Despite the tragic statistics of COVID-19 that we see every day, the losses of loved ones, loved ones and people we know, the mortality figures from the pandemic themselves, fortunately, are not so terrifying. For which, of course, a huge THANK YOU to the authorities, the healthcare system and people’s own caution! And also – the relatively low danger of the virus itself, fortunately for us, inferior to the notorious “Spanish flu”. In fact, in developed countries, deaths from COVID-19, on average, in 2020 accounted for 4 to 8% of ALL DEATHS for the year . In Russia, this is approximately 6% of total mortality for 2020. At the same time, the internal structure of mortality statistics itself has changed little. Heart attacks, strokes and oncology continue to lead. In general, the overall mortality rate for 2020 in Russia was approximately 15 deaths per 1000 people. Undoubtedly, this is a clear increase compared to the pre-coronavirus year of 2019, when 13.3 citizens died per 1000 people. However, for the sake of objectivity, it should be noted: - In 2016, 14.2 people died per 1000 citizens in Russia. - In 2013, 2014 and 2015. - 14.5 people per 1000 citizens. - In 2011 - 15.2 people per 1000 citizens. - In 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - from 16.1 to 16.7 people per 1000 citizens! That is, the mortality rate in the officially “fat” years for Russia was even higher than in the pandemic year 2020! In 2005, not so far from us, a mortality rate of 18.7 dead citizens per 1000 people was recorded! The conclusion suggests itself: although the mortality rate for the covid year 2020 is high , unfortunately, for Russia, but it is not at all anomalous! Moreover: the Covid mortality rate is even lower than the mortality rate in those “stable zero” years, which we definitely do not consider problematic in our memories. And the general demographic crisis began in Russia long before the pandemic. Having risen slightly at the beginning of the “tenths,” the birth rate in Russia has been steadily falling since 2016, annually lagging behind the death rate by one hundred to two hundred thousand people per year. Compensated mainly by migrants. Every year, a whole year with a population of approximately 100,000 people, and even more, disappears from the demographic map of Russia! In 2018, Russia was inhabited by 146,880,432 people; in 2019 - 146,780,720 people; in 2020 – 146,748,590 people. And no matter how actively Russian citizenship is distributed to migrants from neighboring countries, even the enchanting distribution of passports cannot create favorable demographic statistics: the traditional “deep people”, so beloved by our jingoistic politicians, is dying out right before our eyes In general, the COVID-19 pandemic, while definitely a terrible tragedy, has not essentially changed the general trends in fertility and mortality in Russia. And it didn’t make things much worse that were already sad. Because it is apparently difficult to worsen this already bleak picture. However, the very attitude towards that very physical death that sooner or later awaits each of us, the perception of its inevitability, has definitely changed in 2020. Having been a psychologist for almost thirty years, communicating with people every day, I felt this quite clearly. But to make this clear to the reader, I’ll start from afar. Over the past seventy years, the total life expectancy in the most developed countries has increased by almost twenty years. In modern Europe and the USA, it has become the norm to live to an average of 80 years. In Russia, this figure is lower - up to 65-70 years. In fact: men in Russia live 60-65 years; women – 70-75 years old. However, the average Russian, growing up on Hollywood blockbusters, news from the first channels and domestic glossy TV series, at the same time, mistakenly and optimistically tries on not Russian life statistics, but rather European and North American ones. Based on the fact that we mentally consider ourselves Europeans, this seems quite logical to us. So, the “red line of death”, the “line of fatality”, many Russians naively imagine precisely the age after they reach 75-80 years, or even all 80-85 years old. It is this figure that accounts for what I determineas “visualizing one’s own death.” When people, as it were, “tune in to the inevitable,” they strive to calculate their life plans, adjust them approximately to the figure when they are, as it were, “forced to agree” to leave the world of the living. Hence, the overwhelming majority of modern Russians, being at the age of 30 or 40 or 50 years old, mentally measure out for themselves approximately the life span that separates them from this exact date of death. Which they, as it were, “planned” for themselves from the average optimistic indicators for the civilized world as a whole. And since, as mentioned above, this date for the majority there tends to reach about 80 years of age, the following follows from this: - a thirty-year-old Russian mentally proceeds from the fact that he still has as many as 50 (!) years of life ahead of him! - a forty-year-old Russian - that he has another forty years of life ahead of him; - a fifty-year-old - that he still has at least thirty years of life; - a sixty-year-old - that he has a “power reserve” of at least twenty years of life. Plus, many are sure: during this time, biologists, doctors and geneticists “will definitely come up with something.” And this will further push back the line of demarcation dividing our conscious existence from unconscious non-existence by another five to ten, or even twenty years. And then, you see, our consciousness will already be digitized, like in the excellent film about the robot Chappie. They will give everyone a replacement body and send them hitchhiking around the Galaxy to fight Aliens and Predators. The body will be issued biological or steel, at the request of the customer. The discount is provided on a pension certificate, as well as on a Muscovite’s social card. It is interesting that even when they say out loud to their friends and acquaintances that they are not going to live long, since “old age is not a joy,” in fact, people... everyone lives long- they are still going. They just don't say this for superstitious reasons. Like, “don’t say hop until you jump over.” First, we will live to be eighty years old, and then we’ll