Managing Anxiety in the Wake of COVID-19
This past week, I went to see one of my clients at her home. A couple hours before our appointment, I got a text from her that said something along the lines of “I’m in full-out panic mode right now” closely followed by “I can’t imagine focusing on what I’m eating.” This isn’t surprising. Within a two-day period, the COVID-19 situation escalated rapidly here in the Philadelphia area. Earlier in the week, we were receiving the obligatory emails from every single business we have EVER patronized explaining to us their procedures for keeping everyone safe, and by the end of the week, schools were closed, grocery stores were overrun, and the anxiety level in the area was up to 11.
COVID-19 is so scary for people for so many different reasons. People are dying from this, and people are very legitimately afraid of catching this virus, especially if they are at higher risk or know someone who is. Parents are afraid of having their kids home for two weeks, and even though many of them are working from home, many are not, and are struggling to find childcare so they can pay their bills while the schools are closed. For those parents who are staying at home, they’re afraid they won’t be able to actually get any work done. Parents with children who have special needs are trying to find a way to continue their services while everything else is locked down. Business owners are afraid during this time as well because social distancing means fewer people coming though the door. They still have to figure out how to take care of their employees and pay their bills.
Understandably, the word “anxiety” is being thrown around a lot at this time. And while feeling anxious is understandable, it’s not beneficial to let that anxiety run the show. It’s also not beneficial to let self-care fall apart because we happen to feel scared. One of the best ways to manage anxiety is to be able to understand it, and just being able to do that can reduce anxiety’s intensity. When the intensity is reduced a little bit, it becomes a lot easier to practice some healthy coping mechanisms. To help you manage anxiety you may be experiencing at this time, this article covers:
What is anxiety?
How can you identify anxiety?
What are some things you can do to cope with anxiety?
Why bother staying on track with self-care during this time?
What is anxiety?
At its most basic, anxiety is an emotion, and it’s an emotion that can be really helpful. Emotions give us information, and anxiety in particular can tell us when something is risky or unsafe and protect us from harm. This was great long ago when we had to not get eaten by lions, and is great today when we’re avoiding that creepy stranger on the street because we don’t want to risk getting mugged. But too much of a good thing isn’t so good. As we know, anxiety is a rather uncomfortable thing to experience, and when it’s misplaced or kicked into overdrive, it can be downright crippling.
How can you identify anxiety?
There are two major ways you can identify anxiety: what’s going on in your mind, and what’s going on in your body. Mentally, you can identify anxiety often by racing thoughts. It’s common when feeling anxious for your thoughts to go a mile a minute, and they’re usually not going to a good place. Often anxious thoughts go down a dark road, playing out extremes or worst case scenarios, and then it just keeps building on itself. These thoughts are triggered by things that happen in the present, but are focused on things in the future that may or may not happen, or are unknown. Here are some anxious thoughts I’ve seen and heard related to the COVID-19 situation:
“What if I don’t have enough supplies?”
”What will I do for two weeks with my kids stuck at home? How will I get my work done? Can I afford more childcare? What if I lose my job because I can’t get to the office or I’m less productive?”
”What if the economy collapses?”
”I think this is the collapse of society and the end times.”
Common physical symptoms of anxiety include: increased or decreased appetite (depending on the intensity of the anxiety), sweaty palms, increased heart rate, shortness of breath, restlessness, trouble falling or staying asleep, and fatigue (being anxious is exhausting.) Feeling tension in the back, neck, shoulders, jaw, and head is also a common sign of anxiety.
What are some ways to cope with anxiety?
The power of anxiety is not in the emotion itself — it’s in the value we place on that emotion. Often we get lost in anxiety and our language turns to “I am anxious” or “I am stressed.” Try instead to step back and just notice your anxiety. Try “I notice that I’m feeling anxious right now,” or even better “I notice my heart is beating faster and I’m carrying a lot of tension in my jaw.” When we detach ourselves from the anxiety a little bit and notice it instead of identify with it, it already begins to lose its power.
Another way we can take away anxiety’s power is by normalizing it. There is scary stuff going on right now, and feeling anxious is to be expected. Instead of feeling anxious and thinking this is a huge problem that I can’t deal with, try changing your thoughts to it is perfectly normal and reasonable for me to feel this way right now. I’m experiencing some anxiety right now and that’s okay. Part of the reason anxiety can become so crippling so quickly is because we start getting anxious about the fact that we’re anxious. Anxiety is uncomfortable, and when we start freaking out about being uncomfortable, it creates a snowball effect that just makes us more uncomfortable. If we expect the discomfort of anxiety and realize it’s okay to feel that discomfort, it makes it so much more bearable.
Once you get through the important steps of changing your mindset about the anxiety you’re experiencing, try some of these HEALTHY distractions to help get your mind off of the stressful situation:
Read or listen to a podcast or audiobook
Clean the house (that always helps me burn off some anxious energy!)
Exercise
Do some yoga and/or meditation
Play with your kids
Go outside and take a walk
Get busy with a hobby. If you don’t have one, now’s a good time to start one.
Do the breathing exercise shown at the end of this post.
Why does self-care even matter right now?
This is a great question, and a reasonable one. My client told me she couldn’t begin to think about healthy eating with everything else going on right now, and at first glance that makes sense. There is a global pandemic, and we’re worried about calories in and calories out? Doesn’t that seem a little silly?
No, and here’s why:
Stressors, big and small, come about all the time, and are the primary reason it can be difficult to maintain healthy habits. Theoretically, yes, it there will always be some bigger issue that demands attention. But if we let a stressor — no matter how big or novel — run the show, we lose our own momentum. Self-care is important because we need to be at our best to successfully manage the rest of our lives. If we let self-care go, even now in this pandemic, everything else begins to unravel.
When life gets stressful, it’s important to have something to anchor to, and healthy habits are a perfect anchor. So many other things in your life may be different right now. Maybe you’re not going to the office for a couple of weeks. Maybe your kids are home. Maybe how you use your time has changed. But one thing that doesn’t have to change is your healthy habits.
Additionally, take a moment to consider why stressful times are the most common times for people to fall away from their healthy habits. As stated above, anxiety is very uncomfortable, and we generally try to ease that discomfort as quickly as possible. That’s when we turn to eating all of the emergency stash we just clawed through the crowded grocery stores to obtain, or when we start hitting the wine just a little earlier each evening. We are trying to feel less uncomfortable. Those things help temporarily. We eat junk food or drink wine and feel comforted, but that quickly goes away, and not only are we left with the anxiety we had before, but now it’s compounded with feeling bad that we let ourselves go. It feels bad enough to feel anxious and uncomfortable, let’s not make ourselves feel worse.
As we get through the next few weeks of adjustment and discomfort while we ride out this virus, I encourage you to practice tuning into your emotions daily. Remember: just practicing identifying and detaching from your anxiety can help manage it, and this works for other emotions as well. Accept that this is an uncomfortable time, that your feelings are uncomfortable right now, and that’s normal and okay. Change your mindset about anxiety, and then get busy filling your mind with something else — something constructive. Above all, continue taking care of yourself throughout this crisis. Be at your best so you feel your best and so you can give your best to those who need you now.
