Contents
Fear of getting sick, job loss, forced confinement within four walls. The current situation gives many reasons for concern. It is difficult not to be influenced by the bleak atmosphere. Psychotherapists Svetlana Krivtsova and Frederic Fange share tips on how to avoid discouragement.
Much of what we hear and see around us captures our thoughts, distorts our judgments and pushes us to irrational actions: stocking up on groceries and toilet paper, withdrawing all the money from a bank deposit, listening to the news, while they only fuel the feeling of anxiety.
The effect of this environmental pessimism manifests itself right in our brain, more precisely, in the cortex of the cingulate gyrus, neuropsychologists explain.1. Our behavior in extreme situations and self-esteem depend on the work of this particular area of the brain.
In a sense, thanks to her, we are aware of our emotions – a change in the level of hormones in the blood here turns into a feeling. When negative thoughts and experiences predominate in our daily lives, the activity of the cingulate cortex decreases sharply, we can no longer maintain a balance between the rational and emotional perception of events and cease to see the world objectively.
The contagiousness of pessimism is also linked to our tendency to see the negative first.
Due to the pandemic, a number of companies were forced to stop working, others are now on the verge of ruin. Reports of economists scare protracted crisis. It is difficult for us to step back, not to let in disturbing news. Especially when our knowledge of economics or medicine is small: the less we understand what is happening, the more vividly we imagine the worst.
Such a gloomy look triggers (unconsciously for us) new mechanisms that eventually turn fantasies into something quite probable. What is happening is exactly what the American sociologist, Nobel Prize winner Robert Merton called “a self-fulfilling prophecy”2. Our ideas about the future influence the future itself: we begin to act in accordance with our expectations and thereby fulfill the “prophecy”.
The contagiousness of pessimism stems from our tendency to see the negative first. Let’s not forget that every crisis objectively has a positive side: in our situation, this is an increased attention to one’s own health and hygiene, a revision of attitudes towards excess consumption, the race for ever higher results, individualism that has reigned everywhere.
It is not in our power to change the situation in the world overnight, but there are real ways to change your state of mind.
1. Rationalize your approach to the current situation
Instead of giving vent to fear or anger, let’s ask ourselves: what is really bothering me? Am I sure this concern is justified? To what extent am I specifically affected? The goal, explains existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova, is to “mark the difference between the real risks that a crisis poses to us and the imagined risks.”
This rationalization work will also help to determine the extent to which the current instability crystallizes and sharpens a person’s deeper personal fears.
In a crisis, what scares us is that it can disrupt our habits. But you can perceive it as a chance to reconsider a lot
Among them may be, for example, a deeply hidden memory of a parent mired in debt, of a once experienced period of disorder, a serious illness of a relative, and indeed a fear inherent in a person that we will lack the necessary, that we will be abandoned … To realize this means already a little detach, distance yourself from your fears.
2. Imagine the worst
Let’s imagine that the situation will have catastrophic consequences for you: what will you do then?
“It helps to realize that in fact we are exaggerating, that for the worst case scenario to occur, a whole series of negative (and unlikely) assumptions must come true … and that in any case there is some kind of solution,” explains Svetlana Krivtsova.
In a crisis, what scares us is that it can disrupt our habits. But it can also be seen as a chance to re-prioritise and re-assert our principles, “by asking ourselves what is really important to us,” the therapist notes.
Write down, starting with the most important, what you strive for personally, family and socially, and begin to implement it. I can’t imagine my life without professional self-realization? Then I decide to update my CV, send it to as many addresses as possible, sign up for online courses to learn new skills and improve my skills … Or maybe it’s time to try myself in a new profession?
The most important thing for me is family. Then I set up a ritual: cooking Sunday dinner together each week, discussing the events of the past day, heart-to-heart conversations after dinner … Now is the perfect time to return to the main thing for each of us.
3. Return to your own body
“An effective tool for regaining self-control is deep breathing,” says cognitive psychotherapist Frédéric Fange. “By concentrating on the passage of air through our airways, we distract ourselves from negative thoughts.”
You can also massage your head – from the forehead to the back of the head, with all ten fingers, or press your fist to the solar plexus for thirty seconds and make a few gentle rotational movements. And also dance, swim, run… The goal is to return to your bodily sensations, sources of pleasure, in order to regain peace in yourself.
4. Do small but pleasant things for yourself.
Allow yourself to spend the day in bed with a book that you have long wanted to re-read, talk with friends, order a bouquet of flowers to take home, watch a movie … We respond to such self-care with an increase in self-esteem: they usually take care of who is important, dear, is valuable to us . We begin to trust ourselves more and therefore become more resistant to pessimism and begin to perceive the world in brighter colors.
5. Help others
Finally, an important tool for improving our mental well-being is altruism. “In times of crisis, we tend to withdraw into ourselves, and it is in contact with others that we can re-give meaning and a sense of lightness to our lives,” states Frederic Fange.
Call parents and other relatives who also need support now, play with your own children, help them with homework, take part in a charity event.
It is very important that we have more opportunities and reasons to share, make new connections, and be useful. And cultivate joy: laughter is a powerful antidepressant, thanks to it the brain produces more endorphins, laughter promotes physical relaxation due to its effect on the autonomic nervous system … And it is also much more contagious than pessimism.
1 Monitor on psychology, 2006, vol. 37.
2 R. Merton «The Self-fulfilling Prophecy». Antioch Review, 1948.