People who are prone to anxiety, or are suffering from anxiety disorders don’t always have access to resources and professional help. It has been even harder for them as they come to terms with an unprecedented situation in the form of a pandemic.
The spread of the coronavirus has unleashed a calamitous impact on people around the world which goes beyond health. The social and economic fallout from the pandemic—job losses, social distancing, drop in incomes—is impacting the mental and physical well being of people. Experts believe that it is leading to people feeling more scared, anxious, and depressed.
Femoai spoke to Bengaluru-based psychotherapist and adjunct faculty at Christ University Michelle Manasseh about what can people do if they have anxiety and no access to professional help. She also tells us about what people are feeling as they deal with the pandemic.
- How can people who have anxiety disorders deal with it? What if they aren’t able to seek professional help?
- What about exercise, that is often recommended for people to help overcome anxiety.
- How do we help our friends who may come to us when they are anxious?
- Could you also talk about the anxiety that people are feeling because of the pandemic?
How can people who have anxiety disorders deal with it? What if they aren’t able to seek professional help?
A simple relaxation technique is deep breathing. When we are anxious and our heart is beating faster, breathing is shorter, less oxygen is going to the brain. If you take deep breaths, you are forcing more oxygen to go to the brain to help you think from a more rational perspective. Most of the times our anxiety is driven by irrationality and irrational thoughts. If it is anxiety about rational things, then it can be justified to an extent.
Another tool that I sometimes use with my clients is called the grounding technique. A grounding technique is used to ground you to the present. Because the reason for our anxiety is that our mind has gone somewhere, it is thinking about the things that haven’t even occurred. You are not in the present moment.
If you are in a room, the grounding technique will be for you to observe things in the room. You are identifying the fact that your mind has wandered off and that is why you are feeling anxious. We have to consciously bring the mind to the present and try to forcefully have it think of the things in the room.
We focus on the characteristics of objects in the room, like there is a nice chair or a nice table in the room, this is the colour of the chair or the chair has four legs. These are very nuanced observations of objects near you. The intention is that you are working towards bringing your attention and your mind back to the present. And pulling it away from the anxiety-driven thoughts. You have to repeatedly do it, there has to be an intention of wanting to be conscious.
The other technique people use when they feel anxious is to list out things in their mind, and write them down, like a list of my favourite books, or songs. This also brings about control and stops your mind from wandering off to places that you don’t want it to go.
Sometimes when people feel anxious, they start telling themselves to stop being anxious, but the more you do that, the more anxiety you get. You can get anxious about being anxious. Instead of telling ourselves to not do something, you should be asking your mind to do something else. The trick is that if your mind is telling you to think of a pink elephant, you tell it to think of a blue tiger instead. The mistake we make with our emotions is that we tell ourselves don’t feel like this or don’t do this, we are being judgemental of ourselves or being critical of ourselves. The more we are being critical, the worse the emotions become.
Sometimes when people feel anxious, they start telling themselves to stop being anxious, but the more you do that, the more anxiety you get. You can get anxious about being anxious. Instead of telling ourselves to not do something, you should be asking your mind to do something else. The trick is that if your mind is telling you to think of a pink elephant, you tell it to think of a blue tiger instead.
What about exercise, that is often recommended for people to help overcome anxiety
Exercising helps as well. It helps the body use a specific kind of energy, and in letting go of some anxious energy. What happens from a physiological perspective is that when my mind is in a fight or flight mode, there is a large amount of adrenaline in our system. The part of the brain that is causing the fight and flight reaction is something called the amygdala. This communicates to our adrenaline glands to release adrenaline. Amygdala developed a million years ago, as part of evolution, to protect us from actual physiological danger. It developed in a way that it reacts to anything that is a threat to us. It’s job is to react. But in this day and age, we are not in physiological danger, our anxiety is not externally driven but internal because of what we are thinking about; it could be something that is a threat to our emotional self, a threat to our ego, and it activates the amygdala. And the adrenaline in our system makes us feel restless, makes our heart beat fast. Therefore, physical exercise helps us get rid of that anxious energy and allows the logical part of the brain to function.
