“I’m so bored!”  That seems to be a common echo in this time of lockdown and the sameness of every day, when there is nowhere to go and seemingly nothing to do.  But while boredom seems to be about nothingness, in psychological worlds, boredom is becoming an increasingly interesting topic with there being more to boredom than one would assume.  The fact is, that underneath its banal surface, when you are bored, there is actually a lot going on!  Understanding your ennui may be a tool to better coping.

The very idea of boredom is a modern concept, ironically arising as the amount of stimulation has increased exponentially.  As Luke Fernandez and Susan Matt examine boredom, the word did not appear in the lexicon until the mid 19th century.  “Before that, tedium was an expected part of life.”  It is only with the rise of consumer culture, they surmise, that people were promised constant excitement.  So when you don’t feel stimulated, you feel something is wrong or that you’re missing out.  It leaves you in a restless state of desire to do something or experience something more.

Really, though, the problem is not with the boredom, but what we do with it.  Often people seek immediate relief through quick fixes, such as drinking or calling an ex rather than be left with their own thoughts.  When we’re bored, we’re more likely to become internally focused in a negative, ruminative cycle.  People will go to pretty extreme lengths to avoid these feelings.  Consider this.  In one experiment, researchers asked a group of people to spend just 15 minutes in a room and instructed them to entertain themselves with their own thoughts.  They were also given an opportunity to self-administer a negative stimulus in the form of a small electric shock.  Amazingly, 67% of men and 25% of women found being alone with their own thoughts so unpleasant that they chose physical discomfort over emotional discomfort!  

Often in therapy, when someone is bored, we might look for how they are pulling back from some unpleasant thoughts, feelings, or memories.  When we therapists find ourselves bored in a session with a client, we use this inner feeling as a tool to tell us that someone is distancing from their own inner experience.  In this way, boredom can be a useful experience to tell us where our healing needs to be directed.  

Now apply this to the pandemic.  Cooped up in our homes, we’ve been stripped of our everyday structures and routines.  Many of the activities we engaged in that brought us meaning are taken away.  We’re left with more time to think and more awareness of our own inner experience.  Couple this with the worry, sadness, and anger that we may feel given the circumstances of so much death, loss, economic hardship and political conflict and no wonder we do not want to be left alone with our thoughts!  We feel bored and cranky, looking for some kind of relief.

Rather than fighting boredom with a rapid need to run away and preoccupy ourselves with anything (like eating or watching the latest 100 tik tok videos), try to use the sense of boredom as a messenger.  We may be needing some support or help in finding peace within ourselves.  Researchers suggest that when we feel bored, it’s helpful to  try to find a more meaningful way to engage with the world.  For example, while not being able to do anything may be unpleasant, reminding yourself that we are all doing this to save lives and be healthy will help you tolerate your feelings.  Meaning seems to be the healthy antidote to boredom.  Look to activities that give you a sense of purpose, such as calling someone you care about, sorting through old pictures, or even directing your thoughts to creative thinking or happy memories.  Create a path to re-engage with the world that feels positive.  

Mindfulness is a great tool to learn to calm your inner mind and find a way to be at peace with your thoughts and feelings. There are great Apps such as Insight Timer and Calm that you can get for free that can help guide you through the process of using mindfulness tools to tolerate inner thoughts and therefore avoid running from them.  Rather than an unpleasant feeling, boredom can become an invitation to engage more deeply with yourself and the world.  With so much to stress about and more time to do it in, we have to watch for the ways we might be harming ourselves through distraction without even realizing it. It may not be an electric shock, but shopping online for another not really needed kitchen gadget may just be my own cry for help!

Quite often I hear people, including myself, refer to doing something relaxing or just for fun as “being bad.”  New research out of the University of Zurich may be just the thing we need to hear.  It turns out that it’s actually really good for us to be hedonistic at times, and that the better you are at it, the more it helps!

We all tend to think that self control is the key to well being, as it allows us to sacrifice short term pleasure to reach long term goals, such as getting in shape, saving up money to travel, etc, all things that lead to feeling happy.  And those of us who are good at this often feel guilty when we hang out on the couch to watch a movie or just sit out in the yard to read a book.  We ruin our fun by telling ourselves that we “should be productive” and we judge ourselves for being slackers.  It turns out, though, that the ability to let ourselves enjoy the down time is just as important to happiness as reaching long term goals.  In fact, this new research shows that enjoying short term pleasurable activities that don’t lead to long term goals contributes at least as much to a happy life as self control.  The trick is being able to let ourselves really enjoy it!

