Life after Coronavirus: Dealing with Anxiety, Stress, Depression and Uncertainty

We have evolved to crave predictability. Uncertainty makes us anxious. Uncertainty in your life, or in society at large, can lead to anxiety and depression. The latter can be more of a problem because the ills of your society or the world at large are something over which you have no tangible control. Not knowing what is going to happen next is one of the most primal fears human beings can experience. This comes from our hunter-gatherer ancestors when not being able to predict the weather or animal migration patterns could lead to instant death. If you don't know what's going to happen around you in the imminent future then you'll be in a state of constant hyper-vigilance, and we know how toxic stress chemical are in the long term.
Naturally, the global Coronavirus pandemic has seen levels of anxiety soar in a way not seen since the height of the cold war and nuclear proliferation. Now that the worst seems to be over, that anxiety isn't going to just magically vanish. Our primitive amygdala is still constantly scanning the environment for things to be scared of so that it can activate the emergency problem solving circuits. For most people most of the time there is nothing to be afraid of and so this system has become maladaptive.
So how do we deal with the mental stress of this strange new world? Read the book to find out.

Dettagli