Front Burner - How to deal with COVID-19 anxiety

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

Thanks to COVID-19, most of us are isolated, glued to the news and worried about how every little choice we make could spread the virus or get us sick. And while the threat of COVID-19 is very real, does that mean that we have to live in constant fear? Today on Front Burner, we talk to public health expert Tim Caulfield, professor at the University of Alberta and author of the upcoming book, Relax, Dammit! A User's Guide to the Age of Anxiety.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Today, we're talking about how people are feeling in social isolation and what we can do to better manage COVID-19 anxiety, starting with Catherine Paquette in Toronto. This is Frontburner. Hi, Catherine. Hi. What's your situation like?

So I'm downtown Toronto in an apartment. I work from home, so things, they've changed, but they haven't changed, which is kind of interesting. And then currently my husband is working from home. So it is weird to be stuck in an 800 square foot apartment. Yeah. How are you feeling? What kind of emotions are you cycling through? Oh my gosh. I think every single emotion you could possibly fear, every emotion you can possibly feel like anxiety, fear, extreme boredom. But then there's also you're thankful that there's people out there that, you know, as a country, we're coming together. And, you know, when you're even reading the news and seeing like politicians working together. But then there's also the sense of helplessness. I can't do anything but stay home. I'm scared, like I'm scared to even leave my

apartment to go for a walk. Running the gamut, eh? Yeah, it's just like a full gamut of emotions. And it's on a hamster wheel all the time. Tell me, I want to talk about this anxiety and this fear that you're talking about. This idea that you're scared to leave your apartment to go for a walk. Tell me a little bit more about that. Well, I think it's about the touch points and just being worried. I think it's worried about when I leave my apartment, I have to, you know, touch the elevator button to get into the elevator. And then I have to get into the elevator, touch the button to get down. But then there's the fear of stopping. I'm on the 32nd floor. So is it going to stop and pick up people? And the other day I went to the grocery store and three other people came in on my way down and

you're kind of staying away, but you're still in a confined space. And then when you leave the elevator, you still have to touch the door. There's two doors that I have to touch that to get out. And so it's all those touch points to even get out, to get out for a walk. And then I know on Saturday, I had gone for a walk with my husband. And people, like I'm scared of people, which is the complete opposite of who I am. Yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. I was out for a walk yesterday. And I found myself, you know, if somebody passed me on a bicycle too close, it made me feel a bit nervous. And if I felt like someone walked by me, and they were too close,

that made me feel nervous. These are things I would not have even thought about. I know, like just a few weeks ago. Yeah, it almost seems irrational, but you can't help. It is interesting, that irrational fear that just comes and, and I am not a person by any means that was a germaphobe. I was almost the opposite of a germaphobe. And now I just catch myself my husband, last week, he was still going into the office. And when he would come home, like I wouldn't even kiss him when he came in the door. I was like, go straight to the bathroom, like, wash your hands, wash your face. And it's extreme. It's extreme.

Before all of this, did you feel anxious about other things? Did you feel like you had anxiety about other things in your life? Nothing, nothing at all. I'm, yeah, I'm not an anxious person. I mean, general fears of the future or whatever, but nothing that is this anxiety-ridden. I'm an optimist. I always look at the brighter things and always try to find light in any situation. And so, to be this fear-ridden and have this anxiety, I do have an appreciation for people who suffer with anxiety, just how it can become all-consuming. What do you think it is about this pandemic, about the coronavirus, that's causing this kind of anxiety in people? What do you think it's tapping into? I think it's the unknown.

Just the fear of how easily it can spread in 102 years we haven't faced anything similar to this and so we don't have a playbook we don't know what to do to fight anything else we you know we have the flu vaccine we have pneumonia vaccine and we always have things in place and we know what to do and I think it's the fear of that helplessness of there's nothing you can do. Like, not that there's nothing you can do, you stay inside, but there's nothing. Yeah, there's, you can't fight it right now. Right. And I'm sure for a lot of people, what's happening with the economy right now is also certainly adding to the anxiety too, right?

Yeah, it's the unknown of where things are going to go. And even personally, I mean, I'm a teacher by trade, and my husband's in construction, and to be faced with this and the uncertainty of he could be laid off, and our income, and just we've never been in this situation. And I think that's the thing of the unknown of how long this is going to be and and if we had the date of it's going to be the end of may or even if it was the end of july or september you can at least wrap your head around

it and be like okay all we have to do is get to six months and then we're like, then we're okay. But it's the fact of we don't know how long social distancing is going to be, how long we have to practice this. And I think that's the scary is the unknown and the world is at the unknown right now. Catherine, thank you so much for sharing all of this. Thank you. Thank you very much for reaching out. I've been a longtime fan and I really, really enjoy what you guys are doing. All right. So that was Catherine Paquette in Toronto. She makes a podcast called Pieces of Us.

