Meditation-based interventions might be helpful for coping with the Coronavirus disease 2019 （COVID-19）

Abstract

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been characterized as the first pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus and drawn intense attention in China and globally. With the incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19 rapidly growing worldwide, people have been experiencing tremendous psychological distress during the pandemic. Elevated psychological stress could compromise the human capacity to fight against COVID-19. However, effective interventions and timely mental health care to increase resilience and improve psychological wellbeing is still lacking, which would be the focus of this article. In this article, we briefly summarize why meditation practice may have the potential to help minimize stress-related psychological symptoms associated with the coronavirus outbreak and how we can respond efficiently and effectively to this outbreak via taking advantage of meditation. We also provide a brief introduction of a meditation program that we developed and advocate to popularize meditation practice as a viable approach to improve wellbeing while combatting COVID-19 worldwide.