rarely does in the history of humankind. To understand what we’re all going through, and how we can come out from it as better people, Dr. Agne Matulaitė joined our Becky Liggero Fontana on the latest episode of The Long Con.

Perhaps the scariest part of this pandemic, psychologically, is not knowing what will come next. “Most of the population like to feel the feeling in control, sure what’s going to be next, yeah I am making decision about my finances, I’m making sure my holidays,” Matulaitė said. “So this is, basically it taps into these fears.”

But as with anything in the news that causes anxiety, Matulaitė had some simple advice. “Actually you need to learn how to switch it off, and that silence is deadening as well because something might be happening,” she said. “It’s really very important to minimize the effect, and the effect in our consciousness be minimized by actually doing, how to say, distancing ourselves from the news.”