I bet a lot of you can relate to her right now. Maybe you're even having a tougher time. But while the threat of COVID-19 is very real, how should people live day to day with that information? How do you deal with that anxiety? Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and a professor at the University of Alberta. His upcoming book is called Relax, Damn It. And it's about how to fight back against anxiety and stress when dealing with risk. He's in Edmonton. One thing I wanted to talk to you about today is how people who want to be responsible in this very serious crisis that we're in right now,

how do they navigate this anxiety? One thing I was noticing about myself over the last couple of weeks is how my anxieties have shifted. So two weeks ago, I was worried about public transit and whether or not I should be taking public transit. And now I'm worried about, should I touch a package that came from Amazon? And I can't sort of figure out how to properly navigate risk here. Yeah, I think one of the first things that people should do is put the risk in perspective. And it's a really interesting time from a risk communication point of view. Because on the one

hand, if you're a public health agency, and by the way, I think the Canadian public health teams have done a great job. If you're a public health agency, you want to communicate the fact that this is real, right? This is a real global crisis. So, you know, those people who think it's a hoax, they're just wrong, right? This is a real global crisis. And you want to communicate that and you want individual action, because the actions that we take are going to help our communities, they're going to help those vulnerable populations. At the same time, you have to remind yourself that the risk to me individually is relatively low, right? And the reason I'm taking these actions is for my community, right? And unless you're part of the vulnerable population, you're elderly, you're immunocompromised, the risks are there, but they're relatively low. remind yourself of that right and remind

yourself that what you're doing is you're going to follow that public health advice those simple steps that everyone can do social distancing washing our hands if you have the symptoms taking appropriate steps and doing those really basic things and focusing on those and then ignoring as much as possible all the science-free noise that surrounds it, right? And there is so much science-free noise surrounding this right now. So that's what I kind of invite people to do. And the other thing is, listen to those trusted voices, the World Health Organization, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the CDC, that are aggregating the science. And I think that's really important, especially because there's so much uncertainty. This is a moving

target. We're still learning about this disease. You know, go to those entities that are aggregating the information and providing science-informed updates. You know, don't listen to all the other noise, the people simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Why are we not wired to process risk in a rational way you know there's a whole bunch of things going

on you know first of all we have real you know we have all these cognitive biases that challenge our decision making when one of the best examples of it is the availability bias and i start the book actually with the example of skydiving i don't know if you ever tried have example of skydiving. I don't know if you ever tried. Have you tried skydiving? I have. I was very nervous the first time that I went. But it is it is a lot of fun. It's pretty insane. But you know, everyone said, I can't believe you're doing that. It's so dangerous. And you know, I thought it was stupid that I'm doing it. But then I also took my 14 year old son. So they thought I was stupid and irresponsible. Okay. Like, why would you throw yourself and your son out of a perfectly good plane? Exactly right. And but you know, this is a really good example, because people think of the most horrific thing that can happen. It's a dramatic event. And they've heard stories, right of people dying doing this, when in fact, you know,

you ignore the millions of people that have done it safely, right? So that's a great example of the availability bias because these dramatic stories that we remember, right, we remember them are in the popular press. And we do this day to day. We're doing it now with the coronavirus. You know, you'll hear these horrific stories about people who get really sick and you think about yourself, you think about your loved ones, and that can have an impact on how you think about risk in your daily life. So that's just one, one of the social and psychological forces that sort of betray us when we're thinking about risk. How much worse do you think anxiety has gotten in the last several years? You know, that's a really interesting question.

And I want to be careful how I answer it because I'm not a mental health expert. I'm not a physician. And I also think it depends on how you think of anxiety, because some mental health experts think we need to be careful not to characterize all anxiety as a mental health issue, as opposed to just stress, which is a normal human response, right? And how you deal with a normal human response like stress is different than how you would deal with a real mental health issue that is anxiety, right? You know, I also think that this would be a good time to mention that there are a lot of Canadians with mental health issues who are dealing with a loss of support system right now, barriers to care, medication. Absolutely, especially when you think about people that have a mental health issue related to anxiety, right? Imagine how these events are impacting them. But when you think

about stress, I think it's fair to say, and studies have consistently said this, that it has increased. It's increased across all the demographics. Not only has stress increased, people think the world is getting worse. There have been numerous studies that have shown this, but an interesting study from a few years ago said that only 6% of Americans think the world is getting better and less in the UK. People have this really grim view of the world when if you look at most of the indicators, poverty going down, life expectancy going up dramatically all over the world, child mortality getting better, literacy getting better. So you look at those indicators and life in some of the broad strokes are getting better. Yes, we have climate change issues. Absolutely.

