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A Simple Antidote to Help With Coronavirus Anxiety
It’s a science-backed mindfulness tool called Just the Facts, and it actually works
Every single morning for the past 10 days, I’ve woken up with a singular thought blaring in my brain, a certainty: Well, it’s finally here. I’ve caught the coronavirus.
My body, however, disagrees: I actually have no Covid-19 symptoms, which can include a dry cough, painful muscle aches, a high fever, and shortness of breath. I also don’t live in any of the “hot spots” for the coronavirus, nor have I left the house in the past week. Despite this, the anxious thoughts just keep coming: I’m sick. It’s fatal. Is that a cramp in my shoulder, or are the muscle aches starting to set in?
My health-related anxiety stretches back over a decade, and thanks to random issues like kidney stones, ovarian cyst ruptures, and even cancer, I eventually developed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Having PTSD, for me, meant assigning meaning to every single bodily sensation and launching into a panic attack, terrified that some illness would manifest once again and totally upend my life.
When my PTSD got really bad three years ago, I checked myself into an outpatient therapy program focused on anxiety. It was there where I learned the best defense against my…
