COVID-19: Mental Health
In a Year Full of Worry and Division, How to Protect Your Mental Health By Patrick R. Krill Founder of Krill Strategies, a behavioral health consulting firm focused exclusively on the legal industry. Go to www.prkrill.com for more info.
D
oes 2020 already feel like it’s been a long year? If so, the good news is that we’re not even a full quarter into it, so there is still ample time to rebound and course correct, to reach the goals you have set for yourself and have some fun and good times along the way. Unfortunately, the bad news is that we’re not even a full quarter into it, and the curveballs and negativity are comin’ in hot and threatening to leave a mark on many. Let’s talk about why and how you should duck if you want to preserve your mental health and well-being. Beginning with the most recent threat to our collective sanity—coronavirus—it’s important to recognize that anxiety and panic rarely lead to good decision-making or improved circumstances, but frequently lead to fatigue, emotional exhaustion and retrospectively disproportionate despair and energy expenditure. Step one in your 2020 self-care plan is, therefore, to pause and recognize that you may find yourself being herded over a psychological cliff by what seems like an airborne germ of worry, worsened by hourly dispersal through push notifications, social media posts and news headlines. To some degree, you probably are. Just as you can do things to protect yourself from the virus itself (it’s probably time to wash your hands soon), you can also protect yourself from the mental fallout. Those include limiting your exposure to emotionally disruptive cues, just as you would want to limit your exposure to the illness itself. Am I suggesting you bury your head in the sand and ignore what you need to know? Of course not, but it is far from a binary choice between willful ignorance and 20
Dayton Bar Briefs April 2020
reflexive consumption of every single detail and development. Unless you’re an epidemiologist or public health offi cial, chances are you don’t need a real- time play-by-play. As with most anxiety-inducing subjects, the big-picture awareness will probably suffi ce. As such, limiting social media and disabling worry-inducing notifications is a good idea. According to the CDC’s guidance (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019ncov/prepare/managing-stress-anxiety.html) for managing anxiety and stress during the coronavirus pandemic, you should “take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media.” Beyond fear, worry and anxiety, however, the other blow to our mental health that coronavirus threatens to land is an increasing sense of isolation and loneliness. As events and get-togethers are canceled, trips are postponed and remote working and “social distancing” increase, we’ll be getting less of something human beings are hard-wired to need—a sense of connection. Lawyers already experience high levels of isolation (https://www.law.com/2020/02/19/ by-the-numbers-the- state-of-mentalhealth-in-the-legal-industry/) and loneliness (https://www.law.com/2019/05/28/battlingan- epidemic-of-loneliness-among-lawyers/), both of which undermine physical and men-
tal health and increase the risk of substance misuse and addiction. Anything that stands to increase those feelings of disconnection amounts to its own problem that needs to be guarded against. Fighting isolation and loneliness amid a broad public health concern might seem more challenging, but the best way to do it is generally the same as in the absence of an outbreak: with intention and commitment. Schedule time to check-in (by phone or video) with family and friends and keep the appointment. Even if you’re tired, make the calls and give yourself permission to be fully present for the conversations. In a time of increased stress, a sense of connection can be transformative and, for some, lifesaving. Along with loneliness, another thing that can increase during crises is use of alcohol and drugs, often to combat fear and worry. Those in the legal profession are already at an increased risk of substance misuse, and now is an especially important time to be aware of that risk. Excessive alcohol use disrupts and impairs the immune system, something we need firing on all cylinders at the moment.
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