Researchers Bernecker and Becker found that certain people get distracted by intrusive thoughts in moments of relaxation or enjoyment by thinking of things they should be doing (sound familiar inner task master in my head?).  “Those thoughts about conflicting long term goals undermine the immediate need to relax.”  But those people who can fully enjoy themselves in relaxing situations tend to have a higher sense of well being in general, not only in the short term, but are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.  “The pursuit of hedonic and long term goals needn’t be in conflict with one another,” Bernecker writes.  “Our research shows that both are important and can complement each other in achieving well being and good health.  It is important to find the right balance in everyday life.”

With so many of us working at home right now it can be even more difficult to allow ourselves to relax.  With the boundary between work and home much more blurred, it’s harder to keep work and down time separate.  For me, this research is a big motivator and a “Get Out of Jail” card.  Not only does it give me permission to relax when I can, but prescribes that I not allow myself to feel guilty about it!  The article’s authors suggest much more needs to be known about the role of pleasure in well being. So, when you finish reading this, my suggestion is to do your own research on hedonism.   Go out and have some fun, and don’t let yourself get distracted by your inner critic.  Remember, to really have a healthy happy life, you need to be good at “being bad.”

The eulogies in Representative John Lewis’s funeral honored his great legacy of standing up for justice and getting into “good trouble.”  Mom’s are donning helmets and dad’s their leaf blowers to become protesters.  And professional athletes are locking arms and kneeing in solidarity.  As we witness the movement, how can we not be inspired by the large numbers of people taking risks to make their voices heard to speak out for what they believe in?  We know it’s not easy and for some people in some situations it can be downright dangerous.  But asserting our boundaries and speaking up for our self is one of the most important things we need to do, and yet, it remains one of the most universal challenges that people face.

Often our beliefs and behaviors around how we communicate emerge from how we are taught and treated in childhood.  Gender bias and cultural expectations also play a big role in what we feel we are permitted to say and how we are supported or shut down when we speak up.  Much of the work I love to do with people is helping them find their voice.  It can take time for people to feel safe enough to find the words of what they want to say, even within themselves.  Often therapy involves giving one’s self permission to express the truth of our experience and become aware of the harmful restrictions we’ve endured to our personal  values, needs, and wishes.  And the next step involves summoning the courage to face the disapproval, if not full rejection, that inevitably comes with expressing what has been forbidden.

Speaking up can often “upset the system.”  Whether it’s a strong family dynamic, a workplace culture, or a societal norm, there will be a cost to going against the status quo and advocating for change.  And one important thing I’ve learned in supporting people and in taking the risk myself, is to do your best to be the highest version of yourself when you do.  Often when we’re in difficult interpersonal situations, we’re highly stressed, which leads us to become defensive or bitter.  We flood with emotions and our clarity and moral center get out of balance.  Staying in touch with  our authentic truth and with the love behind our desire for transformation helps us to keep our strength. 

It’s also important to prepare by knowing your audience.  Before speaking up, create a plan.  Ask yourself what’s the outcome that’s desired and what is the range of responses you can expect.  Rehearse your plan if possible with someone you trust.  You have options for how and what gets communicated. Be aware of the power dynamics and assess the risks you are willing to take.  How does this person or system treat people who speak their mind?  What consequences are at stake?  Are their others who can join in with you?

While there will be consequences for speaking up, ranging from not being liked by someone to being attacked by a force that could overwhelm you, there is also a cost for not speaking up.  If we live in fear and repress our resistance, there can be psychological and physical health effects.  Living a disempowered life can be extremely stressful and studies show it can lead to heart disease and autoimmune disorders, as well as depression and anxiety.  Acting in ways to advocate for a higher purpose gives our lives meaning and satisfaction.  And it is the only way to facilitate change.

