Managing Our Anxiety and Fear During Covid-19

psychologist Dr Romney. We deal with more challenges in twenty four hours today than what we were in a whole lifetime and motivational speaker j. Shetty team up to help us cope with these challenging times. How do you help people that because of their anxiety actually can't sleep. Relationships will be challenged. This is going to be a real interesting workout for a lot of couples and hard decisions will have to be made. We have to become careful with whose pain and how much pain we can take on.

And in my codependency, you know I want to help from two of the best experts on the planet. We have both of you on speed Dole. Thank goodness, that's all I can say, obviously, the coronavirus pandemic is causing great fear and anxiety, even panic and alant panic. You just did that exhibit where you had your album The Anxiety come out. You put yourself in a box dealing with eight stages of anxiety for twenty four hours. It was really timely, even though you've been planning that for

a while. But the fact that this kind of isolation, this confinement, that were all coming up against experiencing now I walked right in when you shaved your head. Yeah, I felt like I was just shedding, know, like a lot of um, just history and a lot of emotional baggage, six seven years of emotions. Just I let it all go. Not something my baby girl just transformed before my eyes. And I've seen that twice. The first time you shaved jo when you were twelve years old, and then this time.

But this time you came into a womanhood. So kudos to you. So we've been talking a lot about our emotional feelings surrounding coronavirus when all of this started to bubble up. But I just started to see all this fear happening even within myself. Definitely, there were two people I wanted to invite back to the Red Table to give us some tools on how to just stay peaceful and calm. Clinical psychologist Dr Romney, she is full of much knowledge. And Jay Shetty he is here who is

a really great family friend. And you know, he's what I call our Um present day or modern Tom Monk. So I know I know Um. First of all, you guys, I wanna ask you. I'll start with you, how you're doing. And it's been something you know. My daughter goes to school overseas. I called my next and I said, we got to get her home now. And so she got very anxious. She thought, what if I get stuck in Europe because she had to fly back through Europe and now she's on a fourteen day self quarantine, as all

people returning from Europe need to be. And I have a bigger problem brewing because my mother has a degenerative spinal cord disease and we found that out three weeks ago. She was supposed to have surgery in two weeks. So they're both elderly there on the other side of the country. I don't want to go there and expose them. You know, your days and nights then become occupied with my parents. Okay, is my mom to be? Okay? But then I'm also a therapist. My poor clients, a lot of them are

are struggling, and they're struggling a lot. It builds up, it brings up old anxieties, people who are living with anxiety. This is a multiplier, right. I can tell you this as a shrink. Never before as we had the mental health profession taken on something of this magnitude. It's all hands on deck. Kay, what about you? I know you had to push your book back, it was it because of all of this. Yeah. Absolutely. First of all, I'm

just so grateful to you for doing this. It's so meaningful that you show up in this way, and you know, the last episode was amazing, and so thank you for doing it, first of all, and thank you for both for being here. I just wanted to know that. I just wanted to know it. It's amazing. But I think for me, it's always showing me what I can't control and shifting to what I can control. And so my genuine go to in these scenarios is how can I

be of service at this time? And that usually helps me find my feet at these times, because then I feel like, at least I know what looks like. I just want to ask you because not only are you, you know, giving services to other people in a very stressful time, that you are dealing with your own stress as well. Yeah, I don't think people think about No, they don't. What are some of the tools that you're using to balance it all for yourself having a routine,

and that routine is saving me. Like I get up and I'm very clear what I'm going to do first thing in the morning. Believe it or not, every closet of my house is so organized. I'm staying very close touch with folks, with my family, with my friends. That's helping getting a lot of rest, I have to say, and I even say that to anyone out there who's taking care of people, supporting people. I'm really like tucking myself in and getting that rest. I love what I do.

I feel like it's a privilege, and I think at this time when I can actually do that, really focus on meaning and purpose, like this is what you signed up form and that this is it. And so I have to say that for me, a lot of it is sort of spiritually grounding and saying this is what this is about. And and then you just sort of fight the good fight. But I do go to bed

by nine o'clock. So, j what are some of the stresses that you're seeing from I think one of the big ones is people just don't know if they have it or they don't have it, how are they going to get it? And the other one that I'm seeing in a big way is just like uncertainty around people's futures, like how long is this going to be? Is just

going to be like a month or three months? Like I had weddings planned, I had holiday's plan, vacations, like all these planning that we all do, and that's feeling affected. And then you're just seeing people with the anxiety of like, how's this going to affect my family and my parents or young children. How do you help people that, because of their anxiety and all the things that are going on in their heads, that actually can't sleep. That's a

