I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but you need to be taking breaks from COVID-19.
I do not say this to be insensitive to the people who COVID is impacting right now. It’s to address our global and unhealthy obsession with COVID. My heart aches for the people we have already lost, the people who are suffering now, and for their loved ones. I cannot encourage everyone enough to take COVID seriously in order to keep themselves and others safe. That said, I have witnessed intense preoccupation with COVID in clients, colleagues, friends, and family. This constant focus on fear needs to be addressed for the sake of all of our mental health.
Where do you Get Your Information?
There is a lot of misinformation out there right now. It is not surprising since this is a global pandemic that is seriously scaring people. We have never experienced something quite like this before. And certainly never with the modern technology that connects us all, globally, every day.
Not to discount or discredit the importance of news coverage, but it is important to realize that these organizations benefit from eye-catching headlines to the point that they have incentives to keep us in a collective cycle of fear and outrage. In turn, social media websites and people with enough followers on each of them are also incentivized financially and psychologically to share the headlines that will get them the most clicks. While we all need to stay up-to-date on government initiatives to keep us all safe, it might be a good idea to set some limits for your social media/news-watching time each day. You can also re-direct your focus to sources that are not depending on your views and clicks to pay their bills, like the BC Centre for Disease Control.
Experiencing COVID
With the best of intentions, and even with the commitment to take breaks from social media or even the Internet altogether, it can still be surprisingly difficult to take breaks from COVID coverage. Many of my clients, colleagues, friends, and family have shared an increased sense of fear and guilt when they have tried to limit their consumption of COVID coverage. A case like this, where all the average person can do to practically help is to do nothing, all by themselves, can be absolutely maddening.
Many of us have a sense of urgency that we feel we cannot do anything to soothe. So, we turn to COVID coverage and develop almost a sense of responsibility to be as well-informed as possible. Even if we are not so much “well-informed” as we are whipped into a frenzy from consuming every bit of COVID coverage from all over the world. The truth, though, is much simpler. You are responsible to follow guidelines set by our government to the best of your ability to protect yourself and slow the spread of COVID, and that is all. Understanding this, and letting go of what you cannot be responsible for, is a key early step in staying sane during this time.
Another stumbling block in taking a break from COVID coverage can come in the form of simple boredom. Most of us have at least a little more free time than usual. And we are all experiencing some level of social isolation. Even those of us who thrive on plenty of alone time may struggle with social isolation over time; this is just one aspect of the sensory stimulation we are experience on a daily basis. A person takes in stimulation through every sensory field, and this has a profound effect on every one of us whether we are conscious of it or not. A person who regularly goes to a workplace full of other people, sounds, sights, and scents will gradually find their own homes and their own company to be extremely under-stimulating. This leads to boredom and restlessness, and the inability to control this in the ways we might usually try to, such as getting together with a friend, are not available options.
Several of my clients have shared with me about how much the lack of sports during this time is impacting them. The entertainment value, the feelings of anticipation, and the familiar sights and sounds. The sense of being a part of a team/something bigger than themselves are all sorely missed.
This sense of boredom and restlessness in combination with the feeling that this is beyond our control can be particularly frustrating. This can lead us to seek out anxiety-inducing COVID coverage for the sake of both stimulation and the small feeling of compensating somehow for our loss of control. Once again, this is falling for the fallacy that focusing constantly on COVID coverage, no matter how accurate the information is or how healthy it is to be so preoccupied, means somehow doing something about it. I encourage you to accept the truth that you are already doing all that you can by staying home and practicing social distancing. Let go of any pressure you have been putting on yourself to maintain constant focus on this pandemic, and take this as an opportunity to focus on yourself.
Finding your Strategies
When was the last time you tried a new hobby? Or created/crafted something for no purpose other than your own enjoyment? You may be bored, restless, and antisocial at the moment. That does not erase who you are and what you love any more than taking part in the go-go-go, work-work-work culture that usually preoccupies much of Canadian society does. Now is your time to remember who you are, what you love, and what brings you joy. It is also a fantastic time to experiment! Why not challenge yourself to find new hobbies, creative outlets, and fun for yourself?
Last but not least, just trying to process the bizarre changes in our society can lead us to continually over-consume COVID coverage. Almost overnight, rumours and (for some) the mild anxiety in the back of your mind became your new reality. In leaving your house, you will have found yourself part of scenes that seem to better belong to some dystopian film than your real life. Things like crowded grocery stores with empty shelves, abandoned school playgrounds, lone pedestrians wearing masks who cross the street when they see you walking in their direction. It can feel as though you were rudely plucked from the world you know and transplanted into someone’s apocalyptic fantasy. This can trigger the same sort of “uncanny valley” feeling, explained in this short video by Mashable, that people can have looking at very realistic animation or animatronics of human beings.
When something appears to be extremely close to reality, but your brain also knows that what you are observing is not real, it can cause discomfort and anxiety. Similarly, but in reverse, when your brain knows that you are observing is real, but struggles to process how it can be real, you may experience discomfort and symptoms of anxiety such as derealisation and/or depersonalization. In short, you might be feeling very weird and unreal, or like your world is unreal, and constant COVID coverage may be helping you to ground yourself in your new reality.
While I never suggest letting go of a coping skill until you can replace it with a new one, I would like to encourage you to explore other ways to cope. Different methods of coping will have different levels of effectiveness for different people, but one that I often recommend is sense-based mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the practice of focusing your mind on specific aspects of your present reality. It can be incredibly effective in helping a person to feel grounded. However, a high percentage of us in Canada have complicated relationships with ourselves and even adversarial relationships with our own bodies for a variety of reasons, including issues with body image/dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, or physical issues like chronic pain. In these cases, a suggestion to take time to quietly focus on yourself/your present moment can sound like the introduction to a whole new problem rather than a possible coping skill.
This is why I suggest that you base your mindfulness in your senses. By focusing, not on your body itself, but on your body as it relates to the world around you, you may be able to access connection with yourself/your present/your reality while also focusing deeply on something other than what is causing you so much stress, anxiety, and discomfort.
In this truly bizarre and unprecedented time, I encourage you to apply any of this that feels like it could be a good fit for you. You can try any combination of these recommendations. Try combining aspects of mindfulness with your pursuit and exploration of hobbies, creative outlets, and activities that bring you joy. I leave you with some more information about sense-based mindfulness, so that you can try it, if you like. My sincere hope that you and yours are staying safe, healthy, and sane.
Sense-based Mindfulness:
This is a very flexible practice that can be highly individualized. You do it for as long as you like. 30 seconds, 30 minutes, half of a second in the midst of a stressful conversation, anything that fits. Experiment to find exactly how you like to do it. Some people like to go toe-to-head, and focus on each sensation that each part of the body feels in the space, such as how you can feel the ground supporting you with your feet, how the breeze feels as it tickles the hairs on your arm, or your own breath as it goes in and out of your nose or mouth.
The important thing is to try going through each of your senses to find what can be focused on. The quietest sound that you can hear, and for how long you can hear it. What you are touching and each texture you can make out. What you can see (it is helpful to focus deeply on one thing at a time, turn off the lights, or even to close your eyes and observe your own eyelids to minimize what you can see) and how many colours and shades it truly has. Every aspect of any scent that you can smell, even familiar tastes. If you want to introduce a snack to the exercise, can have layers that you have never fully explored before.
It can be helpful to use freely available guides to mindfulness exercises when you are just starting with mindfulness practice. Here is a good mindfulness exercise that is short, under six minutes, and that does not ask you to focus on how your body feels; here is a 20-minute mindfulness exercise that incorporates a lot of great education about sense-based mindfulness.