Coping with COVID: It’s not just you
Dealing with COVID-19 has been difficult for everyone. As we move into fall, we face even more challenges: changing weather, schoolwork, holidays and gatherings, and strong political opinions. Feeling stressed or overwhelmed? It’s not just you. The things you’re feeling and experiencing are normal during a disaster, and there are things you can do to cope.
![Two friends sit by the waterfront quietly staring into the sunset.](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*2uxaN0-oZRZ2-Ks6WfejXA.jpeg)
To help you navigate this unprecedented time, we are bringing you a series of conversations with experts on many of the topics we’re facing daily. In episode one, Coping with COVID: It’s not just you, Kira Mauseth, PhD and Doug Dicharry, MD talk about how disasters like pandemics affect our brains, what we can do about it, and how to be resilient.
Your brain works hard during times of stress
Pandemics are natural disasters, so we know a lot about how they impact our wellbeing. Our brains are good at responding to stress in short bursts, using “fight or flight” mode. But we’re not used to being in this state for a long time, and the brain gets tired from responding to long periods of stress. As a result, we become more emotional and can’t think as logically.
Your brain’s response to disasters like COVID-19 can show up in different ways. Many people will experience these symptoms of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic:
- A wide range of emotions, or moods that change quickly in a short time.
- Having trouble thinking, getting distracted easily, feeling like you can’t focus, or having a hard time remembering details.
- Stomachaches, headaches, trouble sleeping, fatigue, or other physical symptoms.
- Having a short temper, worrying more or feeling unmotivated.
- For children: behaving immaturely, for example, baby talk, temper tantrums or clinginess.
Help yourself and your family deal with stress
There are things you can do to cope with the stress of a pandemic:
- Take a moment. When you get upset, pause and take a deep breath before responding. It’s OK to postpone difficult conversations for later, after you’ve had time to think.
- Keep a routine. We are all adapting to new ways of life that came with COVID-19 — changes to our work, caregiving, and relationships. Set boundaries to build and protect your new routine to keep a sense of stability in your day to day life. It is especially important for younger children to have a regular schedule for eating, sleeping, and screen time.
- Build resilience. Resilience is the ability to recover from difficult experiences. There are four keys to building resilience: Act with purpose, make connections, be flexible, and have hope.
- Talk to your kids. Take time to listen to and understand your kids’ concerns. Use our Behavioral Health Toolbox for Families to explain COVID-19 in an age-appropriate way. Teens are not always ready to talk, so make sure your door is open for when they do feel ready.
- Model coping strategies. Practice these strategies where your family can see, so they can learn by watching you.
Get help if you see warning signs
While it’s normal to feel anxious, sad, or overwhelmed during a pandemic, it’s also important to watch for signs that you or your kids need more support. Unusual mood swings, not having interest in things you love, withdrawing from normal activities, and declining schoolwork are all signs that something might be wrong. If you need help, you can reach out to your family doctor, visit the Washington State wellbeing webpage, or call the WA Listens support line to talk to someone about COVID-19 stress.
More information
Stay tuned to our blog for more information on how you can help stop the spread of COVID-19. Sign up to be notified whenever we post new articles.
Information in this blog changes rapidly. Check the state’s COVID-19 website for up-to-date and reliable info at coronavirus.wa.gov.
Answers to your questions or concerns about COVID-19 in Washington state may be found at our website. You can also contact our the Department of Health call center at 1–800–525–0127 and press # from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday — Friday, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday — Sunday. Language assistance is available.
Please note that this call center cannot access COVID-19 testing results. For testing inquiries or results, please contact your health care provider.
Transcript
- Welcome to a Washington State Department of Health Podcast on coping with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. And now your host for the show, Disaster Psychologist, Kira Mauseth, and Child and Adolescent psychiatrist, Doug Dicharry.
- Hello, welcome to the first episode of the Department of Health Behavioral Health Podcast series. I am Kira Mauseth.
- And I’m Doug Dicharry.
- Thanks for joining us today. Today, we’re discussing how it’s not just you and nobody’s alone in this pandemic experience. So the things that we are feeling and experiencing are really normal during a disaster. And there’s a lot of things that we can do to cope and to feel better and get through these next several months in the healthiest way possible. Before we get too far into it, Doug, let’s introduce ourselves.
