Abstract
This essay examines how global crises shape anxiety and resilience, using COVID 19. It argues that anxiety rises through uncertainty, threat appraisal, and media driven emotional contagion, while resilience is sustained by regulatory flexibility: a motivational mindset—optimism, coping self-efficacy, and challenge appraisal and a mechanism that links context sensitivity to strategy selection and feedback-based adjustment. Definitions from NIMH and Mayo Clinic anchor key terms. Longitudinal evidence shows heterogeneous trajectories with a resilient majority, and markers, such as stable suicide rates in high income settings, complicate catastrophe narratives. A gender lens reveals why women’s distress was higher: unpaid care burdens and intensified intimate partner violence increased exposure and constrained feasible coping, despite comparable flexibility. The essay critiques preparedness indicators that sidelined gender and proposes solutions: teach flexibility skills at scale and enact gender responsive policies that guarantee Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and sexual and reproductive health services, childcare supports, and risk communication.
Keywords: Covid-19, Anxiety, Gender-Responsive Policies
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