Caroline Kalai, Psy.D.

Given the current pandemic, widespread anxiety, and unrest throughout the country, it might seem preposterous to suggest that you can choose to embrace one problem without the other, especially as inconsistent news and data reports do little beyond perpetuating fear, anger, paranoia and distrust in our leaders. We are almost encouraged to react emotionally to information we are sold all around us, rather than developing our own perspective. Where have logic and reason gone? 

Whether you believe this virus is a threat to your survival or the government ordered social distancing order is a farce, you still have a choice in how you respond to the pandemic on a behavioral, emotional, psychological, and microsystemic level. That is, you can decide how to act, how to display your emotions, which perspective to adopt, and how to influence those around you.

How you choose to react is your responsibility—no one else’s. 

The mindset you embrace and the message you deliver to friends, parents, children, and neighbors is up to you. You can either live in fear, or accept the risks with optimism and a good attitude. Should we not strive to make the latter our default approach, always?

The truth is that in our pre-pandemic reality, we had been living with threats to our survival on a daily basis. From the moment you woke up to the moment you went to sleep at night, you were surviving threats. On any given day, there was never a guarantee that your home wouldn’t be burglarized, your stocks wouldn’t crash, you wouldn’t seriously injure yourself during your morning workout, you wouldn’t get hit by a car; there was never a guarantee that you wouldn’t get fired at work, your lunch order wouldn’t be contaminated, you wouldn’t lose a loved one to sudden death or a horrific crime, you wouldn’t experience the devastation of a natural disaster, you wouldn’t have your identity stolen, you wouldn’t catch the flu, your significant other wouldn’t betray you, and so on and so forth. With the exception of your mortality and, perhaps, taxes, nothing in life, pre-pandemic, was certain. And it undoubtedly still isn’t, no matter how confident you may feel that tomorrow will be just another ordinary and uneventful day. Yet, most of us carry on as usual—even if we did experience any of the aforementioned stressors.

There are two reasons for this rather convenient obliviousness that allows us to function somewhat normally from day to day. First, we have cognitive biases, such as the “out of sight, out of mind” phenomenon. This protects us from isolating ourselves or suffering from debilitating anxiety that could result from constant hyperawareness of danger. For instance, we know that in the U.S., car accidents injure approximately 3 million people and kill 90 daily, yet every day we get into our cars and drive regardless of this knowledge because accidents like these don’t typically happen to one specific person repeatedly or just seem unlikely to happen to us personally. Unless we have regularly witnessed or personally experienced an accident and its catastrophic outcomes, we aren’t thinking about getting into a car accident when we turn on the engine. 

Second, we are all capable of learning. We learn vicariously from others and through our own prior experiences whether a threat is worthy of our attention and warrants specific precautions. We don’t consciously think about the possible dangers that can strike at any moment because most of the time, they do not occur. Thus, we have learned that we are more often safe than we are at risk. 

This virus, however, is novel, and our collective experience, knowledge, or subjective sense of its actual dangerousness is minimal. Therefore, our primitive brain responds to this uncertainty as it does to other dangers with fear—a completely instinctual and automatic process that requires no thinking. It’s simply a survival mechanism. That does not, however, mean that what fear drives us to do is right. 

Thankfully, we are no longer primitive beings. We have the ability to think and make rational decisions despite our instinctive responses to stimuli. That means thinking our way through problems and out of hazardously emotional mindsets. This also includes behaving in strategic ways that build distress tolerance rather than perpetuating the belief that we are at risk of dying, while employing senseless and unproductive attempts to maintain a sense of control over our circumstances. If, for example, you spend hours per day dousing your home in Lysol, the message you are indirectly sending to your brain is that this behavior is justified because the danger level is indeed high, which encourages your brain to dwell on the fear, thereby further facilitating the “control” behavior. This feedback loop only exacerbates anxiety. Rather, decreasing compulsive, relief-motivated behaviors to only what is advised by one professional (e.g., your physician), and being open to the possibility of contracting the virus can promote greater tolerance to uncontrollable outcomes. 

Accepting all the possible outcomes and adapting to “pandemic life,” as opposed to ruminating endlessly for months on end about a global matter that is not in your power, will not only reduce your suffering, but likely improve your quality of life during a difficult and uncertain time. 

Let me be perfectly clear, though. I am not suggesting that it is better to contract COVID-19 and I definitely do not want to contract this virus. I am not suggesting that it is not a serious illness. Nor am I suggesting that we do nothing to protect ourselves. After all, you still wear a seat belt when you get into the car, and wash your hands after handling raw meat. You can’t just allow yourself to ruminate about these daily risks and overreact to each perceived issue. Likewise, it is advisable by most medical experts to maintain proper hygiene and physical distancing measures, not to panic and repeat these behaviors to an extreme. Taking reasonable precautions is appropriate and prudent. The key, however, is that these precautions and actions we take to protect ourselves be reasonable.

So be smart. Notice whether your anxiety is changing your behavior in an unhealthy manner. Notice if it takes a toll on your relationships, if it’s being mirrored in your children, if it takes over too many conversations or keeps you from enjoying what should be pleasurable activities. Notice if it’s caused procrastination, helplessness, low motivation, and avoidance of responsibilities. Instead, focus on the behaviors that are within your control in order for you to remain safe, and not at the expense of your time, energy, and mood. Choose to accept the existence of the virus and you may very well free yourself from the greater and potentially more harmful burden of daily anxiety.

Do you have questions about what you’ve read? Thoughts to share? Email me at drcarolinekalai@gmail.com. I can’t wait to connect with you!