- Sure, thanks Kira. I’m a child and adolescent psychiatrist with 30 years of experience in private practice. And currently I’m a member of the Seattle King County Public Health Reserve Corps, and a member of my local Community Emergency Response Team.
- Great. That’s awesome experience. I love that. I am a clinical psychologist and I’ve been in practice for 11 years now and I’ve been specializing in disasters for about that same amount of time. My first deployment was to Haiti after the earthquake that happened there. And I’ve been responding to a variety of incidents and things all over the world and in the United States since then. So let’s jump in and start by talking about the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural disaster. We really want to make sure that everybody understands that, that’s exactly what this is that we’re dealing with. It’s not another kind of event and because it’s a disaster, we know a lot about how people respond and what’s normal for how people are doing right now. So there’s a variety of different experiences and reactions that people have that are normal with disasters. They come in a couple of different categories, emotional reactions, cognitive, which is how we think, and then physical and biological and behavioral as well. So emotional reactions can be all kinds of different things. And it’s pretty normal right now at seven months into the pandemic to have a wide variety of moods, even within the same day. So you might wake up… I was just saying this this morning actually Doug, where you wake up thinking, “It’s gonna be a great day.” And then 10 minutes-
- Right
- into your first meeting. And you’re like, “Ah, I take it back. This is not a good day.” And you’re all over the place.
- I know what you mean.
- So, the back and forth is just really, really, it’s hard. It’s really hard. And it’s really normal right now too. And the other thing that I think people are really commonly experiencing are the cognitive issues. The thinking problems. I don’t know about you, but I regularly forget what day of the week it is, is that…
- Oh yeah, very common, very common. I think there was a term for it. You called it “COVID brain” one time?
- That’s right. We need a COVID brain buddy, to share the memories and to keep track of everything so that we can stay on track with our schedule and remembering what it is that we need to do. So don’t forget your COVID brain buddy. I need more than one actually. I need extra help. I feel like I can’t remember very much. So, getting distracted and not remembering details and feeling like you can’t focus. Are really some common examples of things that people are experiencing right now.
- Right.
- There’s some other ones, Doug, that you’ve noticed?
- I’d say especially for children, it’s important to keep in mind that they get their sense of security from their parents. And there are things that happen with our brain in times of stress like this.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Maybe you could say something about that.
- Sure, so, the human brain is obviously… it’s a pretty cool thing and it can handle a lot of stuff thrown at it. But one of the things that it doesn’t do well is handle adrenaline and cortisol for a long, long period of time. Like for instance, as seven months into a disaster. So we don’t do a good job maintaining under really, really difficult circumstances for a long period of time where we’re programmed to do short bursts of stress and short bursts of adrenaline. Like the fight or flight mode. So part of what’s going on here for folks is that, on a very, very basic neurological level, we’re exhausted. Our brains are really, really tired of being in this mode for such a long time. And one of the ways that that shows up in everyday life is just that we’re all a little bit more emotionally responsive to things right now. We don’t think as logically as we might. And we don’t, I would say, filter our reactions as much as we might. I think that’s true for kids and adults. Do kids also experience something similar?
- It is. And with that fatigue, you also see people kind of lightening up or being less cautious at times. For example, being lax about the mask wearing or social distancing. So it’s important to stay aware of that. The other issue with children is that, protection and care when they’re younger is especially important because trauma at a young age can lead to long standing problems and actually affect brain development. And it may have an effect in different areas, such as relationships, learning and emotional health. And we know that kids that go through a significant trauma are also at higher risk for substance abuse.
- Yeah.
- So it’s important for the family to be there, for parents to help support and guide their children at this stage.
- Yeah, absolutely. The coping skills and those active coping strategies, right? Not avoiding things and learning how to do that emotion regulation. It will help us get out front of the fall, the winter, the stuff that is a little bit harder for people generally at this time of year, anyway. So talking about this stuff now, recognizing what’s normal and how we’re all affected and how kids are affected too, is one of the pieces of information that actually helps people become resilient, heading into additional challenges.
- Right.
