96: Chronic stress and the pandemic: 3 stress relieving strategies

Pandemic burnout, I’ve given a version of this talk twice to different groups of health care providers over recent weeks and got an overwhelming response. It’s time to take a hard look at all the extra mental load we’ve all been carrying over the past two years.

The past 18 months of a global pandemic has forced our brains into a place of frequent change, uncertainty, and long-term stress. Let me explain why we’re struggling to cope through this time of uncertainty, how that struggle is impacting our health, and some practical strategies to reduce the toll the pandemic is taking on your mind and body.

I’m Only Human

This summer I locked myself in a stairwell in my office twice in the same week. The second time I had to call my clinical assistant to come rescue me because it was raining and I would have had to walk around the building in the rain to get back in the front door.

You might be wondering how this could happen… Well. I was super distracted trying to do a bunch of mental multitasking. Thinking about a project I was working on, what I was going to make for supper, whether I should pick up my daughter before or after I go to the grocery store, (the usual mental gymnastics we tend to have running through our busy minds).

But I was also thinking about how my business was struggling in the pandemic, how we were adapting again to a new set of restrictions, opening in some areas and not in others, if my daughter’s day care would be closed again in the fall when cases surge, if we could travel again this winter.

And with all that running through my mind, I left my keys in my office, twice.

In our busy world, even before the pandemic it was pretty common to be feeling stretched thin (and to occasionally forget your keys, or lose your phone). We were balancing work, and family, and all the day to day things on our to-do lists.

A lot of us were feeling tired, overwhelmed, and making mistakes like forgetting our keys (which are super normal by the way, there’s nothing wrong with my brain). An 18-month pandemic threw a huge wrench in the mix for our brains and bodies that unfortunately has impacted most of us in terms of our mental and cognitive health.

Our brains are designed to deal with short-term stress. They evolved to handle emergencies, short-term ones at east, so we’re actually really good at dealing with crises.

Why Our Brain Reacts the Way it Does

Let me give you a quick overview of how your brain reacts to an emergency – with what’s often referred to as the fight or flight response. When something stressful or scary happens your brain reacts with a specific pattern (the fight or flight response).

Your amygdala reacts first (the part of your brain that processes emotions like fear). If your amygdala says ”woah this is potentially dangerous” (like you spot a car coming out of the corner of your eye as you’re crossing the street), it sends a message to your hypothalamus (which is like the relay centre for your brain). Your hypothalamus then activates your sympathetic nervous system – which responds by giving your body the burst of energy needs to react to the danger.

Your adrenal glands release epinephrine (which is adrenalin) which makes your heart beat faster, and makes you breath more rapidly to get more oxygen to your brain and muscles. Your eyesight and hearing sharpen, and your muscles tense.

Most of us have felt this before (whether it was seeing a car coming suddenly, or you miss a step and for a second think you’re going to fall). This response is normal and helpful.

After this initial surge of adrenalin, if the danger’s still there, your hypothalamus triggers what’s called the HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal gland system), which causes release of cortisol to keep your body revved up to deal with the threat.

Then, when the threat is gone, because the car passes and you’re fine or you catch yourself on the handrail before you fall, your hypothalamus triggers the parasympathetic system to start calming your body.

For 300 000 years of human evolution, this system worked great.

Our ancestors lived for thousands of years in a world where emergencies and stress were short lived. You either found food or you died. You fought that angry bear and won, or you didn’t. Our brains didn’t have to deal with long term stress.

Our goals were survival and our brains worked great.

And we saw how well those emergency systems in our brains worked early in the pandemic. Yes, there were some folks who hoarded toilet paper. But most of us handled those first few weeks in the spring of 2020 pretty well.

We made jokes about toilet paper shortages and having to use anything we could find as tissue. We took on new hobbies with the extra free time we had when everyone was sent home for a month (cooking is not my thing so I didn’t join the sourdough bread trend but I did do a lot of cleaning, and started my podcast).

We all banded together, and most people were even on board with short term restrictions. Sure we were a bit stressed and not sure what to expect, but we coped pretty well.

With the pandemic dragging on through the ups and downs of the next several months, when it became long-term, things changed for our brains.

Gone was that initial fun and excitement of finally having some time off to spend with our families and start new hobbies. We started to feel that stress increase with the uncertainty and inconsistency of the “new normal”.

What Can Happen to Our Bodies

Our brains aren’t good at dealing with long-term stress. At a biological level, instead of that HPA axis sending messages back to the hypothalamus and amygdala that we can relax because the threat is over, the threat or stress persists and we get chronic activation of the HPA axis at low levels, which results in buildup of cortisol in our bodies, and recurring spikes of adrenalin.

