Of Uncertainty, Loss & Fear: Why Pandemic is making You Anxious?

2020 was touted as the year of changes. A decade before it arrived, almost everyone spoke about their vision for 2020, how things will change and how technology would evolve leaps and bounds. The year did come with a change, globally. Only this was a change in a different direction away from what one had imagined. It brought along with it loss, feelings of overwhelmingness, forced changes and a complete shift in lifestyles.

Covid-19 saw us make changes and bargain to say that it’ll only last for a few months and if only everyone wore masks life would resume to ‘normal’. It took the second wave in 2021 for us to understand that this was what we called the ‘new normal’. It also brought about a reluctant realization that this might not be going away anytime soon. Precautions were taken and old habits were slipped into with caution. But the beginning of 2022 started with the third wave. While the third wave was mild, almost everyone knew someone who had been infected with this variant. What might be mild physiologically, wasn’t so mild psychologically and it took a toll on us, simply because it brought back memories, worries and rooted us back in uncertainty.

The third wave & re-emerging COVID anxiety:
With the third wave on its decline and booster shots in sight, how are you feeling? If the answer to that is worried, anxious, scared, annoyed, upset or indifferent - you’re not alone. There are three big reasons why the rising cases make us anxious:

Precaution Fatigue: This is when you grow tired of all the protocols - washing hands, double masks, masks with friends/peers, washing of groceries, social distancing etc. This is not to say that one does not understand the importance of these norms, just that doing this over an extended period of time has caused you to burn out. In the beginning, your flight or fight instinct kicks in, but over time when your mind sees no tangible threat (in the middle of waves, lesser cases, milder infections etc) and you tend to get complacent.
Chronic Stress & Triggers: The pandemic brought to surface a lot of deep insecurities, mental health concerns and fears. When seeing people lose their lives in lakhs, your worries of losing your loved ones multifolded. Being faced with the possibility of it on a daily basis leads to chronic stress, which in turns adds to your emotional plate, magnifying other things. For individuals who have struggled with OCD, the fear of contamination gets heightened, coping mechanisms don’t hold as strongly and relapses got more common. Additionally, being locked in at home also meant more time being locked in your own head. It brought about more conversations with yourself about how you’re not doing enough, what you’re losing out on and with limited social resources to counter these thoughts, a spiral of low mood and anxiety was brought to the surface.
Experiences With Death: Some of you might have lost loved ones either due to the pandemic or the overburdened healthcare system, some might know loss in statistics and others might have known loss through chained relationships. But what stands true is that everyone saw loss, death and grief in large numbers. Grief usually comes a few times in life and society has a framework to cope up - rituals, social support, anniversaries, rationalization etc. But this time, it all came down to ‘unfairness, unexpectedness and unpreparedness’. You didn’t know how to deal with it, how to justify it, how to mourn or how to process the loss in large numbers. To see children get orphaned, parents lose children, partners gone and families wiped out, brought out core fears. It is why the third wave came with relative relief, to know that loss wasn’t as devastating.

How to stay calm in 2022?
This is why you get anxious during the peak of waves, this is why a lot of people out there are worried reading the news. While the uncertainty will remain, there are different things we can do to help ourselves.

• Keep a visual log of good stuff. Create a social media handle for just yourself and log memories that made your day.It could be a photo, a meme, anything.
• Take breaks from reading, watching or hearing the news. Schedule about 15 minutes in a day where you will consume news related to the pandemic, and stick to it.
• It is important to create a routine as a disciplined mind is a mentally strong mind. Adapt structure at home, have some me-time, work-out time, work-time, family-time, unwind time etc.
• Find healthy outlets for your emotions. It could be a journalling club, speaking to loved ones, counseling or any form of creative expression. If nothing, vent out your feelings.
• Remember to focus on what is in your control and remind yourself that whatever is out of your control can’t be changed, no matter how much you try. Do this activity once every fortnight as a reminder.
  
     

One of the most helpful tips here would be to create small buckets of joy for yourself within your day. This could mean doing small but new things to break the everyday monotony. We’ve listed close to ten such fun ideas for you to pick and start on here with our Habit Trackers!