- When the daylight changes and the weather gets worse, we can’t go, or we feel like we can’t go outside as much. That does a number on folks too.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- So I think
- getting these active coping skills now, practicing this stuff. Doug, do we have any other recommendations for parents or caregivers about active coping that’s specifically helpful?
- Well, I think this is a good opportunity to just start spending just a little more time with your children, even if it’s 10 or 15 minutes a day. Just setting aside some special time that you can listen. And the important thing is to be sure that you really understand what they’re concerned about because often what we think children are concerned about may be very different from what they’re actually thinking about. So it’s important to try to clarify that. With younger children, you can draw, play games. It’s important to keep a regular schedule, stay as close to normal, as possible with eating, sleeping, and limits on screen time.
- Yeah, we’ve all really had to make adjustments to our schedules in terms of structure and developing new structures and maybe new work hours and new schedules that work for our families.
- Right.
- That’s an important part for all people right now is adapting to a new routine, but then putting boundaries around that new routine and having that structure.
- Right.
- I really appreciate what you said about active listening or listening, how important it is to just listen to kids. I have two little ones myself. They say pretty weird stuff sometimes. Yeah.
- But we have good conversations and it’s neat to take that opportunity to hear about what’s really on their mind, even if it’s, . But I also as a clinician, I work with teenagers a lot. And the thing with teenagers and communicating with teenagers is that you never know when they’re gonna wanna talk.
- Right.
- Often not during a window that’s convenient for you as a parent. It might be when you just really wanna go to bed or it might be in the car, maybe captive audience. And sometimes they’ll just start talking and just wanna talk and talk and talk. And then when it’s convenient for you, nothing.
- All right.
- It’s about making sure that that window is open for them so that they can communicate with you again, even if it’s an inconvenient time for you, but that they know that they can come chat with you when there’s something on their mind. Because those windows are not frequently opened for teenagers, I have found.
- Yeah, that’s a great point.
- So, there’s one more thing that I wanted to just touch on, which was the idea that, with all of the difficulties that both parents and kids are experiencing right now, how do you know when it’s something to be more concerned about? Because there’s a lot of difficulties and there’s gotta be some indicators or some ways that for parents to tell if any other additional follow-up needs to be made or whether or not these are just normal symptoms and normal experiences that kids are having.
- Right.
- Doug, can you say more about what that looks like?
- Well, if you notice behaviors or emotions that seem really out of the ordinary, for example, it’s normal to have nightmares for example, one or two nights. But if it’s something that is occurring constantly sleep is disrupted over a period of time, or schoolwork is really declining or you see a child is pulling back or not participating or not showing interest or showing unusual mood swings that are beyond what you’ve experienced before. Then you know that they may need more help.
- So unusual even for a teenager?
- Right.
- Because that’s saying something. And also for adults, I was talking to some other folks earlier about this, too. If you notice for yourself that you just don’t have interest in the things that you used to really love, whether that’s baking or a hobby or an activity, you just don’t care about doing anything anymore. Those are some warning signs for sure that there’s something deeper, maybe towards depression that might be going on. So all of us have trouble paying attention and really being interested in a lot of stuff. But if you’re really starting to detach from what you used to love in terms of an activity, that’s something for adults to pay attention to too.
- Right. So I would just add one more thing. If you notice any of these signs and you feel you need help, there are ways that you can reach out to your pediatrician, for example, your family doctor, that’s always a good place to start. They can make a referral, for example, if it’s necessary.
- So those resources that you are mentioning, Doug, one of the ones that I would really recommend for folks is something called the Washington Listens line. And that’s a nonclinical line for anybody who just wants to chat with somebody else about some of the stress that they might be going through right now. It’s an opportunity to connect with people. And that Washington listens Line is 1–833–681–0211. And that’s available just whenever you need to call and chat with somebody. So I would definitely recommend that one.
- Yeah, there’s a state webpage for wellbeing. That’s coronavirus.wa.gov/wellbeing. That’s coronavirus.wa.gov/wellbeing.
- Yeah, yeah. I think that’s it for today. Thank you very much for joining us. And we’ll see you next time on the Department of Health Behavioral Health Podcast.
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