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One Day at a Time
We Need to Learn How to Live Here Now
Daily insights on life in the face of uncertainty, by psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer
Today’s column is about how to use this unusual situation we’re all living through to set good mental habits instead of creating or adding to unhealthy ones.
My wife and I live in Massachusetts, which has a shelter-in-place order in effect. We’ve been doing the right thing and staying home unless we absolutely have to leave the house. We went out to buy groceries the other day. At Trader Joe’s, the shelves were pretty bare. My wife asked the clerk why, and he said that the staff restocks every night, but people come in early and buy everything up. That’s a perfect example of panic buying. Although there is no food shortage, we create the illusion of one when we act like it.
Panic causes the thinking part of our brains to go offline. Panic puts us in survival mode. And panic is contagious. On the opposite end of the spectrum from panic buying is the practice of pandemic denying. This is also a fear response, but it takes the form of acting tough and saying that everyone else is overblowing this situation.
Sadly, both fear responses ignore the real danger — that there is a deadly virus spreading and we lack adequate testing and protections.
Though access to testing has slightly improved in the U.S., we’re still behind. Without mass testing in place, we have no idea how far the coronavirus has spread. It is critical for us all to work together to protect our families and communities by sheltering in place, even if we aren’t in an epicenter. It is also critical for us to keep our thinking brains online and thinking, so we prevent ourselves from swinging to either extreme panic or denial.
As with any new set of circumstances, our brains have to learn how to work in pandemic times.
Think of this as “good mental hygiene” which, like washing our hands, keeps us from spreading panic and denial to others through social contagion. We have to start practicing this today, not tomorrow, not when it gets worse, because the…
