As we sail through the ‘second wave’ of the pandemic, its normal to feel anxious. However, sustained high anxiety can undermine our constructive responses to the crisis.
The following strategies, based on psychological science, can help you deal with coronavirus anxiety.
- Practice tolerating Uncertainty
Researchers say that people who are not able to tolerate uncertainty are becoming vulnerable to anxiety.
Based on the study conducted during 2009 on H1N1 pandemic, researchers showed that people who had a harder time accepting the uncertainty in a given situation, were more likely to experience elevated anxiety.
Here, is a small exercise to tolerate uncertainty:-
Next time, if you want answers/clarification about something, don’t immediately google or text your friend. Just give it a time, say for an hour. Let the uncertainty, sit on with you for some time. Distract yourself and do some other work. This way we can build your tolerance-of-uncertainty muscle.
2, Tackle the Anxiety Paradox:
What you resist, persist– Carl Jung
I have heard my friend telling me how she used to binge watch episodes in Netflix just to calm down her anxiety.
Researchers say that eating or doing something more than usual to get rid of the anxious situation may provide a temporary relief but will not help in the long run. Facing anxiety in the moment will lead to less anxiety over time.
Let’s start doing a small exercise to accept anxiety as an integral part of this crisis experience:-
Everyday, allow yourself time to notice what you’re thinking, feeling and behaving without judgements. Physiological (fear) and physical (increased heart rate) sensations are the major part of the anxiety experience. You could either start journaling or start sharing with others.
3. Seeing the Bigger Picture
With sheer unexpected news about the death of corona patients, it’s natural for all of us to be consumed with health anxiety and be hyper focused on any illness signs like cough or fever. However, may be this is the time for transcending ourselves to connect with our bigger picture – ‘Purpose’.
Let’s embark on something, be it spiritual, relationship or pursuit for a cause, which we have been procrastinating for years together.
Researchers through their study, found that focusing on or discovering “the why of life” can go a long way in helping us to deal with our unavoidable anxious state.
4. Building Resilience:
Based on a study, researches stated that people tend to overestimate how they might be affected by the negative events than how they can cope and adjust to the negative events. It is essential to look at our strengths we have gained by going through difficult times in our life.
Here, is a small exercise on building resilience:
Research proves that identifying and leveraging strengths enhances resilience.
Take a free self-assessment survey to capture your key character strengths by accessing ‘Values in Action’ Strengths Survey. This survey measures 24 positive character traits of an individual. You can take the test through the web address given below:
https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register.
Once you receive your strengths report, try to reflect on your individual strengths and consider how you can make a difference by using them during the crisis period.
5. Stay with just the facts:
Researchers who studied impact of H5N1 virus among people, stated that constant incendiary media coverage regarding virus lead to heightened fear. Hence, find a credible source to gather information (may be for 15-30 minutes a day) that will help to accurately determine the risk to take reasonable precautions.
Last but not least, maintain a healthy lifestyle – including proper diet, sleep, exercise and social contacts with loved ones at home and by email and phone with other family and friends.
Prioritizing these five strategies in the coming days can help you towards increasing your psychological wellbeing and bolstering the immune system.
References:
Ishida, R. and Okada, M. (2006), Effects of a firm purpose in life on anxiety and sympathetic nervous activity caused by emotional stress: assessment by psycho‐physiological method. Stress and Health, 22: 275-281. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.1095
Slovic, P., & Peters, E. (2006). Risk Perception and Affect. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(6), 322–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00461.x
Taha, S., Matheson, K., Cronin, T. and Anisman, H. (2014), Intolerance of uncertainty, appraisals, coping, and anxiety: The case of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Br J Health Psychol, 19: 592-605. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12058
Van den Bulck, J., & Custers, K. (2009). Television exposure is related to fear of avian flu, an ecological study across 23 member states of the European Union. The European Journal of Public Health, 19(4), 370-374.
Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current directions in psychological science, 14(3), 131-134. Wright, G., Bolger, F. and Rowe, G. (2002), An Empirical Test of the Relative Validity of Expert and Lay Judgments of Risk. Risk Analysis, 22: 1107-1122. https://doi.org/10.1111/1539-6924.00276
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