fantastic question because that's exactly what is happening. People are waking up, literally waking up in the middle of the night and having panic attacks because it's not just about the virus. It's about jobs and money and future and family. People are thinking catastrophically. A lot of it is routine, especially bedtime routine, helping them understand what they can control, and doing a lot of acceptance to work around the

stuff they can't. But I have to say this is why all of us is therapists are doing a lot of remonte work with our clients because for some of them, it's like a good night text, it's okay, like it's going to be okay. Yeah, And also helping them not feel crazy, and so it's okay to really normalize that. Any reaction at this point is okay. Don't judge your reaction right now. A lot of people are interacting with the world from the fear part of their brain. Okay.

So that part of the brain is a name. It's called the migdala, which is a word for almond. It's literally shaped like an almond. And that part of the brain is all fear all the time. It's like the scary network in your brain, okay, always playing horror films. And so when you're a magdala is on, all you do with everything as a threat. The smallest thing feels like a catastrophe. The problem is right now. For a

lot of people. Their minteal is driving the car, and what should be driving the car is a part of the brain we call the prefrontal cortex that's right here, and that part of the brain hand it's it's bigger, but honestly, the amygdala is a scrap fighter. Take it down. You know, I don't care. I big you are. I'm running the show. And that's in fact people have anxiety disorders. Anxiety.

The amygdala is actually sending all of this fear based information and your your frontal cortex is saying, actually, because the frontal cortex handles things like how we regulate emotion, how we inhibit responses, how we make good decisions, even things like empathy. But when it's all fear, fear, fear, we are not able to make a rational decision and say, I don't need seven hundred rolls of toilet paper like six,

so do it for now. And your amygdala is like, you need all the toilet paper, you need a hundred cans of soup. And that's what we're seeing happen is that I'd really love to see that these two things need to work together, that that little bit of fears enough to say I gotta wash my hands. I've got to keep a distance. But the prefrontal cortex is the part that says, okay, we can do this in a reasonable way, so you better believe it affects your body

and affects it a lot. We deal with more challenges in twenty four hours today because of what we're exposed to than what we were in a whole lifetime years ago. So we're just hearing about each and every person's plain and that's a lot of pain to process. And it's almost like these times we have to become careful with whose pain and how much pain we can take on and feel the way of that's my codependency, you know, I want to exactly and I'm really this has been

a real time for me. I have no choice but to let like, uh, you know what I mean. There's it's so much happening. Think about it as your immune system.

It's like this whole entity inside of you that needs to be surfaced right now because we need that little at this point because a lot of us are going to get exposed to If the math is right, three of us at this table should end up developing the virus, So you know, I mean, and that sort of recognizing those limits becomes really critical to saying I am honoring my body so that down the road I can be

the codependent rescuer boring to me. So how So explains it was a little bit how stress can affect us physically. Stress really takes us out physiologically. We cannot underestimate it. Number one, And what's important right now is what stress does to our immune system, and it makes it less efficient, not just in the short term, but in the long term,

So that's absolutely critical. Number two. It also affects our behaviors, like we don't sleep as well, we don't as well, we don't hydrate as well, all the things we might drink too much, like alcohol. So there's all these things we do because we're trying to cope with it. And then finally, stress is involved with the release of neural hormones that will also we're going to have impacts on our brain. Okay, well, thousands of you have sent messages

about your coronavirus anxiety. Melissa's at home in New York. What's going on? Melissa? Hi, guys, Hey, I am one of those people who the a magdala is probably driving the car a little bit right now, and um, but I kind of think it's for a good reason. I am a mother of triplets in Long Island, which has been hit very hard in our country, and one of

my children has to life threatening chronic conditions. So even though people are saying that it's not really affecting children, a simple everyday virus can cause a massive seizure for my honor. So the fear of this disease is horrifying to me. And what's driving me crazy is I'm getting text from friends saying, Hey, let's meet up for a plated and let's do this, and let's do that. I feel like everyone should be taking much more precautions. My

husband and I are doing everything possible. We pulled our kids out of school before it was even mandated. My husband has to go to work. I'm staying at home, but when he walks in the door, I don't know him come anywhere near us. He's running to the shower, stripping down, totally washing himself. I'm like, don't even look at me and the kids until you're completely sanitized. And I just feel like that's what everyone should be doing at this point. And I do feel like people think

i'm sort of the crazy mom. Maybe I'm a little bit, but I'd rather overreact than underreact because I can't take it back if somebody dies taking it back. So how can I sort of get my friends to realize, like plate ATE's are not cool? You know, everyone should be acting the same way my husband and I are. Wow, i'd say you're first of all, I'd say, so you're

