7 Ways to Reduce Anxiety During COVID-19
By Tim Weissman, Ph.D.
Big change is hard. When our lives experience sudden rapid change, our usual coping mechanisms frequently become disrupted. We tend to go through our lives in a relative homeostatic balance of routine.
When COVID-19 landed in the news and expert epidemiologists convinced leaders around the world to start engaging in restrictive measures to slow its spread, it happened extremely fast. Suddenly, our daily lives were turned upside down. Our normal routines became impossible and great feelings of uncertainty spread quickly like a virus itself.
At the heart of this rapid change and increased uncertainty is a feeling of anxiety. We find ourselves worrying regularly what the future will bring. With this sense of unease, our bodies produce stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. If we allow worry and stress to continue daily, we become worn down mentally and physically. Thus, it is important to engage in strategies to reduce anxiety and stress.
Many excellent strategies exist to reduce anxiety. Psychologists have known for decades how to change behavior and thinking in order to improve our emotional experiences. Below I discuss seven ways to obtain more peace and calm during this uncertain time. You can implement as many as you like, but I strongly encourage you to engage strategies which can become consistent, daily. Bringing back a sense of routine will, in and of itself, help immensely.
1. Reduce Media Consumption
This is first on the list because of its special importance now. Media consumption can be associated with many mental health challenges. Social media has received a great deal of attention in recent years, as excessive use can be associated with anxiety and depression, as well as a host of other struggles. While I do suggest you cut your social media use at least in half, the specific kind of media which I suggest you significantly limit is more traditional news – newspapers, news websites and television news programs.
News media make their living on getting your attention so that their advertisers can sell products and services. Nothing grabs our attention like bold headlines warning us about the dangerous world around us. The implication is that we better stay tuned to find out how to be protected. Taking this information in to your mind numerous times per day can activate your fear response and increase levels of stress hormones. Further, the information very rarely changes, and the same fearful messages just keep getting reinforced day after day.
Challenge yourself to stay away from the media for one full day. Assess how you feel after doing this. If you feel even slightly calmer, consider going for 2 days. You are not required to pay attention to all the doom and gloom being promoted by news sites. In fact, you are free to give your attention to anything you like. Engage that freedom and help yourself reduce anxious feelings.
2. Develop a Schedule
Consider for a moment why boredom can set in when we do the same thing over and over, day after day. At times, we get the sense that we are in a rut, doing nothing new. It’s blasé. Rigid routines eliminate surprises and keep life much simpler. They can also become so predictable that they don’t feel spontaneous or exciting. Yet, this sense of predictability and stability is good when we want to lower our anxiety.
When we feel particularly stressed and anxious, we can use more routine and less surprise. So, my suggestion is to develop a routine schedule for your daily activities. Wake up at the same time. Go to sleep at the same time. Divide your day into at least hourly segments and focus on specific tasks during specifics times. Keep a calendar and track your activities daily, marking off your timeslots as they finish. It may feel forced if you have not done this previously, but the structure and focus on creating and implementing the routine will help you succeed in the process. When you are successful, your days will feel (and likely be) more productive, and your stress level should lower.
3. Engage the Rational Mind
Anxiety is focused on the future – worried about “what if” and playing out worst case scenarios. During this time of COVID-19, our anxieties focus extensively on negative numbers and rare occurrences. We zero in on a .5% fatality rate and worry about the story we heard where a healthy young person got extremely sick. We find it hard to stop and think about the other side of the coin. Rationally, we know that 99.5% of people recover, and that the vast majority of bad outcomes occur in folks who are quite vulnerable.
Practice using your rational mind. Replace fearful thoughts with more logic-driven thoughts. Be consistent. Every time you worry about becoming the rare occurrence, replace the thought with the opposite, and vastly more likely, side of the coin. Another way of considering it is to replace the “what if” thought with a “what is” thought. Instead of thinking “what if” I get sick and frail and die; think about “what is” – that you are not sick and not likely at all to die.
4. Mindfulness Meditation
An excellent partner in learning to engage rationality is mindfulness - a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Obtaining a sense of mindfulness takes practice, but the benefits are immense. Mindfulness is associated with mental focus and clarity, reduction in stress and improved memory.
