[249/366] uncertainty

[cosmolinguist]

“I’ve started thinking about our current situation as being marked by two pandemics,” Kate Sweeny says. “The viral one, of course, but also a psychological pandemic of uncertainty.”

I think this is a good article on how to deal with the anxiety that uncertainty causes. But maybe I just liked it because I was already doing the first three or four things -- I was going to say "instinctively," but it's not instinct, it's behavior learned from long experience of trying to manage anxiety.

First, don't do too much "mental time travel" -- thinking about what "should" be happening now or what you'll do When All This Is Over. I found myself trying to nip that in the bud right away, when I woke up thinking right, I've got my Historical Syntax seminar this morning and pub with my bi friends tonight or whatever, I'd tell myself no and try to restrict thoughts like that as much as I could. They felt too painful to me, and it turns out they can indeed be harmful. And while I've been not expecting the future to be any different almost to a fault, at least that leaves me not living too much in the future either.

I was surprised to see "binge watch your favorite childhood show" next on the list. Comfort food. "Anything nostalgic that reminds you of a time when you felt secure can help offset the anxiety that comes with so much unknown." I have only in the last month or so started to get bored with the familiar shows I've been re-watching, and while I haven't quite found good entertainment options to branch out into, at least wanting to is a sign of feeling a little more secure.

Next is that video games are better than books!

“What these people [playing video games] are doing is called finding their flow—essentially a state of complete absorption in an enjoyable activity, when time seems to fly by and you even lose self-awareness,” explains Sweeny. A new paper she worked on with eight other researchers confirmed that for people in lockdown in China during the peak of Covid-19 there, this type of engrossing activity helped preserve their mental health. “It’s a really effective antidote to distress during various waiting periods,” Sweeny says.

If video games aren’t your thing, plenty of other activities will do, from gardening to painting. The trick is to find something that’s not so easy you’ll get bored and not so mentally taxing that you’ll struggle to concentrate—which is probably why so many avid readers haven’t been able to stay focused on their books.

I've certainly struggled to read and while I've struggled to get to this flow state too, I've been seeking it in casual phone games and long walks listening to podcasts I don't care particularly much about (which seems to be the current necessary mix of something to distract my brain from anxiety while still letting my mind wander).

Fourthly...

So many people have lost so much during the pandemic—jobs, houses, loved ones—that it feels frivolous to be missing smaller things, like the bagel you used to buy every morning on your way to the office, or the bar you went to for happy hour on Fridays. But as trivial as these things might seem, they helped create the sense of stability and predictability we need to function....

Importantly, it has to be things that you can control, so post-lockdown bucket lists are less useful for these purposes. “Instead, think about how to build some structure into your daily life that you can rely on, so that you know what will be happening at 7:30 am on a Monday morning whether or not the schools reopen. If everything goes smoothly, you won’t need these safety cues. But if it doesn’t, you’ll feel less unsettled by it all.”

This I am struggling with, and I feel it. Andrew's life has never been this predictable and so to some extent I'm always working around that. It's always been hard on me and I used to mitigate that with structure elsewhere -- knowing that I could go to a particular pub on a particular Tuesday and hang out with bisexuals was sometimes as valuable to me as actually doing it. Now with the exception of my work days I don't really know what will be happening at any particular time, and it's hard on me. Having to re-create the structure for myself is never something I've been good at and this doesn't seem like a fun time to start learning.

The fifth thing kind of depends on this fourth one having happened, because it's about branching out from there.

“So you can still watch movies from when you were a kid, but maybe ask your roommate to pick from a selection, so you don’t know which one it will be.” Once you’re comfortable with that level of uncertainty, you can add in more.

But you won’t tolerate even small amounts of ambiguity until you feel safe again out a little bit once you're feeling a bit more secure because those safety cues are in place.

Interesting stuff to think about. And knowing what to look for to make the anxiety of uncertainty easier to deal with, like that "flow" state and more reliable structure, might be good for me.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing

[theandrewhickey]

Re: flow state -- maybe another thing you could try would be picking up a musical instrument again? Might be useful when walks aren't an option.

YESSSSS! FLOW IS THE BEST

[jesse_the_k]

This is so helpful -- thank you for introducing me to Stéphanie Thomson's article.

This is why eyeball reading (even fanfic) is going so poorly.

and why my beadwork is going so well!

And why I miss swimming so much -- because swimming is literally a flow state.

Five minute intro to the notion of flow from Nerdwriter1

18 minute TED talk from the coiner of the term, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi*

Re: YESSSSS! FLOW IS THE BEST

[cosmolinguist]

Yes I miss swimming a lot for this too.

[dracolosses]

would often rather deal with the certainty of bad news than the anxiety of remaining in limbo

oof, i feel this. i think one of the ways i’ve gotten around to feeling like i’m in purgatory is to just remain (mostly) blissfully unaware. i’ll check the news headlines in the morning, and immediately proceed to forgetting everything i read. i don’t want to be completely cut off from the world, but constantly wondering when this thing will be over is taxing.

[silveradept]

That was a very useful article to read. I especially liked how the writer insisted on coming back to the here and the now and in reinforcing the feelings of safety first before trying to take on the uncertain.

[swingandswirl]

I'd been looking for this article, so thanks for helping me find it!

And yeah, I agree with the research, waiting is The Worst. I honestly think i't's part of why so many people are acting the fool - the possibility of getting the virus (that they think is not that bad) is better than an endless stretch of waiting for things to get better.

And thank you for making me feel better about abandoning my TBR for dumb phone games. Good to know science has my back, lol.