Bruce Conn, a therapist a Piedmont Macon says there are a lot of reasons for that.
"People with mental illnesses have more chronic illnesses. Cardiac problems, diabetes, hypertension is very common with mental health issues," says Conn.
Conn says the biggest part with mental illness is stress.
He says when this happens, it can easily attack your body.
"If we're not dealing well with stress, we know that affects our immune system. So increase stress lowers our immune system," says Conn.
He says when this happens, people are more open to contracting COVID-19.
"Certainly the person who struggles with stress is going to be more susceptible to exposure of COVID. Somebody else might be able to fight it off versus the person who is overly stressed does not fight it off," says Conn.
Conn adds self-care is the best way to help control those mental illness issues.
That way your body's immune system can be strong.
"Just good healthy self-care. There is a lot of aspects to self-care, but self-care is what can mitigate the mental health problem," says Conn.
He says always pay attention to what your body is telling you.
"We need to have good mental health practices on what we expose ourselves to," says Conn.