not overreacting, you know what I'm saying. I think right there, you're actually kind of gaslighting and confusing yourself, like you're reacting and you're protecting your babies and you're being vigilant and that's just being a mother. And you know what, I'd also say, it's not your job to convince your friends. It is your job to communicate to your friends and say I can't do this. I'm protecting my family, but you don't need to be their teacher. And that's it,

and then you're done. That's it. Because I think you're being a mom and it sounds like you're doing one

heck job. Please don't judge yourself because that causes anxiety, and give up the judgment of yourself, and don't also worry about the judgment that you think others have of you, because that's going to waste your energy that you get to take care of your family, and you're not wasting energy trying to convince them or trying to see how they're going to judge you differently or change their viewpoint of view. And I would just let that part go

and let yourself live without that judgment. Keep being that superman. Thank you, thank you. Here's a good question from j D. I love my wife, but I need some alone time during this quarantine. How can I tell her that? Let me tell you relationships are going to be up. Yeah, I don't think people have spent this much time together like partners, and and it's like this time is really

gonna show people how people deal with pressure. But there's going to be a baby boom too, a baby boom and a divorce boom, and both are going to happen at the same time. And I think if you're just seeking more space in your relationship, I think one of the bigger mistakes we often make is that we express what we want, but we don't explain why we want it. And so if you just go up to your partner and you say I want space or I need space, they don't know why you want it, and so now

they're confused. They're now filling in the text of going or maybe he or she doesn't like me, or maybe I'm annoying that maybe we want to break and they're trying to get away from Whereas if you explain why you want what you want, then someone has the opportunity to say, oh, I get that, I wanted it too, because often you find the both of you want to space,

but one of you scared of saying it. I think that's true because if you if you just say to somebody, I need space, sometimes that's a trigger for one step towards divorce. It doesn't necessarily mean that, just means hey need two hours please, Yeah, and tell people what you're gonna do with it. It's like, hey, I need to two hours to read. I just need this time to what's this show or whatever. It's like, just be intentional

about it, you know. I think it's also interesting, though, is that this is a great test for their relationship. In a relationship, it's absolutely critical you'll be able to ask for your time and space, and if that can't be honored, then that was a little bit of a red flag. Popping up. You know that you can't get whatever that space looks like it could be. You can. We can take walks for healthy. So one takes a walk or one whatever takes a drive gives a space.

If you have two rooms in a house, then you've got one, and you've got one. But I think that this is actually going to be a real interesting workout for a lot of couples. The next one comes from a college senior named Danielle Hi. My name Sanielle. I am a senior in college and the coronavirus has caused me a lot of worry and anxiety. My school has canceled graduation along with other events, and they are kicking

students out of their dorm rooms. Classes that I need to graduate have also been canceled, and I'm just really wondering how I can manage and how I can handle this new timeline. I feel like this is such a deep human anxiety. But we also have to think about grief. A lot of people have lost some things that matter to them. I'm looking at a lot of the college student. She's a senior high school and college students are losing

their problems, They're losing their commencements. These are big, real, big deals in yours and for them, they've worked all this time and they had that vision. There is a lot of grief going on, to which I tell people, when you're grieving grief, don't feel like it's thrown her whole life off track. So the grief has to happen. But think about those students who are now in it's their whole reality in AT. I mean, this is an interesting time because people are feeling guilt over their grief,

right when everyone is dying and sick. Right, it's okay to grieve. There is no loss too small. So what are some healthy ways to deal with that grief? Ry it out? You know, I don't know when crying went out of fashion, but it's so so good. Best places to cry, shower, you know, like those it's so cry it's okay, And then take your grief to that person you're trust. I just had a friend called me who lost something big professionally because of this and she doesn't

know if she can get it back. And I said, sweetheart, this is such a big loss. I'm so sorry. She needed that one place because she thought I'm gonna look ridiculous if I took this into a public form. Everyone I hope has their person and don't just try to fix it. Let them. That's a good point to you. Don't try to fix it. There's a lot of shaming happening, you know there is. To me, there's no crisis too big or small right now. Some people feel like, oh gosh,

I'm worried about my personal thing. Right it's your personal thing, and that makes it okay whatever it may be. Maybe you don't get to finish your degree on time. Maybe you're upset about a party you had to cancel, and it's okay to be upset. But they're going on social media and often getting shamed. You're worried about your party when when the whole world is falling apart, and then they feel incredibly guilty. They feel ashamed and even more anxious.

