Over the past weeks, coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread worldwide. With more outbreaks being reported each day and conflicting information getting shared around the clock, it can feel harder than usual to stay calm.
With so much still unknown about the coronavirus, you may be feeling more fear and anxiety than normal. Feelings of fear and anxiety can feel unmanageable as they feed off of the unseeable and unknowable.
Here are some ways to manage feelings of fear and anxiety brought on by the coronavirus:
Seek out reliable information
Anxiety is an emotion that wants to plan and protect. It feeds off of information, and when it’s fed information that is wrong, it goes into a five-alarm alert, setting off fight-or-flight responses.
To help manage your anxiety, check for updates by reputable health organizations such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO).
2. Pay attention to how your feeling
Feelings of anxiety are normal and to be expected given the circumstances. Ignoring the anxiety will only make it grow louder in order to gain your attention. Paradoxically, only focusing on your anxiety can make things seem worse than they are.
Mindfulness can be a great tool to help you notice what you’re feeling, allow yourself to acknowledge the feeling without judgment, and continue on with what you were doing.
3. Identify other factors that may be influencing your anxiety
While there are valid reasons to feel anxious, there may be more happening beneath the surface. Get curious about your anxiety, and consider what other aspects you are responding to, especially if you are aware of heightened sensitivities to germs, death from illnesses, or hospitals.
4. Controlling what is controllable
There are plenty of things we have no control over. There are also a lot of things we do have control over. Consider engaging in habits that you do have control over, such as: hand washing, disinfecting household or workspace surfaces, and traveling with hand sanitizer.
5. Take a break from the news and social media
More information is not always what will help us feel safer. It can be easy to get pulled into echo-chambers of anxiety and fear when we’re constantly plugged in to the latest updates. Mindfulness can help us understand why we’re checking the news and how it serves us.
6. Grounding activities
It can be easy to get caught up in our worries about what might happen. Grounding yourself in the present moment can be done wherever, whenever. You can mindfully take a walk, wash dishes, or cook dinner all by noticing what you see, feel, and hear right here, right now.
You can also try, the 5-4-3-2-1 technique works by noticing and taking in the details of your surroundings using each of your senses:
What are 5 things you can see?
What are 4 things you can touch?
What are 3 things you can hear?
What are 2 things you can smell?
What is 1 thing you can taste?
Part of a disease's impact is psychological in nature. As humans, we tend to respond to information emotionally. This can include feelings of anxiety, hyper-vigilance, catastrophizing, and helplessness. Mindfulness can be a helpful tool to help us notice our fear, acknowledge it without judgment, and respond proportionally.
Next time, we’ll talk about how to support your child during this global health crisis.