Here’s how you can stay healthy by avoiding stress overload.
I don’t have to go very far out on a limb to assume that you are managing some degree of stress about the coronavirus or its many ripple effects.
We are being inundated with bad news, warnings, emergency instructions, stressful sound bites, and fear-inducing graphics. Important information about how to protect ourselves and others is embedded in the mass of information we are consuming; but, in the process of taking in the information that is educational and instructive, we are also ingesting a toxic amount of fear that leads to emotional indigestion in the form of stress and anxiety. And here’s the ironic catch 22: Stress and anxiety reduce immune functioning, making us more vulnerable to the very illness we are stressing ourselves out to protect ourselves from.
The more mass media information we take in in the name of maintaining health, the more stress, worry, fear, and anxiety we generate. When we experience these emotions, our bodies enter what is called a stress response cycle. In order to help us survive the threat that is causing the stress, our bodies produce a cascade of the stress hormones adrenaline, cortisol, and glucosamine. These hormones show up to prepare us to respond effectively to the threat. These are the fight-or-flight hormones that course through us to help us lift cars off of loved ones, run away from bears on the trail, or escape an attacker in a dark alley.
Think fear about COVID-19 is different from these acute traumas? Biologically, it’s not.
Whether the threat is acute and singular or prolonged and repeating, our bodies arm us with the same stress response hormones. But while we would welcome those hormones if we needed to run away from a bear or fight off an attacker, they are less helpful when trying to stay healthy day after day in the face of a global pandemic.
If you are on the front lines and you are in immediate danger, you need your stress response hormones to call you to attention, give you focus, and help you overcome fatigue and burnout. But many people are in a more ambient state of threat. These are the folks who are trying to function “normally,” tending to kids and school and work, trying to sleep regular hours, even trying to “make the most” of the opportunity to slow down. For those in this category, living in a constant escalated stress response isn’t productive. You need a way to stay informed, be proactive, and take all recommended precautionary measures without going into a state of chronic stress because remember, the stress state actually reduces your body’s immune defenses.
How can you protect yourself and your immune system from corona stress overload? Here are three tips:
1. Be informed, but not over-saturated with information.
You know the old metaphor that our minds are like sponges? It’s a good one. We soak up information, energy, and emotions from the world and the people around us. Like sponges, we are designed to do this so we can be responsive to our environment.
Now imagine what happens to a sponge that is fully drenched in water. Once fully saturated, the sponge can no longer do its job; more water on a fully saturated sponge renders it ineffective. We are like this, too. Once saturated, more information, energy, and emotion from external sources simply drowns us.
Unfortunately, many news platforms aren’t designed to give us just the right amount of information to optimize our capacity to be responsive. Instead, they are businesses that are motivated to get and keep our attention, because our attention is good for their bottom line. Fear brings us to attention, for good, evolutionary, biological reasons, and the news outlets intentionally make use of this biological reality. Does it actually serve you to hear terrifying story after terrifying story saying the same thing again and again, program after program? The worst-case news cycle isn’t on repeat because it serves you well; it’s on repeat because it generates fear, which means you stay tuned in, and that serves the media, and the companies that advertise on those outlets.
This is a complicated situation right now, because information is critical to guide our individual and communal responses to the pandemic, and the information is changing daily. Regular exposure to the news absolutely serves a critical purpose, even more so than under normal conditions. To be clear, I am not saying that information is the enemy.
But it’s helpful to ask yourself whether you are consuming an amount of information that helps you or hurts you. Ask yourself, is it helping me in some way to take in this information right now? Will it change my course of action? How do I feel after taking this in? Am I starting to feel powerless, or panicked? Am I starting to freeze up, or melt down?
If you become an overly saturated sponge, you not only flood your body with stress response hormones that reduce your immune function, but you also increase feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, which leaves you less unable to respond in proactive and helpful ways to the crisis around you.
Consider creating a routine of checking in with a trusted news source once per day to ensure you are up to date regarding risks and protective regulations, and then turn your attention elsewhere. Run an experiment with yourself; after moderating your news consumption for a few days, take stock of how you feel. Make decisions about the best news consumption schedule for yourself based on your internal cues, not the external cues of the media news cycle.
2. Exercise!
Exercise is the most efficient and accessible way to remove stress hormones from the body. Remember, these are the fight-or-flight hormones designed to help you move your body with strength, power, and speed. So moving your body with strength, power, and speed helps those hormones metabolize, returning your body to a state of rest. Your body is not designed to metabolize stress hormones by sitting still.
You can help manage your own stress levels and avoid cortisol overload and adrenal fatigue by getting out for exercise as many days as possible. Even a simple walk is better than nothing when it comes to biological wellness and anxiety reduction.
It’s particularly important to generate a positive relationship with your body if you are spending extra time online due to social distancing. When you’re online, you are bombarded with advertisements and curated images of others. It is well-documented in psychological research that exposure to these images damages self-esteem and generates negatives thoughts and feelings, particularly about our bodies. The last thing you need in a time of stress and isolation is to become toxic company to yourself.
Staying in motion and feeling strong helps you maintain a positive connection to your body, and helps you focus on function over form — the basis of sustaining body positivity.
3. Connect with others, especially as a helper.
Human beings are social creatures; we live and survive as a pack, and feelings of connection, attachment, and affiliation increase our sense of safety. Evolutionarily this makes sense. A single, isolated person is more vulnerable to attack from predators and enemies. There is literally safety in numbers. In addition, we are born helpless. In order to be able to fit through the birth canal, humans are born small and too underdeveloped to function and survive independently. We are reliant on care from others to survive.
Because of these evolutionary and biological realities, we are wired to feel safer when connected to other people who have our best interest (aka, survival) at heart. As a result, we tend to feel higher levels of anxiety when we feel isolated, and being in contact with loved ones helps us feel safe. Attachment breeds a sense of security. So, to manage your stress and anxiety in the age of COVID-19, it’s important to stay connected with your loved ones. Yes, that’s a more complicated task due to social distancing, quarantines, and shelter-in-place orders. But while physical distancing is a necessity right now, emotional closeness is also a must. Check in emotionally, play games, snuggle up; the pack of people in your house is your emotional lifeline. And if you live alone, make use of whatever technology you have on hand to connect with friends and family so you don’t feel isolated.
We can also foster a sense of closeness by being helpful to others, even while maintaining social distancing. Altruism not only fuels a sense of connection to others, but as an added benefit, it also releases hormones that reduce anxiety, thereby protecting the immune system from stress response overload. Volunteering is also a good way to combat the “me first” attitude that fear generates. Rather than fueling the fear, which wears our system thin, we can arm our bodies with the hormones that boost physical resilience by focusing on and being productive on behalf of the needs of others. Volunteer to deliver food to vulnerable neighbors, make masks for your community, or contact your state representatives to see if you have special skills that can be put to use by your local corps of volunteers.
It’s natural to feel worried right now. It’s a healthy and adaptive response to a stressful situation. A certain amount of anxiety keeps us on our toes and keeps us vigilant about taking recommended precautions.
But there is a tipping point. If we flood our bodies with a chronic stress response, we not only cease to benefit from additional gains, but we break down our bodies’ immune system. Clear your body of the stress response…it’s as important as washing your hands.