Four Lessons From Your Anxious Brain

Pandemic life has saddled us with lots of conflicting emotions. Here’s how to cope with feelings of uncertainty and make a fresh start.

 

Feeling unsettled? Anxious? Overwhelmed? Welcome to the summer of 2021.

I asked thousands of New York Times readers of all ages to share how they’re feeling right now. The most common answers revealed the mixed feelings of the past 14 months: unsettled, anxious, overwhelmed, frazzled, tired, hopeful, optimistic, stressful, exhausted, excited.

 

Some readers said just one word was not enough to describe how they’re feeling.

 

“Bored, anxious, hopeful — all at once. Is there a word for that?” asked one reader.

 

Ours was not a scientific survey — the respondents all had signed up for the 10-day Fresh Start Challenge, which delivered daily texts with tips for healthy living. But the answers are consistent with national survey data that shows many people are still struggling with the emotional toll of pandemic life. The Household Pulse Survey, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that as of mid-May, almost a third of Americans (30.7 percent) were experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression. While that number was down from a peak of about 42 percent in November, it’s still alarmingly high. In 2019, about 11 percent of adults in the United States had similar symptoms, according to a comparable survey from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Dr. Judson Brewer, director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and an associate professor of psychiatry at the medical school, said many of his patients are describing themselves as feeling overwhelmed and frazzled. The emotions are likely to stem from the general uncertainty created by pandemic life. For the brain, feelings of uncertainty are like hunger pangs to your stomach, he said. While a stomach growl is a signal you need food, feelings of uncertainty are a signal to your brain that it needs information. The problem for many people right now is a lack of information about how life looks going forward.

 

“Information is food for our brain,” said Dr. Brewer, author of the new book “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.” “But when there is continuous uncertainty that we can’t resolve, that leaves people feeling anxious. They can feel overwhelmed because there’s not a resolution; the brain is not able to solve the problem. That leaves them feeling frazzled, tired and exhausted.”

 

“The last year,” said Dr. Brewer, “has created a huge amount of uncertainty in so many different realms.”

 

The good news is that times of uncertainty are also opportunities for personal growth and building resilience. Studies show that periods of disruption, like moving to a new town or getting divorced — or living through a pandemic — can also be opportunities for breaking bad habits and starting healthy new ones. Here are some strategies to help you cope with an anxious, uncertain and hopeful summer.

 

좋은 소식은 불확실성의 시대가 개인적인 성장과 회복력 증진을 위한 기회이기도 하다는 것이다. 연구에 따르면 새로운 도시로 이사하거나, 이혼, 혹은 세계적인 유행병을 겪는것과 같은 혼란기는 동시에 나쁜 습관을 버리고, 새로운 건강한 습관을 시작하는 기회가 될 수도 있다고 시사하고 있다. 여기 불안하고 불확실하지만, 동시에 희망찬 여름에 대처할 수 있도록 당신을 돕기 위한 몇 가지 전략을 적어 본다. 

 

Build your distress tolerance

 

Worrying about what you don’t know will just make anxiety and stress worse. But accepting that some answers aren’t available right now can help you build an emotional muscle called “distress tolerance.” People with low distress tolerance often turn to unhealthy ways of coping, like substance use or spending excessive amounts of mindless time watching television or gaming.

 

스트레스 내성을 길러라

 

당신이 모르는 일에 대해 걱정하는것은 불안과 스트레스를 더 악화 시키기만 할 뿐이다. 하지만 지금으로서는 몇몇 문제에 대한 대답을 얻지 못한다는 사실을 받아들이는것은 ‘스트레스 내성’ 이라 불리는 ‘감정 근육’을 만드는데 도움이 될 것이다. 스트레스 내성이 낮은 사람들은 종종 약물을 사용하거나, TV, 게임 등 딱히 아무 생각을 하지 않아도 되는 활동에 지나치게 많은 시간을 소비하는 등 건강하지 못한 방법에 의지한다. 

 

Telling yourself that you accept the current state of uncertainty can help, Dr. Brewer said. Try telling yourself, “I’ll change the things I can, and accept the things I can’t.” Identifying and naming your feelings can calm the part of your brain that is feeling stressed. A multi-sensory exercise like five-finger breathing, in which you trace the outline of your hand with a finger while focusing on your breathing, can help stop negative thoughts from taking over.

 

“자기 자신에게 현재의 불확실함을 받아들이겠다고 말하는 것이 도움이 될 수 있습니다.”고 Brewer 박사는 말했다. “내가 바꿀수 있는것은 바꾸되, 할 수 없는 것이 있다는 사실을 받아들일 것이다.” 라고 말해보라. 당신의 감정을 식별하고 이에 이름붙이는 행위는 뇌에서 스트레스를 받고 있는 부분을 진정시킬 수 있다. 호흡에 집중하면서 손가락으로 손의 윤곽을 추적하는, ‘다섯 손가락 호흡’과 같은 다감각 운동은 부정적인 생각이 당신의 감정을 장악하지 못하도록 도움을 줄 수 있다. 

 

“As a society we’re not doing a great job of teaching ourselves to have distress tolerance,” said Dr. Brewer. “Just knowing we can’t change something, that we can’t get the information — that information alone can be calming. The most adaptive response is to be OK with the uncertainty.”

 

“사회 전반적으로, 우리는 스트레스 내성을 갖도록 스스로를 잘 가르치지 못하고 있습니다.” Brewer 박사는 말했다. “우리는 모든것을 통제할 수 없고, 얻을 수 없는 정보도 있다는 사실에 대해 인지하는 것 자체만으로도 평온을 얻을 수 있는데, 가장 이를 잘 나타낸 대답은 불확실성에 대해 ‘괜찮다’ 라고 하는 겁니다.”

