Please Also Limit the Spread of the Mind Virus

The situation with COVID-19, including the quarantines, shelter-in-place orders, and closings of many businesses and schools, is undoubtedly creating a lot of stress in people. People are losing employment. Parents are trying to juggle working from home and caring for children who aren’t at school. The economy is tanking, including retirement accounts and investments. There is massive uncertainty. When will this all end? And when we do go back to “normal life,” what will we do? Will the fear of The Virus just magically go away? Will businesses and schools reopen as if nothing happened? And how will we know when it is safe to go back in public and be in crowds? When can we start acting like humans again? 

 

I obviously want to protect our most vulnerable community members and do my part to prevent as much suffering and death as possible. I want to make sure I don’t contribute to overwhelming the medical system. But with such limited information and testing so far, it is hard to know the best strategy. The CDC recommends effective handwashing, covering coughs/sneezes, avoiding close contact with people who are sick, social distancing if COVID-19 is spreading in your community, staying home and wearing a facemask when you are sick, and disinfecting surfaces. I wonder if extensive quarantines will have unintended consequences, like enhancing negative emotions and exacerbating mental health issues, unwittingly enhancing viral transmission between asymptomatic children and older parents and grandparents, and/or delaying the acquisition of society-wide herd immunity which could prolong the amount of time our most vulnerable citizens are at high risk of infection. Obviously I do not know the answers. These are my current thoughts rolling around in my head. 

 

However, I want to reassure everyone with the facts that we do know:

• The vast majority of people that get The Virus will either have no symptoms or recover completely.
• The Virus itself may actively be working to become less virulent. The more it kills people, the less it can transmit between hosts. Viruses, therefore, often mutate and evolve to become less deadly.
• Viruses and bacteria, in general, are not the enemy. Much of our DNA is viral in origin and we rely on bacteria in our gut and elsewhere for our health. We most likely have more bacterial cells riding along in our body than human cells!
• Stress, anxiety, and powerlessness impair our immune function, so one of the most important ways to protect ourselves is to find ways to avoid constantly feeling these negative emotions. This is achievable with strategies that work! See below. 

 

I think the main way to feel empowered is to focus on what we ourselves can actually control and to let go of the things we cannot. 

 

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

 

You can’t control the news media fear mongering. You can’t control the panic all around you. You can’t control the blame, finger pointing, and fear of others that is smoldering in our society. But you can quit smoking. You can reduce stress. You can turn away from the TV and towards loving family and friends. You can eat healthy foods. You can help yourself and your family! In these difficult times (and always), rely on yourself, your family, your close friends, and your local community. Government officials and news pundits hundreds or thousands of miles away don’t know you personally and thus can’t help you personally. 

 

In my opinion, the primary goal of most of the large mainstream news media outlets is not to inform the public about the most important stories, but is rather to sell advertising and increase viewership. We have to resist buying into the sensationalism and panic! Be prepared and cautious, yes. But anxiety and fear will not help the situation. They will only cause more sickness and suffering. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, virus or disease that we will face. The best strategy is to build up resilience. Both bodily resilience in terms of your immune system but also resilience to the psychological virus that is spreading even faster than COVID-19. I personally am much more worried about the spread of despair and unrest than I am about any virus. 

 

In addition to focusing our attention on the things within our realm that we can control, how do we reduce these negative emotions? Meditation is a great tool to reduce anxiety. The app Waking Up by Sam Harris is a great guided meditation system that I have found to be very helpful. It is a subscription service, although he allows free accounts if you truly cannot afford the fee. Meditation reinforces the fact that we experience everything through our perceptions. Reality is what we perceive through the filter of our senses. So examining our minds and looking inward – observing the filter through which life is lived – can have a profound effect on how you think and how you feel. Reducing negative emotions does not just increase feelings of wellbeing. As Dr. Gabor Maté writes in his enlightening book When the Body Says No, “It is artificial to impose a separation between hormones and emotions.” He goes on to write:

 

“Psychological influences make a decisive biological contribution to the onset of malignant disease through the interconnections linking the components of the body’s stress apparatus: the nerves, the hormonal glands, the immune system and the brain centres where emotions are perceived and processed. Biologic and psychological activity are not independent; each represents the functioning of a super-system whose components can no longer be thought of as separate or autonomous mechanisms.”

 

Another way to balance out the fear, anxiety, and stress we are all feeling right now is to start writing a gratitude journal. At least once a day, pick out three unique things that you are grateful for and write them down. I do this before bed and it helps me calm my mind before sleep. Sometimes I find it hard to think of things, especially recently, and I have to fall back on the tried and true: “I am grateful for my wonderful wife Rosemary.” Or I think about simple, but profound, things like running water, a roof over my head, or friends to laugh and play virtual trivia with. But the more you do it, the better you get. And it is a constant reminder that there are good things to acknowledge. The world is not ending and we have a lot to be thankful for! 

 

The power of the mind is immense. For example, take the placebo effect – when a person has a reaction (either positive or negative) to an inert substance. It is usually referred to when discussing pharmaceutical drugs’ effectiveness. For example, if both a new blood pressure drug and a placebo lowered the average blood pressure of the study group by 6%, then the drug is considered ineffective. The placebo effect has long been considered a pesky variable to be controlled for. But instead of thinking of the placebo effect as a sign the drug doesn’t work, we need to realize that it is really saying that the mind does work! We have the power, with our beliefs and expectations, to change our health status! 

 

I will leave you with this final thought. We evolved over eons (or were designed by an omnipotent all-intelligent creator) to have an immune system capable of responding to anything that we might encounter. Yes, humans are the smartest species on the planet, but are we smarter than millions of years of trial and error and survival experience? We need to trust the innate intelligence of our bodies and immune systems. We need to get out of the way – stop smoking and avoid other forms of toxic exposure like pesticides and endocrine-disrupting chemicals – and give our bodies what they need: a good diet, enough sleep, and freedom from chronic psychological distress. We can do this! Be well, my friends!

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Check out my previous post about Coronavirus here. It has tips on nutrition, supplements, sleep, and other thoughts on COVID-19.