The surprising side effects of living through a Pandemic.

I have purposefully avoided the mainstream news for almost two decades now. I don’t actually bury my head in the sand you understand, but rather I choose to select the topics I wish to know more about from online headlines and then I ignore the rest. As a former lecturer of Sociology, I am very aware of how the news is constructed and therefore subjective and how certain medium focus almost exclusively on the topics of scandal and fear.

Bad news sells. I choose not to buy.

This current Pandemic , however, has found me sorely ill prepared , unfortunately, for the stress inducing effects of an overload of recent media content .

I must admit I’m not accustomed to coping with the impact of all the details of death, sadness, isolation and panic.

So intense is this deluge of information that I have began feeling a heaviness in my chest and an overwhelming obsession to begin an online spiral down a rabbit hole to find out whether it is caused by Covid-19 .

But no, Im not infected, thankfully, but I am suffering from a side effect of living through this Pandemic. For this is the creeping pressure of anxiety, something I recognise from the content of countless discussions with clients. It’s the feeling of a heavy weight on my chest, and a shortness of breath caused by my primal amygdala sensing I am under threat and triggering me to enter flight or fight mode.

But my foe isn’t a predatory animal in the wild, my foe is the news, so how can I avoid this?

Firstly, I began to limit my intake of news. (I can be informed but not inundated.)

Secondly, I began to release the tension in my body through breath-work.

The technique, I created, is a follows:

Breathe in while mentally saying “This negative emotion I am feeling” and then breathe out , fully, with the words “Im going to breathe it all out until Im sure its all gone” - the importance here is on the out breath, it should feel like you are pushing out the last of your air. Repeat several times until you feel a drop in your level of anxiety/stress.

Thirdly, I started to turn my attention to humour and engage in as many activities as I can to make me laugh. I do this not out of disrespect to others or a lack of concern or seriousness, but rather because humour has helped me get through every dark and difficult time in the past and I am hopeful it will do the same again.

And finally, I have reached out on social media, to my friends and family far and wide , to support and entertain each other during this difficult time.

If like me you have been feeling the side effects of living through a Pandemic , I encourage you to try the above, and if you need another person to reach out to I am here for you too!

Take care, be kind , stay home , stay strong.