Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/l...ts-im-panicking-over-coronavirus-news-417311/
ASK THE THERAPISTS: I'm panicking over coronavirus news
Blair Abbass
Jenny Kierstead
Published: 15 minutes ago
With all this talk and news of the coronavirus, I find myself living in state of panic. I wake up in the middle of the night, fearing for my family and my parents. I have been told I tend to be a hypochondriac, so I might be overreacting, but I’m at the point of considering wearing a mask around town. I want my family to do the same, but my husband thinks I’m nuts. How can I deal with this in a sane way?
Blair
Thanks for writing in, as we’re all in this together. I’ll start by clarifying that we’re not qualified to discuss details about the nature of the virus, but we do have expertise in helping you deal with the uncertainty of life. There is no doubt that this is indeed a serious situation in everyone’s life. With Japan closing schools for a month and China and Italy isolating communities, we have reasonable cause for concern, so your thoughts are valid.
What we do have to watch, however, is the tendency to indulge in catastrophic thinking. Mark Twain said it well when he wrote, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which have never happened.” We can spend so much of our time ruminating about what might happen that we end up living in a constant state of panic that’s not only unnecessary, but unhelpful.
As we’ve said in previous columns, what you’re experiencing is a very old instinctual reaction to a threat. Your tendency to lean into the worst-case scenario, and recite Chicken Little’s famous statement, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” is a very savvy coping mechanism that has enabled humanity to exist for hundreds of thousands of years and outlive many other species. After all, if your ancestors hadn’t held a keen ear to the bushes and moved to higher ground in the presence of a threat, they wouldn’t have survived. While it served us well when we were hunters and gatherers, this state of high alert doesn’t always serve us today. In fact, the chronic stress we inflict on our systems by constantly worrying about the sky falling can have way more devastating effects on your health than any virus!...
ASK THE THERAPISTS: I'm panicking over coronavirus news
Blair Abbass
Jenny Kierstead
Published: 15 minutes ago
With all this talk and news of the coronavirus, I find myself living in state of panic. I wake up in the middle of the night, fearing for my family and my parents. I have been told I tend to be a hypochondriac, so I might be overreacting, but I’m at the point of considering wearing a mask around town. I want my family to do the same, but my husband thinks I’m nuts. How can I deal with this in a sane way?
Blair
Thanks for writing in, as we’re all in this together. I’ll start by clarifying that we’re not qualified to discuss details about the nature of the virus, but we do have expertise in helping you deal with the uncertainty of life. There is no doubt that this is indeed a serious situation in everyone’s life. With Japan closing schools for a month and China and Italy isolating communities, we have reasonable cause for concern, so your thoughts are valid.
What we do have to watch, however, is the tendency to indulge in catastrophic thinking. Mark Twain said it well when he wrote, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which have never happened.” We can spend so much of our time ruminating about what might happen that we end up living in a constant state of panic that’s not only unnecessary, but unhelpful.
As we’ve said in previous columns, what you’re experiencing is a very old instinctual reaction to a threat. Your tendency to lean into the worst-case scenario, and recite Chicken Little’s famous statement, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” is a very savvy coping mechanism that has enabled humanity to exist for hundreds of thousands of years and outlive many other species. After all, if your ancestors hadn’t held a keen ear to the bushes and moved to higher ground in the presence of a threat, they wouldn’t have survived. While it served us well when we were hunters and gatherers, this state of high alert doesn’t always serve us today. In fact, the chronic stress we inflict on our systems by constantly worrying about the sky falling can have way more devastating effects on your health than any virus!...
