What do we do with all of this Coronavirus anxiety?? Here are some tips for adults and teens:
Only check the news once a day, and not before bed. For younger teens, consider checking the news only once or twice a week. Only visit trusted sources for COVID-19 updates and advice, like the local health department website and CDC website.
If you’re a parent, keep your own anxiety in check. Reassure your child that we are not panicking because we think we are going to die. Rather we are social distancing as a preventive measure to help make sure the hospitals have enough beds for the small percentage of people who will get sick. Remember: If we all socially distance and nothing exciting happens, that’s the whole point!
Beware social media. Consider taking a Facebook and Instagram break, or like the news, check them only once a day. For teens who are stuck at home, limiting social media may not be the best plan if it means restricting access to their friends who are also a big part of their support system. Talk to your teen to see what makes sense for them. You’d be surprised how many teens are relieved to have an excuse to get offline. For others, they may want to make their own plan on how to best keep themselves from getting overloaded, such as checking less frequently or using some apps instead of others.
Talk about it! Most people, including kids, aren’t actually super anxious about getting sick themselves or about dying from COVID-19. Some are worried about the health of grandparents or older relatives. But I’ve found most people are anxious because anxiety is catchy! When we talk about the things that really are bothering us about all this - falling behind in school, missing work, missing friends, cancelling vacations, having enough food and supplies - it puts our worries into smaller packages that we can deal with a little at a time.
Recognize what you can change, and what you can’t. Feeling out of control and having a lot of uncertainty are the two things that anxiety feeds off of. Focus on the things that you CAN change.
Keep routines! Continue to get up at the same time you would if you had to go to school and into the office, and go to bed accordingly. Structure your time with work tasks, schoowork, meals, whatever you normally would do during the day. Make a schedule and put it on the fridge. Routines are particularly critical for kids who aren’t able to go to school. Routines help minimize anxiety!
Spend time outside. When we stay in the house and all we do is read about illness, we start to feel ill. Get some fresh air, go for a walk in the woods. If you live in an area where you can’t practice social distancing outside because it’s too populated, stream some yoga or exercise videos on YouTube.
For those of you whose anxiety puts you at risk for excessive handwashing or sanitizer use, remember you only have to wash your hands one time with soap and water for 20 seconds and that is enough. Wash as soon as you get home, after you use the bathroom, and before meals. You do not need to wash your hands at home any more than that unless someone in your house has an illness. You should never be using hand sanitizer in your own home if you have running water. If you are out of the house, you may need to use sanitizer after grocery shopping, etc, but you should do so only once per each location you visit.
Laugh! Some of those coronavirus memes are pretty funny, and can help bring some levity to the situation. Watch comedies, not pandemic movies.
FaceTime with people you love. Crisis brings us together - what a great opportunity to reach out and connect with people you haven’t talked to for a while! (Just make sure you are talking about things other than the coronavirus.)
Breathe. Deep breathing calms our nervous system. Have you paused yet today and taken three deep breaths?? Try the 7-11 breath: inhale for a count of 7, and exhale for a count of 11. Or triangle breathing: Inhale 6 seconds, hold it 6 seconds, exhale 6 seconds. Pause and try it right now. Schedule an alarm three times a day to remind you to pause and breathe.
Remember this too shall pass. Life is a pile of uncertainty, and every day brings different things, despite all of our careful planning. We can best manage anxiety by accepting uncertainty and recognizing that not everything can be fixed or needs to be fixed.
If you feel overwhelmed, you can call your therapist and schedule a telehealth session. ❤️
Please note: I am now requiring telehealth video sessions for current clients.
I am unable to accept any new clients at this time.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/10/768588170/how-vaping-nicotine-can-affect-a-teenage-brain?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/09/768665411/changing-your-diet-can-help-tamp-down-depression-boost-mood
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-terrible-teens
“Snowplow Parenting” (or Lawnmower Parenting) is when you clear every single obstacle out of your kid’s way to guarantee their success, which results in your child growing up without learning how to problem-solve or deal with life’s normal challenges:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/style/snowplow-parenting-scandal.html
Note: I also see the opposite regularly in my practice: parents who allow their teen to make all their own decisions with no guidance, often not realizing their kid is underwater and needing help. I’ll post more about this problem at a later date.
We ALL need movement and breathing breaks to help us manage stress and anxiety. Here’s an article on how it can help school-age children:
When someone is feeling like hurting themselves, they don’t always respond honestly to direct questions like “Are you feeling suicidal?” The Crisis Text Line encourages an “expression of care” way of asking questions that can help reduce suicidal thoughts: https://mashable.com/article/how-to-ask-about-suicide-crisis-text-line/?fbclid=IwAR34_xGkFLrVjAj29vQBznVHi2L-GZUzcGtWQUc9V3diYHc4NPF-KR19h_Q#
If you parent a teenage girl - or even a gender non-conforming teen or teenage boy - Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood by Lisa Damour, PhD is filled with excellent, practical, helpful, and thoughtful advice and ideas on what your teen is going through as they move through their teenage years and how you can support and guide them effectively. I highly recommend this book to parents and anyone who works with teens of any gender.
Anger and irritability can be signs of depression that are often unrecognized.
The Advocacy Center is holding a free two-day Training of Trainers on January 10 and 11 for Enough Abuse Tompkins. Enough Abuse Tompkins is a peer-facilitated educational program for adults in Tompkins County. Skilled community members who have completed an intensive training process lead interactive free workshops that focus on understanding sexual behaviors in children, sexual abuser behaviors and grooming tactics, and the social conditions that perpetuate abuse.
To apply to be a workshop facilitator, click here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfDP6IhOqTZhnkid_UB4PghuxvSGebVKurTk2OLa3LaVM9uOA/viewform
To learn more about Enough Abuse Tompkins, visit this website:
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s annual poll, 40 percent of Americans report feeling more anxious in 2018 than they did in 2017, which saw a 36 percent increase over 2016.
Can baking help this anxiety? Read more:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/12/baking-anxiety-millennials/578404/
This is a wonderful letter by Lindsay Norris. She’s an oncology nurse who thought she understood exactly what her patients were going through - until she was diagnosed with cancer herself.
I spent seven years accompanying people through palliative care and hospice as a social worker, but I’d never really experienced cancer in my own life. When my wife, Leah, was diagnosed with life-threatening breast cancer in 2015, I realized how little I knew despite all of my experience as a social worker. I still don’t know what it’s like to be the one with the diagnosis. But by accompanying Leah day and night, I gained a much better sense of what people are dealing with 24 hours a day when they have a serious illness. And I definitely learned first hand how frightened and overwhelmed a caregiver can feel.
Lindsay Norris does a wonderful job of describing being the patient instead of the professional in her blog post here:
And so you don’t have to worry: Leah is 3 years out from her cancer diagnosis after surgery and chemotherapy so far is cancer-free!
Kids need help more than ever these days as emergency room visits for mental health crises are on the rise:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/more-kids-are-showing-ers-mental-health-crises-n930506