That extra cortisol and spikes of adrenalin impact our immune system, suppresses our digestive systems, and even can impact our reproductive and growth systems.

Long-term activation of our bodies normal stress response increases risks of anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, muscle tension and pain, heart disease, heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure, sleep problems, weight gain, and memory and concentration problems.

This pandemic has been so hard on our minds and bodies, and not just at a biological level. Our brains also love consistency. Our brains are actually super lazy, and that’s a good thing. It makes life easier.

Your brain likes life to be predictable so it can use it’s mental habits and routines more effectively. Consistency uses up way fewer mental resources. For example, Have you ever driven to work and you get to your parking spot and have no idea how you got there?. Your brain goes into mental autopilot and all of a sudden you’re pulling into your parking spot and wondering if you actually stopped at all the lights on the way. This is actually a normal and good thing.

Your brain learned that route to work because you’ve driven it so many times. It’s become a habit, so it’s easy for your brain to drive to work. It doesn’t take a lot of energy or cause a lot of stress.

But what if there’s construction on your way to work or an accident and you have to detour? All of a sudden you’re snapped out of that routine and you’re paying way more attention - turning the radio down so you can concentrate, focusing on the detour signs so you don’t miss any.

When things are out of our normal routine it means more work for our brains, which means less mental resources left for things like managing our emotions and remembering where you put your phone.

Let’s look at some of the changes we’ve had to deal with over the past 2 years.

Working From Home

Many of us had to shift to working from home for at least some period of time.

This is a super hard shift for your brain to make. Your brain learns best with context – for example there’s research that studying in the same room helps you perform better on the exam.

Remember brains love routine and consistency. Pre-pandemic you had a routine, you got to the office and your brain goes into work mode. For your brain your office was where you worked, and home was where you relaxed.

Then, all of a sudden your brain had to learn a new pattern of associations. Home was now also a place of work, and that’s a hard shift for your brain. And there are a million distractions at home! – kids, spouse, tv, fridge calling your name, endless places to get distracted tidying up…

So your brain’s having to work harder to stay focused, and to stay productive working from home. This means less mental resources left for things like managing stress.

Plus while we were working at home we had to take on extra tasks! Kids at home, maybe distance learning. Juggling work, with school, and trying to keep your kids occupied, and a million other things. More things that are pulling your mental resources, and increasing that chronic stress response.

Trouble Sleeping

It’s common when we’re struggling with chronic stress to have trouble sleeping. The trouble is, sleep is when your brain and body recharge, including when a lot of your memories are made into long term storage. If we’re struggling with sleep, we’re starting every day with a partially empty cup of brain resources, which just adds to the stress.

Technology is amazing, but increased screen time can cause eye strain if we’re not used to it. We know that the light from screens impacts our sleep.

There’s also been a loss of connection. Humans are a social species and that physical contact and connect is important. Our reliance on screens has made that hard over the past 2 years.

Uncertainty and Frequent Change

Spring 2020 - the world turns upside down and we are thrown into uncertainty and restrictions. In the summer things improved a bit, businesses started opening again, only for cases to rise in the fall and even stricter restrictions come into play. In the new year of 2021 things improve and we start feeling hopeful, then there’s a surge in the spring and more restrictions.

But vaccinations are here so that’s good and by July life is almost back to normal. Then the new variants surge and more restrictions. And while I’m recording this episode we’re smack in the middle of the Omicron surge and cases are higher than ever.

Each of these changes is going to spike that stress response in your brain. And the uncertainty and lack of predictability keeps that chronic stress response going in the

background.

To make things worse for our brains, there’s no escaping the stress because of the constant barrage of coverage in traditional media and on social media.

The Really Important Part

If you take nothing else away from this blog post, remember this – both the news and social media companies are businesses, and disaster sells. I know this sounds cynical but it’s true, and it’s important.

Facebook has been all over the news this year for how it has been accused of pushing negative content because the app creators know that disaster sells.

But don’t be fooled by traditional media and news outlets, they do the same thing. The news and social media want you to watch their programing, that’s how they make money (from the ad space that they need you watching to sell).

I love chuckling at all the hooks and teasers the news anchors use to keep you watching, like “Coming up after the break could this surge of COVID be the worst yet???”

Even pre-pandemic I avoided watching the news, except when I lived in Halifax and the news was full of fun stories like the local pumpkin racing competition (for real, they carved out giant pumpkins every fall and paddled them across a lake like a canoe).