A wonderful way to learn mindfulness is with a guided meditation. There are numerous apps on the market which can help you practice mindfulness meditation. In a guided meditation, a speaker will give you verbal instructions to assist you in calming your mind. Typically, this is paired with serene music or perhaps binaural beats. The combined effects are an enhanced sense of peace and easing of tension. For beginners, the process will likely feel odd and your mind will likely continue its nonstop distracted thinking. This is normal and expected. My suggestion is to simply allow your mind to do this and to gently bring yourself back to focusing on the meditation when you notice. Practicing mindfulness meditation will improve your ability to empty your thoughts, and this will eventually translate to the ability to become mindful without a formal meditation process. You will ultimately be able to reduce tension and stress with a 10-min mindfulness pause during a busy day.
An excellent way to practice mindfulness meditation is with a customized tailor-made meditation recording. You can find these at Journey’s Bridge. In the custom meditation, your specific anxieties and stresses are addressed, helping you engage in the process more fully. Generalized guided meditations on popular apps can include issues we don’t specifically struggle with, and thus be distracting at times, pulling us away from the process. In a custom meditation, we focus purely on our specific experiences, leading to a more enduring impactful practice.
5. Exercise
Have you ever heard of a “runner’s high?” People who run for exercise frequently develop a keen desire to engage in the practice simply because of how they feel when they run. After 20-30 minutes of strong aerobic running, our bodies release endorphins – nature’s feel-good drug. Endorphins interact with a neurotransmitter in the brain to reduce our perception of physical pain and trigger a feeling of elation. This feeling can last hours and usually continues having a positive effect on our mood for up to a full day.
The good news for those of us with older knees is that running is not required to release these endorphins. Any aerobic exercise will do the same, as long as you get your heart rate up for 20-30 minutes. So my suggestion is to find an exercise which works for you and raise your heart rate up enough to sweat 3-5 times per week. Consider this a prescription just like the ones you get at the pharmacy. You have access to a medicine which is produced naturally inside your own body, and which has an amazing list of benefits – improved mood, improved physical health, decreased pain, decreased stress.
6. Engage with loved ones
We are social beings. We need human connection. In times of struggle we turn to our fellow human beings for support, encouragement, and connection. During this uncertain time, many people are caught between a rock and a hard place. They want (and need) to be around loved ones, friends, extended family and their community. But, due to society’s efforts to limit viral spread, most of us are separated from people.
If you are fortunate to be with loved ones, make the most of this time together - eat meals together, share stories, talk about your hopes and dreams, tell jokes, reminisce, play games, watch movies together. If you are with your romantic partner, take the time to work on intimacy or strike a new sexual spark together. Your time with the people you love can be a blessing in disguise if you choose to reframe it as an opportunity.
If you are away from loved ones, take advantage of technology to feel closer. Video calls are the next best thing to being there. Try daily video calls and set up a conference call for several loved ones to share together once a week. Many apps exist for this now. Zoom has received a great deal of attention recently, as it is easy to set up. If you have not engaged in this technology for communicating, you may be surprised at how wonderful it is in reducing your stress.
7. Create Something
The process of creation can significantly reduce stress. When we are being genuinely creative, we bring ourselves to the here and now. We stop feeling sad about the past or anxious about the future. We get outside our incessant thinking and can simply Be. Of course, many of us don’t realize that we are creative. I’m not talking about inventing a new product or painting a masterpiece (although these definitely count). Creativity is part of who we are as human beings and can be accessed in many simpler ways.
Cooking is creative. Try a new recipe and marvel at the result, or make a slight change to it and see if it’s better. Writing is creative. Keep a daily diary of your experiences or choose to write a poem. Coloring is creative. Use a children’s coloring book and crayons or doodle on a sketch pad and post the result on your refrigerator. Dressing is creative. Make up a new outfit or new combination of accessories and show it off. Photography is creative. Take fun or serious pictures and send them to friends. Listening to music is creative. Put together mood playlists or genre playlists and share them. The common thread is simply to create something new. It feels great and reduces anxiety.
If you or someone you know could use help with anxiety - please visit Journey’s Bridge Counseling.