Coping With Anxiety and Fear As The World Re-Opens
Although the coronavirus is still affecting the world, we are starting to see that the world has begun to open back up. Life went from being completely normal to it being shut down almost overnight. We stayed inside and watched countless hours of Netflix, learned new cooking recipes, and began to appreciate the downtime from our once busy lives. Now that we’re all used to working from home, social distancing, and only leaving our homes to go grocery shopping, as the world opens up, it’s understandable that you may have some fear and anxiety about it. Even if you’re someone who never felt like they struggled with this type of anxiety before, this time of unknown can spark up all types of emotions. In this blog post, we are going to be discussing some tips about how you can cope with any anxiety or fear that you might currently be feeling. Keep reading to learn more!
Write Down How You’re Feeling
When you start to feel anxious, it can almost feel like a huge wave or rush of emotions that are so difficult to pinpoint, you don’t even know how you’re feeling. Whenever you start to feel anxiety or fear creep up, try and document those feelings. Write it down, even if you don’t think it makes any sense. Not only can this help you determine what emotions you’re experiencing but it can also help you focus on something else, which you may find helps ease your anxiety and fear. This can also be a helpful tool when you’re trying to explain to someone, whether it be a friend, family member, or therapist, about how you’re feeling and what happens to you when you go through those emotions. This can help people understand you better and help them help you. Try getting a journal that you like, whether it is your favorite color, pattern, or theme, having a journal that you like can make the journaling process more appealing and fun. Think of it as your adult diary!
Learn to Accept Your Feelings
As we’ve mentioned before, this is a very unknown time for all of us and that is scary. Most of us have never faced anything like this before and we’ve never had to shut down the world like we are now. All of your feelings of uneasiness and doubt or fear are 100% normal. Even if you typically haven’t felt feelings of anxiety before, you may be experiencing them now. Learn to accept these feelings. Don’t push them away or disbelieve them. They’re real and the more you acknowledge them the more you’ll be able to cope with them in a healthy manner. We all know that you shouldn’t ever suppress your feelings but when they’re being bottled up in a state of the unknown, you’re more likely to explode in a way that you typically wouldn’t.
Seek Help
While Facetime, Zoom, and Skype have all become some of our most-used apps, these don’t just have to be used to speak with friends and family. They’re great to use for after-work happy hours but they can also be used through forms of teletherapy and psychiatric services, which you can use to your advantage. Seeking help, especially mental help, can often seem a bit overwhelming. We want you to know that it’s completely normal. You don’t have to have a huge trauma or have “something bad happen to you” to go to therapy. In fact, many people use therapy as a healthy third party and unbiased opinion. Your life could be going great and therapy can still be a very useful and healthy tool. If you’re feeling more anxious or even experiencing feelings that are new, seeking help through therapy might be something you do. Many people who start therapy continue it, even long after their “problem” is fixed.
Do What’s Best For You
One of the main points to understand right now is that everyone should be doing what they are comfortable with. For some people, they’re comfortable going back to their normal lives. This might include working back in an office or visiting their favorite restaurant. However, others may not feel comfortable joining the normal world again and that is completely okay too. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of comfort, it’s important that you keep yourself healthy and safe. It’s also important to not judge anyone on how they are handling it. Even though you think you might know their standing and think they’re being too conservative or liberal with it, everyone is fully able to have their own stance on it. So be gentle with yourself and be gentle with others. Everyone is doing their best and that’s all we can do.
Once again, this is a weird time for all of us. Whether you’ve been highly affected or your life has only seen subtle changes, experiencing fear and anxiety due to the coronavirus is completely normal. As we begin to go back to our daily routines we want to be there for you no matter what. Whether it’s through various forms of therapy or psychiatric services, our entire team is here to help! We are currently offering various forms of teletherapy if you prefer to stay in the comfort of your own home. Please connect with us directly to learn more about the practices and procedures that we are implementing to keep you and our team safe. Visit us online to schedule your appointment.