The constant media coverage of the pandemic has increased our stress response. Especially when it’s so easy to access. The news is always on, you can just pick up your phone and read articles all day if you wanted to. Or you try and take a break and scroll social only to see your friends and relatives arguing about vaccines and restrictions and this all activates your brain’s stress response.

So we can’t really get away from the stress, it’s always there reminding us of how our lives are not normal right now.

Our normal support systems for managing stress were taken away. Gyms closed, group activities cancelled, isolated from family.

Isolation takes a toll on our brains. There was a Swedish study in 2012 who followed a large group of older adults as they aged and found that having a rich social network (friends you spend time with regularly) increased life expectancy by 1-2 years.

There’s research to suggest that loneliness can be as harmful on our health as obesity. Not only are we dealing with more stress, our go-to coping strategies are hard to come by right now.

The result of all these changes?

Increased stress, anxiety, we’re all feeling tense and irritable, not sleeping well, routine out the window, constant state of wondering what’s next. We’re worried about our health and the health of our loved ones. The fake news and misinformation out there, only makes that uncertainty and fear worse.

We’re seeing the research come out now about the toll the pandemic is taking on our collective mental health. Here in Canada we’re seeing a rise in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and alcohol use. We’re reporting more loneliness and isolation, and financial strain is making things worse.

All of this change is taking a toll on our minds and bodies, which makes it that much harder to focus on that project at work, or stay productive towards your goals (remember, your brain only has so many resources, and all this extra mental load from the pandemic is burning through those resources).

Is there a solution to all the stress?

We’re not out of the woods or back to normal yet, but we can take actions to reduce that stress response in our brains by implementing some proven strategies.

What these strategies have in common is they create consistency, routine, and reduce that uncertainty that’s causing our chronic stress response with this pandemic.

We can’t get rid of all the external uncertainty and change, but we can make small changes in our day to reduce the stress and bring back control for your brain.

Strategy 1

Get back into a routine. Remember our brains love routine, it makes it easier for your brain, and brings a feeling of consistency to your brain that feels good.

For example, if you’re working from home, have a dedicated workspace (always work in the same place, not sometimes at your desk, or the counter, or the couch), have a regular schedule, get up at the same time, take breaks at the same time, even if your hours are different at home, get into a routine that you repeat every day.

Strategy 2

Fill your mental cup so you have more resources to cope with stress by taking care of your mind and body. Exercise regularly, even a 20-minute walk at lunch can reduce stress and help you focus and concentrate, eat healthy foods (pre-plan snacks and meals even if you’re working from home so you’re not going to the cupboard to grab whatever’s easy), pay attention to what you’re feeding your brain – things like social media limits, turning off alerts on social media and your email, taking breaks from screens every day.

Strategy 3

Give yourself a mental break. Acknowledge that our brains weren’t designed for this, and it’s been hard.

We can’t control mother nature but instead of focusing on what’s out of our control (and all the what ifs and uncertainty), focus on what is in our control like getting enough sleep and doing things that are fun and we enjoy every day (side note, that Swedish study I told you about also found that folks who participated in leisure activities like hobbies regularly also lived 1-2 years longer).

Our brains need to do fun things too, it can’t be work and stress all the time.

Need more help with your productivity?

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What can we learn?

Our brains were designed to respond to short-term emergencies, and they do that really well.

But long-term stress is hard for our brains to cope with. The biggest causes of long-term stress over the past 18 plus months? Uncertainty and change.

So much of our lives has changed, and we don’t know when that will end. That takes a toll on our brains and bodies.

And when our bodies are drained, we’re more likely to have cognitive errors like locking ourselves in the stairs (or putting our lunch in the cupboard rather than the fridge, I did that recently too), and we’re more likely to experience decline in our mental health like sleep difficulties, anxiety, stress, and depression.

We can’t control everything in our lives, but we can make small changes to fuel our bodies and our minds so we’re better able to cope with this stress.

Show Highlights

[02:02] This summer I locked myself in a stairwell, twice, while juggling too much.

[04:03] Learn how your brain reacts to stress and danger.

[06:52] How the pandemic has impacted our brains through chronic stress.

[08:29] Our brains love consistency because and being on autopilot.

[09:54] Take a look at the changes our brain has had to deal with in the last 2 years.

[11:29] Sleep is when your brain and body recharge.

[13:41] Stop multitasking.

[14:48] Constant media coverage of the pandemic has increased our stress response.

[17:35] The first strategy for relieving stress is to go back to your routine.

[18:13] Fill your mental cup and exercise regularly.

[18:53] Give yourself a mental break.