Coping with the COVID-19 Pande-maniA
COVID-19, it’s our newest companion as we go to the mall, visit the grocery store, or see the dentist. There’s rarely a moment it doesn’t cross our minds after leaving the house, or even before. ‘Did I pack my hand sanitizer?’ ‘Do I wear the cloth mask or the KN95, or both?’ Though a lot of our government-sanctioned restrictions have disappeared, we still haven’t gotten completely clear of the virus.
If only we could say it was all in our heads, that the whole world just came down with a severe case of paranoia, and decided to protect itself from the very air we breathe. Unfortunately, though, the threat has been quite real. The Center for Disease Control reports that the year 2020 saw at least 350,831 COVID-19 related deaths in the United States. That made COVID-19 related deaths the third leading cause of mortality. Only heart disease and cancer took more lives that year. And our country wasn’t the only one. Italy registered more deaths in 2020 than it had in any year since World War II. According to the World Health Organization, as of March 28th 2022, there had been 6,124,396 COVID-related deaths worldwide. And though the rate of mortality has decreased in many places, the death toll itself is still rising.
In addition to the substantial numbers of deaths, we’ve had to deal with constant change in our everyday lives. Since COVID-19 became a pandemic, change has really been the only constant for many of us. People were sent to home to use their their computers for work, but with no clear idea as to when they would be able to return to their workplaces. Online classes became the norm for children and teens going to school, and then some schools transitioned back and some didn’t. Adolescent suicide rates sky rocketed in the United States. We ‘met’ our friends on zoom. We had ‘watch parties’ so we could ‘go to the movies together’ while still remaining at home and out of harm’s way.
We had a country-wide shortage of toilet paper. And though I still have a deep gratitude for the easy-to-install bidet, I’m glad that’s over. Mask shortages led to people wearing their favorite color-coordinated hankies attached to their ears with ouchless ponytail holders. Tennis matches were played with paper cut-out spectators, while real audiences were at home watching live stream. The choices of what to do with the family on a Friday night were narrowed down to Netflix-binging versus walking around the neighborhood again and again, and again. I’ve honestly met more neighbors since the pandemic started than I had in my years of living in my home. We learned to bake our own bread; some of us even went so far as to stock our homes with enough food that feed a small army.
Talk about stress. All of this change and the threat of a potentially deadly encounter with another human being, has taken its toll on our nervous systems. We may not realize it, but on a daily basis, many of us have come to live in a constant state of fear. There’s fear about the future, of whether or not we or our loved ones will get sick, of what will happen to our country’s economy, of what will happen to our livelihoods, of what will happen if we get the vaccine, or even of what will happen if we go to the grocery store. Lots of fear. This sense of fear can activate the fear center in your brain—the amygdala. Fear also activates the fear-related components of your nervous system, or the sympathetic nervous system. This fear-related nervous system helps you respond to scary situations, like jumping out of the way when a car is coming, or fighting off an attacker. It causes your heart to beat faster, your reaction time to decrease, your pupils to get larger, your survival mode thoughts to activate, your digestion to decrease, your blood to thicken, and your breathing rate to speed up. When these fear nerves are activated on a long term basis, they can lead to depression, anxiety, insomnia, difficulty with attention, hopelessness, negative thinking, and overall feelings of being unwell.
The key to survival is learning how to soothe our nervous systems. When we were infants, we would cry and depend on someone else to pick us up or rock us, in order to help us feel better. In many ways, we still rely on this kind of connection. Social connection, positive secure relationships, help us feel safe. They calm our nervous systems. Engaging in socialization, even if it is online, can be helpful.
Safe, compassionate touch is another means to help soothe our nerves. Massage and reiki are examples of this. A randomized clinical trial (a type of research study) done at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, investigated the effect of reiki and massage on stress. The 122 participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups, a ‘massage and rest’ group, a ‘massage and reiki’ group, and a ‘no intervention’ group. Each participant in the treatment groups had eight treatment sessions over the course of a month, and their levels of anxiety were measured at different stages. There were statistically significant reductions in anxiety noted in both the ‘massage and rest’ group and the ‘massage and reiki’ group. The biggest reduction in anxiety was noted in the ‘massage and reiki group’ (see research article). Though there are potential areas for improvement in the set up of this study, the results still remain significant. Massage and/or reiki can be helpful for stress and anxiety.
Going to a massage therapist or reiki practitioner may not be possible for you, but one way around this is to try giving yourself a foot massage just before bed. Some people invest in at-home foot baths, which give massages while your feet soak. But even using a calming therapeutic-grade essential oil like lavender, and massaging a few drops mixed with body lotion onto the soles of your feet, may be helpful. Another way to slip an at-home massage experience into your day, is to buy a massaging shower head or a chair massager. These mechanical methods lack the component of human touch, but they can still produce positive benefits. Additionally, self massage—which is actually an ancient practice—helps us develop a relationship with ourselves.
Another method to soothe your nervous system is to make your life as regular as possible. This may sound boring, but getting yourself into a regular daily routine will help your nervous system know what to expect. Eating regular meals around the same time each day, keeps your primitive, survival, fear-based brain from being activated. Why? Because it knows you will satisfy the body’s need to eat. Similarly, having a regular bedtime—even if you’re not sleeping so well—allows your nerves to know that you will have the opportunity to get the rest you need. The same goes for regular exercise. Regular exercise takes care of your physical body’s need to move.
In the Ayurvedic system, it is thought that your nervous system is wired around three basic needs: food, sleep, and energy expenditure (e.g. exercise). The more regular and routine you can make these activities, the less likely you are activate your fear-based nervous system.
One more technique to calm your nerves is meditation. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a systematic review and meta-analysis—which is a research study that analyzes the combined data from many other studies—about meditation and psychological stress. The research showed that there is moderate evidence to support meditation being effective in improving anxiety (see research article).
Celebrities like Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, and even tennis champion Rafael Nadal, speak of using meditation to keep themselves healthy. Working a meditation routine into your daily life can be tricky. Two times that may be easiest, are when you wake up and just before you go to bed. It’s helpful to connect new routines to things you already have to do. You can try stretching a bit upon awakening, and then sitting in meditation for 5, 10, or perhaps even 15-minutes. For more details about how to meditate, please check out my beginner’s meditation guide.
Lastly, spend time with the earth. Try to walk outside everyday. Humans were not meant to spend their lives in artificially created, indoor spaces. Our ancestors hunted their own food and had a deep connection to the earth. Everything in life has a rhythm. Your body has it’s own unique bio-rhythm. Nature has a rhythm. And computers have their own rhythm. The virtual world is much more fast-paced than our body’s natural rhythm. The less time we spend around technology, and the more time we spend in nature, the better able we are to return to our body’s natural bio-rhythm. Maintaining a healthy rhythm of life is most important to promoting health and wellbeing. Research has found that being in nature is soothing to the nervous system and can have a positive effect on our mental health. For more details, check out this research article.
You can begin realigning with your natural rhythm by taking 10 minutes out of your day to walk in a safe place outside. It could be around your home or maybe even around your workplace during lunch. If all you have access to is urban spaces without many trees, don’t let that stop you. A walk outside could still soothe your nerves and keep you aligned.
We’ve now gone through five methods to help your nervous system feel nurtured. Here’s a summary of what we’ve discussed:
Maintain positive and secure relationships.
Engage in safe, compassionate touch—like a foot massage before bed.
Keep regular eating, sleeping, and exercising routines.
Meditate daily.
Walk outside in nature for 10 minutes daily.
Hopefully with these techniques, and any others that you find helpful, you’ll be well on your way to a happy, healthy, fearless life.
