Covid’s one-year anniversary:

It’s the one-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic. In mid-March 2020, the entire world was locked down for the first wave, and since then, the pain, loss and stress have been unimaginable. As a result, mental health everywhere is at an all-time low.

Here in Ontario, people have lost their jobs, their businesses and their homes. They’ve lost loved ones and they themselves have been sick, with many continuing to have lingering symptoms, leaving them chronically unwell and stressed to the max.

Drug and alcohol abuse are at an all-time high, as people attempt to cope with the stress in dysfunctional ways. Even more concerning, spousal and child abuse are sky-rocketing as families are isolated together for months on end, with frustrations mounting and tempers raging.

There are five reasons why mental health in North America is at an all-time low:

1. Social isolation: We’re used to being with a wide variety of people and either we’ve been completely alone or we’re seeing only a small handful of people. We deeply crave meaningful human contact and a richer variety of interactions.

2. Loss: We’ve given up so much in the past year, including our freedom to move around; our social, cultural and recreational activities; and for many of us, our financial security. Most importantly, we’ve lost our ordinary routines and any sense of normalcy. We’ve even coined a term, the “new normal,” to reflect how much things have changed.

3. Social overload: For those of us with a partner, a family, or a room-mate, we’ve been confined in the same space with the same people for an entire year. We miss the company of others and we’re bored with seeing the same faces, day in and day out. Some of us are losing our cool, becoming more irritable and intolerant toward the people we live with.

4. Lack of distraction from the self: Many of us engage in certain activities with the (conscious or unconscious) purpose of avoiding our deepest thoughts and feelings.

We spend a lot of time inside and outside the home in social, recreational and occupational activities so as to distance ourselves from what’s in our hearts and minds.

With the arrival of pandemic, however, we have all this quiet time for contemplation in the absence of our usual distractions, some of us have become extremely uncomfortable.

5. Fear and lack of control: The pandemic has brought home how random and unpredictable life can be. We North Americans were rather spoiled and complacent, expecting our lives to go along smoothly with a minimum of disruption. With Covid-19, we’re now having to confront daily feelings of uncertainty, vulnerability and helplessness.

Fortunately, there are five simple strategies for coping with each of these challenges.

1. To deal with social isolation, learn to tolerate being alone:

a)Enjoy your own company: You need to come to terms with your own alone-ness and see it as not such a bad thing. You need to learn how to have fun on your own, by identifying your passions and developing new pastimes to enjoy, all by yourself.

b)Creatively reach out: Just because you’re more socially distanced it doesn’t mean that you can’t connect with people. You have to be more creative and thoughtful about how you do it, but you can maintain and even deepen your relationships if you put a little more effort into it. In fact, some people are finding that their relationships are more fulfilling these days, because they’re no longer taking each-other for granted.

2. To deal with loss, practice my simple, three-step coping strategy:

a)Face your loss: The first step is to acknowledge the significance of your loss and the pain it has caused you, and then to have compassion for yourself and for what you’ve been through.

b)Grieve the loss: The second step is to actively grieve and mourn what you’ve lost, whether it was a job, a career, a loved one or your old, pre-Covid sense of identity. It requires shedding real tears, getting right down to the depths of your pain, and then releasing all the bad feelings.

c)Let it go: The third step is the natural outgrowth of steps one and two. Once you’ve faced and grieved your losses, you’ll start to feel a sense of relief and an easing of your emotional strain. You feel a sense of lightness and renewed optimism. You’ll never forget what you’ve lost but you will no longer feel as burdened by the pain.

3. To combat social overload, work on being happier together:

a)Don’t sweat the small stuff: You can learn to put things into perspective and not get bent out of shape over the little things that aren’t important. And, when the big things do come up, you’ll be less irritated, in general, and more able to deal with them in a reasonable manner.

b)Carve out alone time: Sharing the same space doesn’t mean that you have to be on top of each-other, all the time. Seek out separate places in your home so that you all have some alone-time. If your place is too small for that, make sure to get outside for a walk every day, to have time just for yourself. Encourage the people you live with to do the same so that everyone gets a break and while they’re out, you can be at home on your own for a while. Having time alone will reduce the level of tension in the home, considerably.

4. To deal with the lack of distractions, practice introspection with self-compassion:

Many people avoid facing their feelings and thoughts because they’re afraid of the self-judgment that might accompany introspection. Work on silencing the inner critic so that you can tune in to your thoughts and feelings with self-compassion, and then it will be less scary and more fruitful to spend that time in quiet contemplation.

Instead of distracting yourself with food, alcohol, drugs, or gaming — or taking out your frustrations on others — you can get to know yourself. The pay-off – aside from avoiding these self-destructive behaviours – is that increased self-awareness leads to real happiness, fulfillment and success in life.

5. To cope with feeling scared and out of control, practice self-comfort and surrender:

 a)Try self-soothing: Practice positive self-talk that is soothing, reassuring and calming to yourself – just as you would do for your own child – when you’re feeling scared, insecure or overwhelmed. It really works!

b)Give up control and embrace conscious choice: Rigidly maintaining the illusion of control only makes you feel more out-of-control and miserable. Surrendering to the reality of no control will empower you to make informed, creative choices, and this will decrease your stress and significantly improve your happiness and success.

If you practice these five tips, not only will you recover from the past year, but you’ll be on your way to not just surviving but thriving, in the months and years to come.

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