Introduction

The context of Covid-19 and lockdown intensifies the stresses and joys of daily life – in this blog we share a set of short responses to living everyday life in extraordinary times. Responses developed from perspectives informed by critical health psychology.

The stresses and joys of daily life are amplified by our current social realities. COVID-19, and the measures being implemented to control it, mean enormous social upheaval, yet everyday life carries on, be it birth, death or doing the shopping. In this blog, we offer a series of short responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from a critical health psychology perspective. Critical health psychologists understand that the way we make sense of an issue effects what we can say, think, feel and do. We also believe that the way people make sense of an issue is linked to politics, history, economics and power. From this perspective, 'big' issues are in our everyday experiences, and in this blog we explore the mundanity of life in extraordinary times.

Our blog is organised in the following way:

We start with a question, originally posed on twitter (@HealthPsych_NZ), which we ask in response to living under COVID-19.

Then we give our response to this question, offering a slice of theory or research that we can apply to our question and providing links to (mostly) open access materials for the interested reader who wants to know more.

In so doing, we hope to stimulate the curious of mind.

This blog is collectively produced by the Health Psychology team at Massey University. Click here if you want to learn more about Health Psychology at Massey. To discuss any of the blog content please email s.riley@massey.ac.nz or contact named authors on specific blog posts.