SAAA April 2020 Special Edition Residence Magazine APR_2020_DIGITAL_Magazine | Page 22

10 Ways to Ease Your Coronavirus Anxiety
These simple tips will help you relax and put things in perspective
— in between washing your hands, of course.
By Simran Sethi
New York Times
Published March 18, 2020
Updated March 22, 2020
“Life is one thing after another,” Dr.
Harriet Lerner, a psychologist and author,
said. “And just because the universe has
already sent us one big stress, it doesn’t
mean we won’t be hit with others.”
Dr. Lerner has spent much of her career
researching the effects of anxiety and
fear on individuals, families and larger
systems. She has also managed anxiety
in her own life (documented in her best
seller “The Dance of Fear”). That makes
her the perfect person to help us tackle
the rise in panic accompanying Covid-19,
the disease caused by the novel corona-
virus.
Last week the World Health Organization
officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
The virus has infected approximately
210,000 people globally, rattling financial
markets, upending local economies and
resulting in over 8,700 deaths world-
wide, with numbers expected to climb.
According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, there are more
than 5,300 cases in the United States
and, as of publication, close to 100 peo-
ple have died.
It is easy to succumb to fear in the face
of uncertainty and unpredictability. Yet,
despite panic-inducing op-eds and a new
study that estimates more than 9,000
Americans may already be infected,
experts insist there is still room for a bit
of optimism. In Italy, one of the primary
hot spots of the pandemic, the number
of recoveries continues to rise above
its death toll. A new study shows that
often-milder cases, while prolific, are
about half as infectious as confirmed
22
ones. And a team of researchers from
McMaster University and the University
of Toronto have isolated the agent within
the novel coronavirus that will help the
world develop better diagnostic tools
and, eventually, a vaccine. along swimmingly.” It is normal to feel
overwhelmed but what we can avoid,
she says, is labeling ourselves as “weak”
or comparing ourselves to others. Every-
one is confronting challenges we may
not fully recognize or understand.
There is time to change the course of
Covid-19, but it is hard to remember this
when we’re hand washing, stockpiling
and practicing social distancing. Here are
10 ways Dr. Lerner suggests we can stay
centered, refrain from succumbing to
our worst fears and be better prepared
for whatever our collective future holds.
(Her responses have been edited for
length and clarity.) Another important component of putting
the pandemic in perspective is balancing
what we should and should not do. As a
general rule, Dr. Lerner suggests we be
vigilant rather than underreacting. “Err-
ing on the side of being overly cautious
is challenging because it goes against our
deep human need for physical connec-
tion. It’s tempting to rationalize our wish
to have that one friend over or to see
that one client in our office, especial-
ly when our economic interests are at
stake.”
Know the facts.
“My advice for coping,” she says, “is
the same for all the scary events and
possibilities that life brings: Go for the
facts — even difficult ones — because
anxiety escalates and fantasies flourish
in the absence of information.” But don’t
overdo it, as too much information can
aggravate stress.
Because the world is rife with misinfor-
mation, Dr. Lerner suggests avoiding
unregulated online news sources and
relying on depoliticized ones. “Under
stress, people are unlikely to rethink the
filters through which they see reality. It’s
our responsibility to pay attention to our
own most valued sources of information
and to follow up-to-date instructions to
the letter.”
Put the pandemic in perspective.
“The current crisis is not the only stress-
or most of us are dealing with,” Dr. Lern-
er reminds us. “If your dog just died, you
lack economic resources and necessary
social services or your partner is leaving
you — Well, the current world crisis will
obviously hit you harder than if every-
thing in your life was otherwise moving
April 2020 SPECIAL EDITION | www.saaaonline.org
Uncertainty and second-guessing are
part of the human condition. While the
anxiety they engender “feels dreadful,”
she stresses, “unlike denial and underre-
acting, you will not die from it.”
Identify the source(s) of your anxiety.
We are hard-wired for a fight-or-flight
response. “The greater the simmering
anxiety,” Dr. Lerner explains, “the more
you will see individuals stuck in fighting
and blaming on one hand, or distanc-
ing and cutting off on the other.” This is
normal, she says, but if we can identify
our anxiety-driven reactivity, “we can get
some distance from it, rather than being
propelled into action before we have
calmed down enough to do our best
thinking.”
Refrain from shaming and blaming.
When survival anxiety is high and goods
feel scarce, it’s easy to blame or scape-
goat others, forgetting that we are all
in this together. “Our target may be a
particular group or an individual, like
the woman who sneezes in line in front