see... With such a perception of the topic of one’s own death, in normal times (i.e. before the pandemic), the fact of the deaths of people around us at very different ages, often quite young, usually did not bother anyone. We explained to ourselves: “Yes, he drank a lot!”; “He has bad genetics!”; “She has many chronic diseases!”; “He didn’t spare himself at all: he worked for two people, and for someone he died earlier than normal!”; “It’s my own fault, I delayed treatment!”; “This is because he has a bad family situation!”; “I didn’t give a damn in life, that’s the sad result...”, etc. This calms us down, returns us to the usual cheerful attitude that: - we kind of know approximately when we will die; - the number of our life and death for us is, as it were, “guaranteed” by the total life expectancy of a person in the developed countries of the world; - approaching the mourning line is ALWAYS still far away: in any case, there is still time; - in itself, the age of our tearfully offensive “natural-unnatural” dying is not what - there is a constant there: the line of death is quite flexible, it can and should still be played with. Approximately in this logic: - “At thirty-five years old, I should already have a lot of money so that I can eat only organically healthy food!”; - “After reaching forty years old, I will start systematically playing sports!”; - “At forty-five years old , I’ll definitely stop drinking alcohol!”; - “At fifty years old, I’ll do yoga and become a vegetarian”; - “At fifty-five years old, I’ll go to live by the warm sea!”; - “By the age of sixty I’ll have so much money that I’ll spend everything on your medical care!” Etc. And it was precisely this optimistic picture of the perception of the inevitability of one’s own death that the damned COVID-19 hit with all its might, literally “with all its might!” Because the fact of the death of those people whom we knew personally, and who were still very far from the fatal eighty years “targeted” by us, bursts into our consciousness so harshly that it requires some kind of adequate comprehension. People are trying to soften the “shock of an uncontrollable death” according to the usual pattern: “A deceased forty-year-old acquaintance had many serious chronic diseases that he caused!”; "Humandied from Covid at the age of forty-five, because he only had a compulsory health insurance policy, but I also have an additional corporate policy...”; “She died at fifty-five because she was treated incorrectly!”; “The deceased was very overweight: everyone told him about it!” However, the death from COVID-19 of those relatively young people who had nothing like that in their background is not only incredibly embarrassing, but also very frightening! Hence, the panic awareness, which comes from hoary antiquity: “It turns out that you can’t come to an agreement with death!” This is exactly what I want to say: The COVID-19 pandemic has unceremoniously destroyed many people’s illusion about the contractual nature of their relationship with death! This is when many of us confidently believed that we had some degree of control over the duration of our lives! In any case, he is able to prevent the shortening of his life, which is relatively statistically acceptable. Observations show that this forced covid awareness of the Bulgakov-Wolandov “sudden mortality” factor gives rise to a strong psychological shock. Especially in the average age category of 35-55 years, as varying between youth and old age. In practice, prolonged stress has extremely negative consequences. Typically, this takes the following forms: - depression, when a person literally gives up and loses all motivation for goal-setting and planning long-term activities; - panic anxiety disorders, quite often - panic attacks, when a person thinks that he is already dying; - long-term neurotic states, when you feverishly want to catch up and overtake, to have time to do as much as possible, before the moment of death, which can occur much earlier than in the expected eighty years. And there are quite a lot of people with similar psychological experiences provoked by covid in 2020-2021 a lot of. Moreover, Covid “sobers”, includes the effect of an emotionally sobering shower not only for those who have not yet been infected with coronavirus, but also for those who have recovered from the disease quite successfully, without complications. From here, I want to say the following: First. During the Covid pandemic, it is important not to panic! Based on the medical statistics that we saw during the year (and this is already a lot), there is no mass pestilence and there will not be. Especially after the emergence of a number of quite effective vaccines. And so the small mortality rate will definitely decrease, completely entering the usual standards. There is no need to panic because stressful and depressive conditions reduce the overall immunity of the body. After all, the volumes of the good mood hormone produced in the body - serotonin, which is important both for overcoming depression and for general tone, are not infinite, they need to be managed correctly. Second. You need to take care of maintaining your health without waiting until you get closer to the age limits that you have assigned to yourself, most likely, “just out of the blue.” There is no need to psyche yourself up into thinking that until forty, fifty (etc.) is still far away, while you can live as usual (you are not taking care of yourself), but then suddenly you will suddenly become righteous, start eating and breathing properly, walking to the gym and yoga, run and stretch. If you really want to live long, start living in health saving mode exactly from the moment you think about it. This will be your correct dialogue with death. Because, everything is simple: our death does not walk somewhere in the other world, sharpening its scythe and periodically glancing at the reference book “Tablets of Fate” in order to come for everyone in due time. Our death is like that of Koshchei the Immortal: in a needle, in an egg, in a quail, in a hare, in a duck, etc. That is, in our diet, in the organs of our body, in the carelessness with which we handle our own health and the objects around us, which, due to our failure to comply with basic safety precautions, carry fatal risks for us. Remember the words of Andrei Zberovsky: Start your path to