A special post during the Covid-19 outbreak; please subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss one.
How can I help you through this time? This is my goal today, and any related notes. We need to get a grip on our minds. I became a psychotherapist as a way to master the science on human behavior, relationships, and well-being — and then teach them to others.
Like you, I’ve been inundated with emails with everyone’s thoughts about the COVID-19. My hair salon, dentist, and summer camp all want to let me know it’s on their mind and what their cleaning strategy is.
This note has been more than a week in coming, since I’ve been wall to wall with work and what turned out to be the last of our normal routines for awhile; baseball practices, nights out with friends, even school.
A waiting period is taking shape, and our minds do not do well with uncertainty. In the face of the unknown we speculate, we avoid, we try to control. We “research” and confirm what we are afraid of. This is not a good place for our minds.
Instead, we need to focus on what is reassuring and positive, and what we can control. We can control our minds. We can start small. The point of cognitive therapy is NOT even whether our worries based in reality. It’s that it doesn’t do us any good to ruminate (“when your thoughts go in a circle”, as my son says). Especially when we are all in the SAME thing together, we owe it to ourselves to figure out how to not let that terrified little part of us run our lives.
In cognitive therapy, sometimes this ruminating thought is called the “inner critic.” It could be the devil on your shoulder, the worry cloud, the buzz of anxiety. When I teach this to kids, I use a book called Taming Your Gremlin.
Try: Structure Your Time
Reason: Routines are calming for everyone. Our mind needs to know what to expect next, and this is true for children and adults. Anxiety thrives in vast amounts of unstructured time.
I am convinced that part of the reason my sister-in-law Bonnie survived running a daycare is because each week had a theme. We are all now running daycares of actual human gremlins OR just the gremlins in our mind. Make a theme to your day, or a focus to your work. Bugs. Harry Potter. The number 2. Norway. It doesn’t really matter but it will help your mind make sense of the day. Remember, your mind wants to make sense of things and when you don’t provide enough of structure it will spiral out on you.
Make a bucket list of things you will do during this time. School work, activities outside, TV for kids when you need to focus, movies you want to watch to distract and decompress. Make a meal plan with all the groceries you just stocked up on. (I know I saw you at Trader Joe’s today!)
If you are working from home, don’t forget to make time to take a walk around the block, and plan to catch a sliver of the news and know when you will stop (see next point). Nature has huge stress-reducing effects.
Start with a morning routine. Keep it simple. Schedule news check-ins as if they are meals; no snacking.
Try: A news break
Reason: Our brains need to return to baseline functioning without constant stimulation on a fear-inducing topic.
Avoiding the news for a day makes our “wise mind”available when we do tune back into news. “Wise mind” is a term from dialectical behavioral therapy which essentially is a way of looking at things with perspective and “peace in the truth.”
More information stokes the fear engine and we have to work harder to moderate ourselves. Seeking out more news is not tolerable long term for most people. Most of us can take a news break for 24 hours to reset ourselves in the world and show up calmer. If you must, get your news from The Onion. This saves me at the end of the day.
Notice what happens if you take a walk in nature. The birds aren’t worried. The trees are growing. Your body is working. You can remind yourself that some basic things are still in place.
When you do need to tune back in, you want to be able to do this from a calm place. Wise mind gets chipped away by too much news and stimulation.
Try: Thought charts
Reason:Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the #1 way to address fear and ruminating thoughts.
CBT is used for specific phobias as well as widespread unease. With practice it teaches you to reframe the mind in a way that generates less reactivity and more measured responses.
CBT helps you look at the thoughts you have about yourself, your future, and the world around you — and see what messaging you’re giving yourself based on these thoughts. Sometimes this messaging is true. However, with practice we can learn that even messages of truth are not productive for our lives. We can acknowledge them and then add our own choice of response that includes two things: self compassion and a plan of action.
My favorite CBT workbook is called Mind Over Mood. Next post I will share some example thought charts.
