Have you had an uptick in worry, even with the good news of fewer cases and effective vaccines? If yes, you are in good company.
A year ago, I was talking nonstop about ways to care for our nervous systems. The sudden arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the never experienced (for most of us) stay-at-home orders, were triggering all the threat system alarm bells.
Problems sleeping. Nervous tension. A visceral response to wearing a mask for the first time in the grocery store. I had them all, and so did my patients.
With the anniversary now past, we are getting daily good news: the vaccines are safe and effective, hospitalizations are going down, and we may be able to have some normalcy by summer.
So why might we feel uneasy about having friends and family inside our homes again, with or without masks? Dining in a restaurant is one of my favorite things ever, but I know that after a year of strictly takeout, being seated inside is going to feel so strange!
Apparently, we are more likely to feel re-entry anxiety if we find staying home to be comforting, because it gives us control. We can reduce our risk when in our home environment, and when we go out, we are increasing our risk. People who are less concerned for their survival experience a bigger feeling of loss from being told to stay home.
Experts say that there are some things we can do to manage anxiety as we emerge back into public spaces. Focus on what you can control. Get good information to assess your risk. Ease into things, no need to make the re-entry as abrupt as the lockdown. Practice mindfulness so that you can recognize and “surf” the anxiety when it happens.
I find it helpful to remind myself it is normal to be on guard, so when my heart speeds up or I get that visceral gut feeling, my mind doesn’t have to scramble to guess about what danger may be nearby. Because our minds want to make sense of things, and when the threat system gets activated our minds will take all kinds of guesses. We can over-react endlessly and stay alive, but we can only under-react once. Our brains aren’t concerned as much about our happiness as our survival. Telling myself my body is just nervous because it has been so long with these precautions will go a long way toward making this transition as easy as possible.
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