By Dr Berni Sewell | Overcome your fears
“Calm the fuck down!”
Several times I have seen this phrase written on colourful backgrounds of social media posts since the terror about coronavirus has clutched the world. Since people are self-isolating, social distancing and panic buying. And we all fear for our own lives and those of the ones we love.
And you know what? Me, personally, I would love to calm down.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to wake up and realise it was all over? To find the threat of coronavirus disappeared over night.
And with it our inability to breathe. Or to focus on anything but the looming catastrophe. We wish for nothing more than to stroll into a sunny, new dawn with a light heart and a peaceful mind.
Knowing we are safe. And all is well in the world.
But it’s not that time yet.
And for those of us who struggled with anxiety and panic attacks before the pandemic, the current level of fear becomes unbearable.
Everything is changing yet again every few hours. We are overwhelmed by uncertainty. And a constant feeling of dread chokes us.
We try our best to keep functioning in a world that is now devoid of routine.
But we can’t eat because our stomach is too tight with anxiety. We can’t sleep, our mind ruminating endlessly, tormented by worries and fears. And we barely hold it together during the day.
And nobody knows how long this nightmare will continue.
So, what can we do to stop our emotional health from imploding? And the anxiety from swallowing us whole?
What can we do to calm the fuck down?
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