Anxiety in the post-pandemic world
As most countries across the World have now been out of lockdown for quite some time and restrictions have generally been lifted, we are now back to “normal”. So why is it that for high numbers of us the post-pandemic life feels nothing like normal and so many are struggling with mental health problems?
Just in the first year of the global pandemic the World Health Organisation reported an increase of 25% in anxiety and depression worldwide. For the last two years our social norms have been challenged, we were forced to create new habits and our choices were significantly limited. Most of these changes were fear-driven and resulted in increased levels of stress, which kept accumulating. Often this took place without us being fully aware of it, able to acknowledge or process it. Allowing ourselves to recognise the impacts of any stressful situation without brushing it off or sweeping it under the carpet provides an opportunity for healing.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is not just feeling worried or nervous about something in particular. It is a sense of worry or fear that doesn’t subside even after a situation has passed. Often it is hard to pinpoint what’s triggered it and it seems to come out of nowhere. It impacts our physiology, such as breathing, heart-beat, sweating and movement, as well as our ability to think clearly and make even relatively simple decisions. Anxiety often leads to avoiding certain situations, which then perpetuates the fear associated with them. It impacts us on many levels and can really get in the way of fully engaging in life.
Anxiety is linked to our body’s response to a perceived threat. It makes a lot of sense that there has been a notable increase in the number of people experiencing anxiety since the global pandemic. We are equipped to deal with threats to our safety thanks to our body’s stress response. (Fight-flight-freeze is our body’s natural response to stress that helps us mobilise necessary energy to escape from actual danger, such as a wild animal or a fire. It does this by releasing certain hormones, accelerating our breath and increasing blood supplies in the right places.) However, our body is not capable of dealing with long periods of constant influx of stress. Our nervous system becomes overloaded, which results in perceiving relatively harmless situations as threatening and leads to anxiety.
Understanding how certain aspects of the global pandemic elevated our overall stress levels and why, can be helpful in finding compassion with yourself for where you’re at in the “new normal” of the post-pandemic world. Here are some of the factors that contributed to the underlying stress many of us experienced over the last two years.
Isolation
For many people the world-wide pandemic increased their already existing sense of loneliness. For most of us, lockdown led to a lack of meaningful connection, such as spending time with friends, extended family and our community in ways that fosters a sense of belonging. Humans are social animals who need connection to thrive. Most of us have been deprived of this to some extent during the pandemic.
Grief and loss
The experience of fear for loved ones’ and our own well-being related to contracting the virus and the unpredictability of its symptoms significantly contributed to our increased stress levels. Many of us then faced real grief and loss of loved ones to the virus, some of whom would have otherwise lived rich and fulfilling lives for many more years. The fact that often family members were unable to be present to their loved ones’ death further complicates these losses and working through the complexity of their grief. On top of this there were many financial losses as well as the losses of meaningful careers, businesses and long planned significant events such as weddings and other celebrations.
Lack of control
Many areas of our lives became completely unpredictable throughout the pandemic. Parents suddenly became their children’s teachers - something they did not train for and they were required to do simultaneously with their actual jobs, often in the same room. That kind of juggling of completely incompatible and equally important activities is a brewing ground for stress and conflict. Planning any leisure activities, holidays or completing education (especially if it required in-person training) were all suddenly something we had no control over. At times we struggled to find basic supplies in the shops. The fact that other people’s behaviour now had such a direct impact on us often left many of us feeling powerless.
Lack of space for self
On top of all the already mentioned stressors, our space for self and opportunities for self-care became very limited as our homes were full of people who normally spend at least some time in their workplaces or schools and most services were shut. Some of us were able to access support from spending time outdoors and often link that to some socialising. Those for whom the gym, pool, yoga studio, church or quiet alone time at home is their self-care felt suffocated, confined and they significantly suffered from the impacts of this.
Less touch
I feel like almost all of us got used to much less physical touch with anyone else other than our immediate household members. For many people physical touch in general decreased during the pandemic as a result of isolation. There is a lot of research that shows just how much humans benefit from touch. We need touch. It heals us, it helps us grow a stronger immune system, it’s important for our healthy development, it calms our nervous system, which positively impacts our physical health. Lack of touch for long periods of time can have detrimental effects on our wellbeing.
What we learnt
One would hope that humans learnt something from this extreme experience. For some people the pandemic brought certain benefits related to being forced to slow down without being as distracted as they normally are. This may have been quite unsettling at first, but it offered an opportunity to examine, reevaluate and appreciate what holds true value and meaning for them. Hopefully more of us now understand the importance of meaningful connection and support of other humans in our lives. Perhaps more people now see how looking after our communities helps us feel supported. The fact that we all share this one planet together connects all of us and hopefully more people now acknowledge and appreciate this.
We might be dealing with the accumulated stress of the pandemic and the resulting mental health problems for quite some time. What we can all start doing today is to look for a gentle and compassionate narrative around the whole experience of surviving this extreme situation. That will involve recognising the amount of stress we have dealt with and acknowledging that it had an understandable impact on all of us. From this place of acceptance and self-compassion, we can allow ourselves to work towards releasing the build-up of stress and re-regulating our nervous system.
If you feel like you need some support around engaging in life after the pandemic, be kind to yourself, know that you’re not alone and reach out.