Physical exercise helps us get rid of that anxious energy and allows the logical part of the brain to function.
How do we help our friends who may come to us when they are anxious? How can we deal with the situation since we are not professionals?
We should not advise, we should just listen. We all have a tendency of advising. Telling them what to do based on what worked for us. That usually never works because all of us have different things that work and ones that don’t. For instance even if I tell my client to exercise, I cannot tell them which form of exercise will work for them. It is important to tell them that you can do some form of exercise, it could be walking, jogging or zumba, it depends on what works for them. But someone who is not a therapist, may often suggest something like zumba, for example. So the person, who is suffering from anxiety, is going to take a class thinking that zumba will help them get rid of it. So, it is important to not advise but to listen. And, if someone is struggling with it for a long time, if they are struggling with concentrating or managing their anxiety, suggest that they go and see a professional. Try not to solve the problem yourself, try not to be the rescuer. If there is a stigma, if they are struggling in going to a therapist, try to normalise it for them, let them know that it’s like going to a doctor. If you have a stomach ache, you go to a doctor, similarly your brain is hurting, you need to go see somebody who can help you with that.
It is important to not advise but to listen. And, if someone is struggling with it for a long time, if they are struggling with concentrating or managing their anxiety, suggest that they go and see a professional. Try not to solve the problem yourself, try not to be the rescuer. If there is a stigma, if they are struggling in going to a therapist, try to normalise it for them, let them know that it’s like going to a doctor.
Infact, the first couple of sessions I do with my clients, it’s them just talking and me listening. So many realisations come to them while they are talking, and they have their moment of catharsis. They often don’t have someone who would listen to them attentively. All you have to do is set your phone aside and listen. Try to be as understanding of what they are going through without judgement.
Could you also talk about the anxiety that people are feeling because of the pandemic?
It depends on what their anxiety revolves around. The one thing I have realised is that, to a large extent, what we are experiencing is not necessarily anxiety. David Kessler, a therapist, who works with grief, was talking about it the other day on a podcast, and he says that what we are dealing with right now is not anxiety but grief in terms of not knowing what we are going to deal with in the future. It is about losing the freedom that we had, it’s grief over ambiguity, grief over the fear of losing people that we love dearly. That made so much sense to me. We are all dealing with it. I am equally struggling with it, but just being able to define it as grief helps.
David Kessler, a therapist, who works with grief, was talking about it the other day on a podcast, and he says that what we are dealing with right now is not anxiety but grief in terms of not knowing what we are going to deal with in the future. It is about losing the freedom that we had, it’s grief over ambiguity, grief over the fear of losing people that we love dearly.
We can put it under a broad idea of anxiety, but once you define it as grief, it makes it okay to feel. We are not going to be able to go back to our normal lives. It is not going to be the same normal, and allowing ourselves to be angry is okay. It’s okay to be upset. We didn’t ask for it. It’s a situation we feel we are not in control of, we feel we don’t have certainty, everybody is trying to make sense of it. And it’s okay to be angry and upset, have moments of being sad. This is the new norm and we have to work around it.
At this time, the resources are available but the way you reach out is different. You can still seek help for mental health, but you probably can’t go to the therapist’s office, you may have to do it over the phone.
We can put it under a broad idea of anxiety, but once you define it as grief, it makes it okay to feel. We are not going to be able to go back to our normal lives. It is not going to be the same normal, and allowing ourselves to be angry is okay. It’s okay to be upset.
However, the one worrying aspect has been the rise in domestic violence mainly with women. We really don’t know the restrictions, the challenging situations that these women are in and whether they have access to reach out to anybody. It is something we need to plan for in the future.
It is difficult for therapists as well. The only way even we get to know of these situations is if the violence has been so bad that they have been taken to the hospital or they have managed to put out something or the other (a call or a message to a friend etc), found an opportunity. But there needs to be consistency in terms of how we can reach out to these women. It is still a challenge for us.
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The views represented in the articles are the views of the experts featured and do not necessarily represent the views of Femoai.
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