Finding Your Calm
“Meditation takes you to the place inside you which is the most calm and serene place in the universe.”
~ Purvi Raniga
How are you doing this week? Are you worried about social distancing? Are you stressed about having everyone home or with having to do it all—your own work and helping your children with their schoolwork? Are you anxious about how long the complications and disruptions from this virus will last?
Even if you don’t normally experience anxiety, many people are in an unusually anxious state lately given the pandemic. It’s not like anything we’ve experienced before in our lives, and because there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight yet, it feels beyond our control.
The more you are used to being in control, the more you may be struggling.
Worry, stress, and anxiety are all fairly common in the modern world and they exist on a continuum. In everyday conversation we use the terms interchangeably, but psychologists see them as separate conditions, each with their own characteristics.
It can be helpful to discern which you are feeling, when you should be concerned about your state of mind, and when to seek treatment.
Worry is primarily related to your thoughts and is usually temporary and specific. It occurs when your mind dwells on troubles that you can identify. It’s usually accompanied by a feeling of concern or apprehension about a situation like your finances, an upcoming event, or a health issue. Nearly all of us are worried about COVID-19.
Stress is both a psychological and physical reaction to upsetting situations or potentially upsetting ones. It can be chronic, increase with the number of stressors you have and the period of time you’ve had them, and involve physical symptoms. It involves overload, or the feeling that you have more than you can handle. By now many people are feeling significantly stressed about COVID-19 on multiple levels, and may be having some physical symptoms of stress such as headaches, stomach troubles, or insomnia.
Anxiety includes mental, emotional, and physical reactions and can worsen over time if you don’t take steps to control it. It’s a nearly constant state of nervousness, often without an identifiable cause, that doesn’t resolve easily. It often has a biological component to it, runs in families, and can start in childhood or the teenage years. It can occur along with depression, and/or can develop as a result of trauma.
About 20% of the population experiences Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and that number is up right now. This article provides a really helpful list of tips for reducing anxiety no matter how serious it is.
Heightened or uncontrolled anxiety during times of increased stress can lead to panic attacks, where people feel they can’t breathe or even have the sense that they are about to die. Anxiety of this magnitude requires treatment and it’s best to seek help early before it becomes too debilitating.
Fortunately, because they are so common, all of these conditions are well understood. As the resources I’ve included suggest, solutions involve training yourself to become aware of your physical reactions to stress and then engaging in activities that distract your mind and calm your body. Once you can think more clearly you can figure out what you need to do to lower your stress level.
Many of us have heard about relaxation techniques before, but the trick is to make time to actually do them.
If your responsibilities are greater than usual right now, it may seem like there’s no time, but even taking a few minutes a day to breathe deeply and calm yourself can help. The more regularly you use the techniques, the more you can stay on top of your anxiety.
Calming activities can help decrease your level of discomfort if your symptoms are in the mild to moderate range. Some are meant to be done solo, but others can be done together with family members or roommates.
Not all of the activities will appeal to you, but with some experimentation you can develop a list of tools that work best for you.
If you’re not having good success on your own, it’s time to turn to a therapist or another type of healing practitioner. They can assist you in some of these practices but can also listen to you, comfort you, make suggestions for changes you may need to make in your life, and help you to become more accepting of your struggles. Here’s a list of The 9 Best Online Therapy Programs of 2020, based on 15 features that are likely to impact your experience as a therapy consumer.
These are confusing times, but there are more avenues for help than we’ve ever had available to us before. Also, with so many needing extra support right now, the stigma that has been attached to mental health treatment for far too long is finally going away.
Rest assured that you’re not alone—whatever you’re feeling, I’m probably feeling it too. Try some of these tips and see if they help you. They’re helping me.
I wish you comfort, solace, and peace in the week ahead.
Affectionately,
Elaine