What’s the Best Way to Cope in an Anxious World? Do Something.

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One way to loosen the grip of anxiety is to focus on helping someone else. 

 

Illustration by Ben Denzer, Photograph by Getty Images

 

Many people are experiencing a jumbled mix of emotions right now. There’s sadness and a feeling of helplessness about the brutal attacks against the people of Ukraine, as well as anxiety and fear about the threat of nuclear weapons. Add to that exhaustion after two years of worrying about a deadly virus. And for some, there’s also guilt, for the indulgence of talking about anxious feelings at a time when others are suffering far more.

 

While it’s normal to feel anxious during a global crisis, it’s also true that anxiety is often a first world problem. A 2017 study in JAMA Psychiatry, which used World Health Organization data collected from nearly 150,000 adults in 26 countries, found that generalized anxiety is far more common and more disabling among people in wealthy countries.

 

The data showed that the lifetime prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder affected less than 1 percent of the population in Nigeria and in Shenzhen, China. But it showed up in about 8 percent of adults in the United States and in Australia. On average, anxiety disorder affected 5 percent of people in high-income countries, 2.8 percent in middle-income nations and 1.6 percent in low-income countries.

 

In wealthy countries, anxiety is more common among respondents with lower levels of education and income, and among the unemployed or disabled. Around the world, anxiety was more likely to affect women, those younger than 60 and the unmarried.

 

While people living in poverty or war-torn nations experience mental health issues and feelings of insecurity, it may be that their circumstances don’t often allow them “the luxury” of being anxious, said Dr. Judson Brewer, an associate professor at the Brown University School of Public Health and author of the book, “Unwinding Anxiety.”

 

“If someone is in a war zone, if they’re anxious, it’s going to make it harder to survive,” said Dr. Brewer. “If we’re anxious, we can’t think well, we can’t do what needs to be done.”

 

The Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise saw this first hand after spending three days talking to refugees in long lines leaving Ukraine and asking them about the emotions they were feeling. During a Times live event, she talked about what she had heard.

 

“A lot of them said, ‘I feel nothing. I feel blank. My body isn’t allowing me to feel anything because it’s such a shock what is happening.

 

Yesterday I was going to work and looking at my computer and commuting home and feeding my kids. And today I have nothing, and I’m on the road with hundreds of thousands of other people. If I allow myself to feel the deep shock of that, I will never be able to get to my destination.’”

 

This week, the American Psychological Association reported the results of its annual Stress in America Survey. Worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and global uncertainty were high on the list. Psychologists say that nobody should be shamed or feel guilty for feeling anxious. People with anxiety who have been triggered by world events should seek support and counseling. Medications may also be prescribed to help people manage anxiety.

 

“Yes, this crisis is about other people and what they’re going through,” said Lakeasha Sullivan, a clinical psychologist in Atlanta. “At the same time, we are also affected by it as individuals. I don’t think of it as ‘either or.’ It’s both. Part of my work as a psychologist is giving people permission to feel emotions that are already there, as opposed to suppressing them and judging them.”

 

Remind yourself that uncertainty isn’t new.

One of the first steps to coping with anxiety is to remind yourself that we live with uncertainty all the time.

 

“We often try to convince ourselves that we know what will happen,” said Dr. Sullivan. “Every time we get into a car, we don’t know how the situation will unfold. We are experts at moving through life with uncertainty and managing and coping with uncertainty.”

 

“It takes a heavy dose of accepting that these times are uncertain and accepting that times are always uncertain,” adds Dr. Sullivan. “Feeling anxious right now is normal. It’s human.”

 

Dr. Brewer notes that our brains are generally uncomfortable with uncertainty, which explains why we keep checking the television or the internet for the latest updates. “Information to the brain is like food is to the stomach,” says Dr. Brewer.

 

But even the best pundits don’t have a crystal ball, and constantly checking the news can increase anxiety. Dr. Brewer suggests naming your thoughts and recognizing that you’re worried about an uncertain future. Naming your thoughts can help you stay more grounded in the present moment. “When we do that, we can ask ourselves what’s needed right now,” said Dr. Brewer. “I want the uncertainty to end, but I can’t make it end. What do I actually need right now?”

 

Examine your own biases.

The grief people experience when they witness tragedy through the news media is called vicarious grief. Research shows that the effect of vicarious grief is strongest when a person identifies with the victims. After 9/11, for instance, many people identified with the normalcy of going to the office. After the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, which killed 227,898 people in 14 countries, the horror hit home for many people because it was easy to imagine being a tourist and enjoying a vacation on the beach with your family.

 

Thinking about the source of your anxiety also presents an opportunity to explore some of your own unconscious bias. Tragedy happens every day around the world. Ask yourself why you’re connecting more deeply with the people of Ukraine compared to the people of Syria or Afghanistan?

 

Are we responding and reacting the way we are because some of us are more readily able to see ourselves in the faces of those being displaced by Putin?” said Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov, psychiatry professor at the University of Manitoba who has written about vicarious grief in The Lancet. “It’s almost as if something doesn’t look like us and sound like us, it’s not going to hurt us. But there are people who are suffering around the world whose angst and voices aren’t being heard.”

 

Moustafa Bayoumi, an author and professor at Brooklyn College, recently wrote a Guardian article highlighting racial bias in media coverage of Ukraine. A CBS correspondent described Ukraine as a “relatively civilized, relatively European” city, and that it isn’t a place “like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades.”

 

On French television, a correspondent said, “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.”

 

“I think it’s really important that we give humanity back to everybody who has to flee from their homes, regardless of how much they look like us,” said Dr. Bayoumi, author of “How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America.” “Until we can really empathize with everybody, regardless of where they’re coming from, we’re doomed to repeat the same kinds of prejudices and hierarchies of who gets our sympathy and who doesn’t.”

 

Use your anxiety as a call to action.

One way to loosen the grip of anxiety is to help someone else. Several studies suggest that supporting others helps buffer our bodies against the detrimental effects of stress. A five-year study of 846 people in Detroit found that stressful life events appeared to take a greater toll on people who were less helpful to others, while helping others seemed to erase the detrimental physical effects of stressful experiences. In a 2017 study of psychological resilience among American military veterans, higher levels of altruism and a sense of purpose predicted resiliency.

 

There are many ways to help. You can donate to aid organizations working in Ukraine, or volunteer with a local group sending supplies abroad. Find an organization that helps refugees from all over the world. Give blood to the American Red Cross.

 

Your efforts don’t have to directly impact Ukraine. As donations flow into Ukraine, other groups may get less. Consider supporting local food banks or other nonprofits in your community.

 

“You can’t control what’s happening out there in the bigger world,” said Dr. Chochinov. “But you can at least control what’s happening in your little corner of the world.”

 

Dr. Bayoumi noted that while growing up in Canada, his parents were always working to help refugees resettle in the country.

 

“If you’re actively working toward alleviating the pain of others, it helps you alleviate your own anxiety at the same time,” said Dr. Bayoumi. “That kind of work is self healing. If you’re doing something with your own talents to try to make the world a better place, I think that’s a way of coping with the tremors of destruction that are vibrating around us. There’s all kinds of work to be done.”

 

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