We have diversity issues and we have equality issues. And some people have suggested, and I agree with this, one of the reasons to think about, you know, what the real risks are is it focuses our attention where it should be, right? We don't have this amorphous anxiety, this amorphous stress. We should be focused on the things that really matter. And I think it's really also important to note that the market is telling us to be afraid. As you know, I'm really interested in the wellness industry. I'm really interested in misinformation around health. And there's this trillion dollar wellness industry out there. It really is worth, you know, over a trillion dollars. It's a massive, massive industry.

Most of it selling you stuff that has no science behind it. But what I'm fascinated is a lot of its marketing is fear-based, right? And, you know, go to these wellness websites and you look at these wellness magazines and they're, you know, pastel and they're happy and they're beautiful and they have all this positivity to them. But lurking underneath is this dark message that we should fear everything, right? We should fear the chemicals in our lives. We should fear the food that we eat. We should fear the streets that we walk on. So there's this fascinating tension. And of course, you can only resolve that fear that

they are creating by buying their product or buying into the ideology. So I think that's another big part of this sphere industry that surrounds us. Do you think there's something about the way modern technology plays into this, you know, the way that we're consuming information that's making us feel more anxious? Oh, for sure. A hundred percent. It's funny you should say that because I woke up today. I'm, you know, I'm sort of, I'm like you probably. I'm on the coronavirus beat, right?

I wake up and I look at all of the misinformation and I can't keep up. You know, I wake up in the morning, I get a coffee, I sit down in front of my computer and I cannot keep up, right? And it makes me anxious. And I kind of snapped at my beautiful young daughter this morning because I was overwhelmed by the BS around this, even though, you know, I know so much of it is nonsense and I should just, you know, take a beat. And that's really interesting.

You know, I don't know if you've heard this. There's fascinating research that says that's one of the remedies is to just pause. You know, social media is so instantaneous. It invites us to think of this stuff quickly. It invites us to share it quickly. You know, don't dig deep here. Don't dig deep. You know, push share.

And, you know, spread, you know, push, push share. And, you know, we shouldn't do that. Research says if we just pause and think about accuracy, you know, think about sources that can make a difference. You talked about BS around the coronavirus. What's like the worst thing you've seen so far? Oh, my God, there's so much, you know, it's kind of on, it's kind of on a continuum, isn't it? You know, on the one hand, you have the really absurd stuff, like, you know, and I'm very interested in the cure aspect of it. You know, that you should be drinking urine, that you should be drinking alcohol, that you should be snorting cocaine. The bleach one was an early one. And then you go more to the middle where along that continuum,

where you have these remedies that seem more plausible but are still science-free like you're supposed to be taking a whole bunch of supplements you're getting iv vitamin therapy that chiropractic adjustments are going to help your immune system you know no no no there's no evidence to support any of that and then you move further along the continuum and you hear about things like drugs that are real, the malaria drug, for example, that may benefit people when in fact, you know, that's not the case at all, at least yet. And that's more complicated because there's real research going on surrounding that drug. And you have the president of the United States making false claims about it, about its usefulness.

But what's interesting is all along that continuum, harm has been done. You know, people have been misled by the alternative medicine industry. And you know, people have died taking Donald Trump's advice. You know, I know we talked about listening to public health authorities, listening to trusted sources of information, staying off social media, taking a break from social media whenever you can. Any other sort of strategies that you might offer people listening right now? Yeah, you know, I hope one of the legacies of this is the value of those sort of science-informed basic things that we can do. You know, you hear all this stuff about immune boosting. I'm sure you've seen these ads. They're absolutely everywhere, right? You know, people saying you should do all these things and almost trying to

compel you, almost make you feel guilty if you're not doing, taking these steps to enhance your immune system, which is sort of a scientific fallacy. But what we really should do is focus on those basic things, focus on getting a good night's sleep, you know, getting exercise if you can, eating a healthy diet, right? Surrounding yourself as much as you can in a social distancing world, keeping with people that you love, or at the very best, keeping in contact with them. And those simple steps matter, right? They really do matter, and they can make a difference. And I kind of hope that this is one of the legacies of this,

that we sort of embrace those science-informed ways to live a healthy lifestyle, and we ignore all the bunk that is voiced on us every day. Okay. Tim Caulfield, get a good night's sleep. I think that that's fantastic advice. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, that's all for this week. Front Burner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts.

The show was produced this week by Mark Apollonio, Imogen Burchard, Elaine Chao, Shannon Higgins, Allie Janes, Ashley Mack, and Nahayet Tizoush. Derek VanderWijk does our sound design with help this week from Matt Cameron and Ebian Abdigir. Our music is by Joseph Chabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and talk to you all on Monday. to you all on Monday.