One of my favorite ones is voice. Noting it to yourself because you want to be heard yourself. Like when you hear yourself, you actually get to be objective for yourself. You get to dat yourself as a friend, like you hear your own voice, and you can be there for yourself. And I think that's such an important thing to do. It's sometimes easy to speak it out and hear your own voice go through it. And because I hate journaling, I think it's a great I do. I don't like

I never have. I don't like writing. Meanwhile, her daughter has a cabinet full of fifties journals. Okay, so being forced to leave work has been really hard for many And Cheryl from Kansas has a question. My name is Cheryl, and I work as a director for the family program of a homeless shelter and I'm so tired. I'm exhausted, I really am. My family would like me to just step back and focus on keeping myself safe and healthy. But with everything that's going on, I don't know if

I can do that. If I step back, who's going to provide services for some of the most vulnerable citizens that we have. How do I deal with the guilt if I decide to leave? Wow? So Cheryl, l are like, so, sister, you want to rescue everyone, you know. Cheryl also brings up a really important concept of what we call compassion fatigue. Cheryl is working with a community that's a tremendously high need that we really need to be looking out for.

But as we said, Cheryl needs to take care of her, or she won't be able to do the work at all. All of us weren't any form of helping all the health care professionals, those of us in mental health, people in critically important job. If we let ourselves go, that's when this whole system is going to fall apart. In fact, Will was making the point when you guys were talking with the infectious disease doctor. If we overwhelm the health

care system, there's going to be no more beds. If we don't take care of ourselves, there's not going to be enough cares the same. Yeah. The way I see it, in the way I process it personally as someone who likes to extend myself is I always think about lifeguards. So if I saw someone drowning, if I'm a strong, healthy lifeguard, then i can go dive in and pull them out because I've got the strength to do that.

But if I haven't, then I'm going to get pulled into And I think that's what we've got to measure for ourselves. It's really hard. It's hard because there's so much pain and you think that you're the only one, the only and we're not. And that's that's betifoint Elizabeth from West Texas needs help with this one. Working from home is making me feel isolated and lost. How do I deal with feeling lonely? I think there's a lot

of that going on. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of people struggling with the pressure of like do I show? How do I know? The guilt of like how will I be judged? How's this going to affect me after this time period? And I think it's rewiring our relationship with a lot of things, our relationship it with ourselves, our relationship with our friends and family, our relationship with our partners. And one of the relationships that I think

it's really impacting is our relationship with loneliness. And I hear that a lot on social media, where so many people are so scared of being alone. And there are a few ways that I'd like us to think about it or rewire it. One of the first is that our language the world we always use for being alone is loneliness. But there is another word, and that word solitude. And what we forget is that this may be the

best time. While loneliness is feeling alone and having no company, Solitude is about being the best company for yourself and finding what you love doing by yourself, whether it's having your tea, whether it's reading, whether it's learning something new, whether it's listening to this like, you've got an opportunity to find a new you in a beautiful way and cultivate that relationship. And at the same time, you've got to recognize that our challenge is not with shared space.

Our challenge and shared experiences. So it's not that we want to be in the same space with people's that we feel we're not going to have any more experiences with people. You can have virtual experiences, you can have lunch together, you can play games together, you can have dinner together virtually, and you can still have a shipped experience without being in the same space. And I think we struggle. We think we have to be in the same space, but we don't. That's such a good point,

the difference between solitude and loneliness. Helicia from Alberta, Canada says she needs advice. My name is Helicia, and my anxiety as on an all time high because of the coronavirus. I'm worried that we're not prepared. I feel like we don't have the necessities I eat food and diapers stores are all sold out. So my question is to you how to ideal with the anxiety of not being prepared. Mm hmmm. So anxiety at is is an overwhelming fear. Uh and you all the systems get hijacked so you

can't pay you if you can't figure it out. And I think of it like a recipe, like I'm gonna use an analogy like making an apple pie. You don't just like I need to make an apple pie just needs to exist, Like what do you need to do? You start getting the ingredients together. Anxiety is all about breaking things down, calmly into component processes. In her case, she feels unprepared. So if I'm gonna make an apple pie, I need apples. I need but or so I need

to figure out how to get apples. She's unprepared. What do you need? Like, we don't need all the crazy stuff people are buying. Listen, even if you don't have toilet paper, you can make it work, right See. And I think that that everyone feels as though all my stuff has been taken away. How can I figure it out? Yes? You can. And this is again I'm a big believer in what we call informal mindfulness, Like you don't need to go off to a mountaintop and meditate for three days.

