Taming Anxiety in a Pandemic Era

By: Dr. John Loranger

In 2019, a dark cloud enveloped our world much like the Black Plague did several centuries ago. This darkness was the beginning of the Pandemic, which we have not experienced as a country in over 100 years. We didn’t know what to expect or how to handle things during the first years of the pandemic.

Due to these unknowns, which affected people around the world, the virus not only affected our physical bodies, but affected our mental state as well. The darkness of this unknown virus created an increase in both the level and intensity of people’s experiences in their world and brought an avalanche of emotions leading to worsening depression and anxiety. Both can be a bear to deal with, and people’s heightened awareness of their physical symptoms can increase their levels of both anxiety and depression. I have noticed that the clients I have been working with have been experiencing an increase in their anxiety to the level of panic attacks. This can feel like their heart is racing to the point that they feel as if their heart will jump out of their chest.

The important task here is to enable a client to move towards a goal of controlling their anxiety and not having the anxiety control them. When someone comes to see me,they describe their anxiety like a runaway horse which scares the crap out of them to the point that they feel like they may experience symptoms that could do damage to their bodies or worse. This feeling of being helpless to control something in your body only escalates the symptoms. This leads to a spiraling upward of their fear that things are out of control, and they may even feel like they could die from the experience. As a therapist, it is important to help a client regain control of their own body and understand how their defense mechanisms are only protecting them from what their mind perceives as danger. So, when someone understands that they are not going to die, they begin to have a handle on their body’s physiological functions and they can take command of their current thinking. Once this happens, they can grasp the concept that they can start to control their body’s responses, once they understand the mind-body connection. But until then, it can feel like someone is going down a dark rabbit hole with no way to see out of it. It can be scary, and anyone can feel helpless if they don’t understand what is driving the perceptions of the outside world and how their bodies are responding to these perceived threats.
But have no fear, with the right guidance a client can learn to reclaim control of their fears and the resulting anxiety. Once this happens, it is as if a light comes on in their brain.

If you are experiencing these issues which scare you, know that it is not the end of the world for you or your family. You can be guided through the darkness of the unknown, and have a new perception of the darkness of anxiety. You can move beyond the dark cloud of doubt and recover from the symptoms of pandemic anxiety.

Here are 5 tips to help reduce panic and pandemic anxiety:

• Learn as much as you can about how the alarm system in your brain works. The more that you know about the brain/body connection, the easier you will find it to control your anxiety.
• dentify the triggers that cause your anxiety to increase.
• Use self-soothing techniques like grounding, yoga, meditation, and music to learn what soothes you in a way that reduces your anxiety.
• Every technique does not work for everyone, so try different techniques that have calmed you down in the past, but also try to experiment with new techniques.
• The most important thing that you can do for yourself is to be gentle on yourself, as we all tend to be our own worst critics.