3 Reasons You've Been More Anxious During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The global onset of COVID has seen an enormous uptick in the number of people suffering from episodes of high anxiety. Everywhere around the world, people are having more intense experiences with anxious symptoms, like insomnia, daytime restless, and nausea.

On the surface, it seems like a no-brainer that everyone would be more on edge. But the old nature vs. nurture model that we’ve been using to understand anxiety does not account for that. Can we really pin our anxiety about COVID on our genetics, our upbringing, or some combination of the two? Clearly not. 

Then how do we explain this increase in severity of anxious symptoms?

In my previous post, we touched on the idea that feeling anxious is not an effect of our environment or our genetics. Rather, we become anxious when we engage in certain behaviors that cause us to feel anxious symptoms. When we spend time recalling past discomfort or focus our attention on present and future discomfort, it causes our body to produce adrenaline, leading to things like elevated heart rate and shortness of breath. The reason why some people have more anxious symptoms than others is because they spend more time engaging in this kind of behavior.

Thus the relevant question is: which of these behaviors are we doing more frequently during this pandemic, and what’s the solution?

If you’re like most others, odds are you’re doing one of the following:

1. You’re spending more time scanning your body (and the internet) for symptoms.

Every other article about COVID recommends we go and get tested if we begin to feel sick. It also recommends frequent self-checks to verify what kind of symptoms we’re feeling - perhaps once every few days - as a way to decide whether we should go to the doctor. However, most of us are much more liberal with our body scans. Instead of doing a quick check in the morning, once a week, we spend minutes or even hours, multiple times a day, asking ourselves whether a certain symptom is a sign of our impending death. This rarely motivates us to go see a doctor and get tested, but we still do it.

Much like every other time we focus on something negative, this scanning has the unfortunate consequence of signaling to the rest of our brain that we might be in danger, causing it to produce stress hormones. This raises our heart rate, makes us short of breath, and induces nausea - ironically, symptoms that have overlap with COVID.

The solution

If we want to stop feeling anxious, we need to stop worrying about our body - to stop scanning as frequently and looking for symptoms. Of course, while this sounds simple on the surface, it can feel impossible, especially for those of us who obsessively worried about our body even before COVID. 

If this resonates with you, I sympathize. I used to check in with myself multiple times a day to the point where my self-checks were doing more harm than they were preventing. If you feel the same way and are interested in learning how to answer questions like How do I stop worrying about my body? and Why does trying to stop worrying make me feel worse?, you can sign up for my mailing list to be notified when my book is released (likely within the next few months).

2. You’re spending more time reading bad news.

Though most of us read plenty of bad news before COVID, the magnitude of negativity has only increased throughout the pandemic. Not only are more people dying from illness, but the politics surrounding it have led to even more frustration and despair. 

Unfortunately, reading bad news has the same effect on your body as worrying. When you spend time telling yourself Oh no, things can only get worse or asking yourself Will this have some terrible impact on me?, it does just as much to make stress hormones as scanning your body. 

The solution

Consider tapering down how often you read the news. I find once a week to be the perfect balance between staying informed and not causing myself unnecessary discomfort.

3. You’re spending more time with your friends ruminating and catastrophizing.

In recent years, we’ve been bombarded with messages telling us to talk to friends and family when we feel anxious or depressed. And this message has only gotten stronger from the onset of COVID. Don’t be afraid to reach out. Talking to someone can only help... right?

Well, not exactly. 

The conversations we focus on with our friends are just as capable of causing anxious symptoms as reading bad news or scanning our body; any time we spend needlessly focusing on uncomfortable thoughts negatively affects us, even if we’re doing it with a group of friends. 

The solution

Luckily, the remedy for this is simple: if you feel your conversation is getting overly negative, you can ask to change the subject. I know few people who would be seriously opposed to being less negative, and those who are will soon thank you when they realize how beneficial it is.

You may have noticed a common thread between these three: all of them have to do with focusing our attention on uncomfortable thoughts, also known as worrying. Last time, we briefly explored how worrying can negatively affect our body. So for those of you looking to boost your recovery from high anxiety, ask yourself this question: why do we worry? The answer for some of the scenarios above may be simple, but what about in a broader sense? What is the purpose of worrying?

If you’d like to know the answer to this question, sign up for my newsletter or like my Facebook page. I write extensively about it in my book, which is coming soon.

For now, I wish you luck on your journey and hope you have a speedy recovery.