We're all washing our hands seven hundred times a day. Be mindful as you watch your hands, like feel the warm water, feel the soap. These are there's like a bunch of instances in each day. You can kind of get yourself coalesced into a moment and pay attention. Now we have to check door knobs and this. These are all these mindful moments. But that kind of stuff for someone like her can also help with the anxiety. And that what ends up happening is you slowly but surely

deconstruct the apple pie. You don't say, I don't know how to make an apple pie? Do you know how to get an apple? Well, then you're on your way, and then she's got to figure out how to get the apple and then go to the next step. And that's everything is a recipe that can be deconstructed. So you basically have to ground yourself and I can I can hear in all of our language is either future or past. So anxiety we know that it is always

in the past. Words in the future, So it's like, oh, I should have done this or should I do that. One of my favorite therapy techniques that I often share is five four three to one, So it's five things I can see right now. One are the five things I can see, four things I can touch. Let me touch those four things, three things that I can hear, two things that I can smell, and one thing that I can taste. And that brings you to pros. It

just brings you into the moment. If you remember that right now, you're like, Okay, I'm back here right now, and then you go, here's my recipe, what do I do right now? Rather than my mind racing into the past of the future, my mind constantly making me believe that I don't have the power right now right and just just spinning yeah yeah, right, yeah, well there it is again. Routine is a big one. Absolutely. I have the second routine, and one of my favorite ways of

remembering routine. Everyone can do this is make time so t I m e. Thankfulness, intention or insight, meditation, and exercise. Those are four things. You're gonna boost your immune system, it's gonna boost your mood, it's going to boost your confidence and self esteem. It's going to get you through this so that's number one. I think. The second one for me is do focus on what you can control. Unfollow all those threads that you're on, because I've feel

like right now there's just a lot of noise. Choose your sources, keep them short and sweet, and stick to those you don't need to be involved in every conversation about everything that's going on. To be really careful about that. The third one for me is, you know, you really have to realize that your pieces in your power, that your peace and calm can't be disturbed by anything outside because it's what you're defining for yourself, and so find

the activities that do that. Through my favorite things, sites, sense and sounds. We do not realize how much these trigger us. Most of us are watching the news, hearing the news, and smelling the news. I guess. See things that make you happy, whether it's a show, a picture of painting, a drawing, whatever it is. View things that bring joy to your life. Sense change, the sense they

calm you. Naturally sounds put on nature sounds. You may not be able to get out to nature, but play running water, play birds, you know, whatever it is that makes you feel outdoors. Those things are naturally good for you. Turn off the news for a little while you turn it up. You cannot be tuned to it around the clock. Even our day to day tasks have become anxiety. We're afraid to do the things we used to do naturally, hug people and run into the grocery. So when the

mundane things become threatening, anxiety skyrockets. I would also say distract to do things that are pleasant, get plenty of rest because there's a chance to do it, and finally find a way to do for others. Not only will that help alleviate the anxiety during this time of this pandemic, it is a daily practice you're going to take into a future. And if everyone does that, imagine how much better this world's gonna function. And I want to end with this one is just praise your left calm on

your stomach and your right hand on your heart. I know you guys do this all the time, but it's just a calming breath. And so what I'm gonna ask everyone to do is breathe in for account of four

and breathe out for more than four. That's it nice and simple to breathe in for account of four and breathe out for account of more than four, breathing for one, two, three four, and breathe out for one, two, three four and more, and just breathing calm, peaceful energy, and when you exhale, feel yourself just letting go of any of the toxins and negative energy. Your breath is connected to every emotion in your life. When you cry, you breathe differently.

When you're happy, you breathe differently. When you're anxious, you breathe differently. So if you just breathe out for longer than you breathe in, you just naturally relax your mind and body. You got us all in it now. Thank you, Thank you for doing this. Like we watched the last episode together, it was amazing. Think I think that was the best conversation I've seen on COVID for sure. Thank you, thank you. I think this is one of the best

ones we've done. It was for me. This is a conversation that people are having in their homes, and that's why you're bringing it here. It is perfect because that's people need to feel confident. There's nowhere else anyone's having this conversation. The news is not having this conversation. We're taking that conversation out of your head and putting it out here so everybody knows that all of us are struggling.

All of us are struggling, and that that is the one thing we all have in common, so we can draw together on that. I'm sure we will have many more of these Red Table talks. We have both of you on speed out. Thank goodness. That's all I can say. Um, But like once again, just just thank you for being thank you, Thank you so much. To join the Red Table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table Talk.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.