Thriving in a Global Pandemic and Beyond (eBook)

Chapter One:
Living in Unprecedented Times

Introduction

Many of us feel like we are living a nightmare caused by the wide-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This nightmare is not just about being safe from the virus, but includes worries about financial security, social isolation, and political and social unrest. As a result, many of us are beginning to experience psychological symptoms such as stress, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, cloudy thinking, and memory losses (Lima et al., 2020). If you are feeling this way, you are not alone.

Data compiled in 2020 by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics show that one third of U.S. adults have depression or anxiety symptoms. This is a sharp increase over the results of a comparable survey conducted in the first half of 2019. Another study completed in early April 2020 by the University of Connecticut found that the most common stressors were (Park et al., 2020):

• Reading/hearing about the severity and contagiousness of COVID-19 (96.6%)
• Uncertainty about the length of quarantine and social distancing requirements (88.3%)
• Disruptions to social life (83.7%)
• Changes to daily personal care (80.1%)

Furthermore, first responders and healthcare workers are likely to experience even higher stress levels and might be emotionally affected and traumatized with higher levels of depression and anxiety (McAlonan et al., 2007). This can be expected since these groups have higher levels of exposure to stressors.

So, what actions can we take to help us manage this? Who can we turn to for help? Even before this current crisis, mental health resources were scarce and not designed to help us in this unprecedented situation. The fact is, it will be up to us to figure out what we need and to seek out the resources to ensure that we come out the other side even more resilient than before.

Thriving in a Global Pandemic and Beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic impact on almost every aspect of life. We have had to live with uncertainty, changes in our daily routines, financial pressures, and social isolation. We are worried about getting sick, how long the pandemic will last, and what the future holds. We are overloaded with information, rumors, and misinformation which lead us to feeling like our lives are out of control.

Before the pandemic, we were a society that dined out frequently, traveled freely, and attended a wide range of entertainment events. During the pandemic, our socialization with others was limited to those we live with or to a small group. Also, our home became the center of our lives. We ate all of our meals at home, taught our children from home, found ways to entertain ourselves at home, and worked from home. Adding to an already stressful situation, many people have concerns about their children’s education, loss of income, job security, and the future (Van Bortel et al., 2016).

Furthermore, one of the dominant emotions during the pandemic is fear. Fear is an adaptive mechanism essential to survival that rallies many biological processes to help us prepare for a potentially threatening situation (Ornell et al., 2020). However, fear becomes harmful when it is ever-present or disproportionate to the problem, leading to several psychological disorders (Peeri et al., 2020). During a pandemic, fear increases and intensifies in both healthy individuals and in those with pre-existing mental health concerns which may have a more significant impact than the epidemic itself (Shigemura et al., 2020). This is not to say that there isn’t a genuine need to be fearful of the disease. It is just that the psychosocial and economic impact may have broad implications for our finances, family, education, organizations, public policy, and changes in daily routines.

Despite the challenges of living through the pandemic, there is reason to believe that we can develop the skills to handle whatever challenges we face today and in the future. The basis for this optimism can be found in decades of research in resiliency. This research indicates that taking a proactive approach to our mental health will allow us to not merely survive but to thrive (Polizzi et al., 2020). To thrive means we have the ability to bounce back quickly from problems and to take advantage of opportunities. It means we live with a sense of happiness and accomplishment and enjoy positive relationships. We are strong, vigorous, and successful in all aspects of our lives ... physically, mentally, and socially.

How Do We Cope

The unprecedented nature of our environment has resulted in a cascade of emotions such as helplessness, fear, anxiety, and hopelessness. As a result, we look for coping mechanisms to help us deal with the onslaught of emotions. Some of these coping mechanisms serve us well, such as engaging in physical exercise, spending quality time with friends and family either in-person or virtually, or fixing up our homes. However, other coping mechanisms may not serve us well in the long run, such as spending too much time indulging in marathon streaming, spending hours on social media, and looking for comfort in food or alcohol. Whether these coping mechanisms are healthy or unhealthy, they are motivated by our desire for control where we feel we have little or no control.

The premise of this book is that we can learn the skills we need to build resiliency and move to a higher level of happiness and mental health despite the pandemic. To build those skills, the practices in this book are based on a simple yet effective framework to help develop productive, positive coping strategies to move beyond merely surviving to thriving. This framework involves three concepts: control, connectedness, and coherence (Polizzi et al., 2020).

Control

Control describes the belief that an individual has the personal resources needed to achieve important goals. Having a sense of control gives us the confidence that we can handle whatever challenges come our way. One way to begin to build a sense of control over our lives is to start by focusing on developing control over our daily routine. This gives us the foundation we need to move to a focus on long-term goals. This is an important step because planning for the long-term helps us substitute worry with reflection which acts as a counterbalance to fear and anxiety.

Another aspect of control is realizing that we can control how we perceive the world and how we react to situations and other people. A simple example of this is the shift in perception that is reflected in understanding the difference between “I am stressed” to “I feel stressed.” This is more than a change in words. It is an acknowledgment that we are not our emotions and that we can control how we perceive both internal and external events. Chapters Two through Seven describe concepts and practices that can help you gain a sense of control in an out-of-control world.

Connectedness

In times of crisis, we have an intense desire to be together ... to seek out others and to establish bonds, even with strangers. Empirical evidence suggests that social support is one of the most impactful and consistent factors in resiliency. However, this pandemic has placed restrictions on our ability to be with others, which takes away one of the critical ways we deal with trauma. In today’s environment, unlike other natural disasters or traumatic events like 9/11, we cannot join together physically and socially with a common purpose to energize and support one another.

As a result, we have limited the number of people we interact with either in-person or virtually. One of the advantages of limiting the circle of people we interact with is that we have the opportunity to build deeper and more meaningful relationships (Polizzi et al., 2020). Engaging with a smaller group of people provides us with the opportunity to develop more empathy and compassion, improve our deep listening skills, and demonstrate care and concern. This is critically important since strong relationships during a traumatic time is a strong predictor of increased psychological well-being and perhaps a reduced level of post-traumatic stress symptoms (Dekel et al., 2015). Chapter Eight provides practices to help build positive relationships, which can be one of our greatest strengths and resiliency sources.

Coherence

Coherence refers to the human drive to make sense and meaning of our lives and the world. Creating a coherent narrative of what has happened and what needs to be done to live safely and fully is essential to cope with a stressful environment. One way to do this is to reflect on what is important to you. What comforts you in situations where you have limited control? How do you want others to describe your response during this time? How do you want to be remembered by what you did or didn’t do? The practices in Chapter Nine provide an opportunity for you to explore your values and help you create a narrative for this uncertain and stressful time.

Take Charge of Your Mental Well-Being

If we wait for local and national entities to address the heightened psychological trauma level, we will miss an opportunity to build the skills we need to deal with the challenges of today and the future. Of...