 

Identify your best pandemic habits

A common source of anxiety these days is that the slower pace of pandemic life will soon be replaced by our previous, more stressful routines. “I would like to savor the slower pace,” said one reader. “I’m afraid we’ll go back to before-times levels of overscheduling.”

 

사람들은 공통적으로 최근, 팬데믹 동안의 느긋한 생활이 곧 이전에 스트레스를 많이 받던 일상으로 다시 되돌아 갈 것이라는 사실로부터 많은 불안을 느끼고 있다. 한 독자는 “저는 느긋한 생활을 음미하고 싶습니다.” 라며 “예전 수준의 과도한 스케줄로 가득찬 생활로 돌아가는 것이 두렵습니다.” 라고 덧붙였다.

 

Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School and author of the new book “How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,” advises people to look back on the past 14 months and identify the changes you want to keep.

 

Wharton School 의 교수이자 새 책 “어떻게 변화해야 하는가: 당신이 있는 곳에서 원하는 곳으로 가는 과학”의 저자인 Katy Milkman 은 사람들에게 지난 14개월을 되돌아보고 당신이 유지하고 싶은 변화는 어떤것인지를 인지하라 조언하고 있다. 

 

“One of the things I find really interesting about the pandemic is that it forced us to experiment in ways that we wouldn’t usually,” she said. “We were all forced to try Zoom or try different kinds of workouts. One important thing is to be conscious of what experiments were good. What did you discover that you want to keep doing?”

 

“팬데믹 상황과 관련하여 제가 정말 흥미롭게 생각하는 것 중 하나는, 이러한 상황이 우리들로 하여금 평소에 하지 않았던 방법을 시도하도록 만들었다는 것입니다.” Katy Milkman 교수는 말했다. “우리는 Zoom 을 사용해 보아야만 했고, 다른 운동을 시도해 보아야만 했습니다. 여기서 한 가지 중요한 점은, 어떠한 시도가 좋았었는지를 의식하고 있어야 한다는 것입니다. 이런 다양한 시도들 중, 팬데믹이 끝나더라도 계속 유지해나가고 싶은것은 어떤게 있었나요?”

 

In her own life, Dr. Milkman realized she had been frazzled by the effort to orchestrate her energetic 5-year-old’s social calendar. “We were trying to do play dates regularly, and it was truly miserable,” said Dr. Milkman. “It was such a relief to realize, ‘Maybe we don’t need so many play dates. Maybe it’s OK to go on hikes together as a family.’ I think everybody had their own discoveries through the forced experimentation the pandemic imposed.”

 

To stop yourself from sliding back into old behaviors you no longer want to keep, ask yourself the questions: “What am I getting out of this? Is there a new way of doing this?” advises Dr. Brewer. He said the pandemic restrictions taught him to rethink his busy travel schedule. Before the pandemic he was traveling around the country to conferences, but learned he could be just as effective giving talks via Zoom without being away from his family as often.

 

“If we see an old behavior we might be slipping back into, it’s a matter of paying attention and being aware,” said Dr. Brewer.

 

Strengthen your connections

Numerous studies show that stronger social connections help us cope with anxiety and build resilience. A number of readers during the Fresh Start Challenge said they were anxious about returning to old social routines.

“What is normal now?” texted one reader. “Looking forward to being with people again, but feel like I’ve lost my ability for casual conversations.”

 

During the Fresh Start Challenge, we gave readers a list of 36 questions to help them get social conversations started. The questions, designed to help people reveal more about themselves, come from a study called “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness,” led by Arthur Aron, a scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

 

One reader shared that asking her husband the question, “What super power would you like?” revealed something she didn’t know about him.

 

“My husband told me he’d like to be able to stop time and restart it when he got caught up,” she said. “This gave me a better understanding of his feelings about time and how best to approach certain subjects with him.”

Although the questions in Dr. Aron’s study became known as the 36 questions that lead to love, he points out that the goal of the questions is not to spur romance. Most of the time, the questions will help strangers to become friends, friends to become closer and romantic partners to feel more connected.

 

Ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”

Lately, I’ve heard from a lot of readers who are berating themselves for gaining weight or exercising less during the pandemic lockdowns. “I feel out of control and self indulgent, particularly with regards to eating and drinking,” a reader told me. “The increased weight makes moving uncomfortable and lowers my opinion of myself.”

 

It’s important to remember that almost everyone struggled with balancing the restrictions of pandemic life. Shaming yourself is counterproductive. A large body of research shows that when we give ourselves a break and accept our imperfections — a concept called self-compassion — we’re more likely to take care of ourselves and live healthier lives.

“One of the major things self-compassion gives you is the ability to not be so overwhelmed by the difficult emotions you’re experiencing,” said Kristin Neff, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has pioneered much of the research on self-compassion. “Give yourself a little kindness.”

 

Dr. Neff offers guided meditations and exercises to learn self-compassion on her website, Self-Compassion.org. One of the simplest ways to start practicing self-compassion is to ask yourself one question: “What do I need right now?”

“If you’re judging yourself, you’re harming yourself,” said Dr. Neff, whose new book is “Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.” “What do you need to be well? Maybe what you need is not to lose five pounds. Maybe you need more self-acceptance. The more you are able to accept yourself, the more you’re able to make those positive healthy changes in your life.”