One of the most essential features in finding your voice is to have someone who cares enough to listen, even if they don’t necessarily agree.  Representative Lewis talked about the importance of Dr. King as his mentor.  The mom’s link arms with one another to form their wall and the professional athletes have each other’s backs (at least now).   If you don’t have a close ally, I can’t stress enough how important it is to find one.  Often the first step is finding just one person you can share your truth with.  Sometimes it may be a therapist, like me, or another member in a support group.  Over time your courage will grow as well as your desire.  Because once you feel the power in speaking your truth, it becomes an important factor in all your relationships, most importantly your relationship with yourself.  No change ever was able to happen without people envisioning it first, asking for it to happen, and then taking the bold steps to ensure it.  It’s so easy to take for granted that for every freedom we enjoy, at some point in our history,  someone took a risk to assert it, even at the greatest of cost.

“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” Lewis, in Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

There’s nothing that makes me feel old like seeing the look in my daughters’ eyes (even though they try to hide it) when I ask them for help with my computer.  And with my work schedule switching from a fairly long commute to absolutely no commute, the extra time I thought I’d have is now used trying to connect to WiFi, unfreeze my remote computer access, or find an email with the right link to the right meeting.  My struggle with technology makes me feel embarrassed, clueless, and down right like a stressed out idiot.  Turns out, though, I’m not alone, and if you’re relating to what I’m saying, there’s a term for it.  According to Fast Company’s computer experts, it is called “technostress,” a condition they wrote about even before the pandemic.  And in this unprecedented stay at home time, it’s only gotten worse with our complete dependence on our phones and computers for connection.

Part of what stresses me out is how absolutely vital technology has become.  The good news, truly, is that I can continue to do my work, stay connected to my staff, and talk with family and friends.  I’m continuing in my book club and even going to religious services all from my home!  But the privilege of all of this connectivity is a constant layer of stress on all of us.  And the more important the meeting, interview, or communication, the more stressed we become.  Technostress is defined as the “negative stress and psychological symptoms directly related to the use and adoption of new technologies.”  The term was first used by Craig Brod in 1984 with the widespread adoption of computers in the workplace.  Research shows our frustration has only grown as our dependence on technology has greatly increased and spread throughout both our personal and professional lives.

Technostress isn’t just about using specific tools or kinds of technology, it also refers to our relationship with technology.  For one thing it blurs the boundaries between work and home life, not just in location, but also in our time.  And the speed of communication also ramps up.  We have constant emails backing up or we may worry about it, constantly checking.  And then there is the learning curve of how to use all the tools that are supposed to make life easier.  And there is little help, except for reading instructions that leave us more confused.  Every new tool I use has so many features and functions, I find I tune out and just want to use the basics.  The constant insecurity I feel is wearing.  I wait for emails that have links, stress when the link won’t open, and panic when they can see me but can’t hear me, or I can hear them but they can’t see me, and all the variations of things that go wrong.  

Studies show technostress can cause a wide variety of symptoms to look out for such as headaches, hypertension, back aches, and other physical symptoms.  People can develop mental fatigue and burn out, as well as a feeling of helplessness and low morale.  It can also cause emotional symptoms like panic/anxiety, feelings of isolation, irritability, reduced satisfaction, and an increased sense of pressure and overwhelm.  Sounds about right.

So what can we do?  First of all, give yourself a break.  Who knew we would all be shut in at home and having to make this shift to a new way of living so all of a sudden?.  Some of us are just not computer types of people.  I went into psychology to engage in conversations that were intimate and personal.  I try to remind myself that it’s ok to struggle with the technology and my ignorance does not reflect my competence in my work or my intelligence.  Next, and this is a tough one, you need to ask for help.  No doubt, we have to admit when we’re having trouble.  Sometimes I get lucky and make it work on my own,  but more often I may stare at the computer for hours getting nowhere without someone to help troubleshoot.  Finding someone with the patience and knowledge is a life line.  Also, use technology when it’s most important and necessary, and then take breaks.  Get away from a screen, meet someone in person for a socially distant chat, or if you can’t avoid technology, ask to use the medium you are most comfortable with whenever possible.  

Ironically, technology is supposed to be about making our lives easier.  And used in balance and when seen as a tool rather than a torture, it can be of great benefit.  For me, personally, I have to stop thinking of it as out to get me and remind myself that it’s just metal, plastic, and wires and has no personal desire to make my life miserable. In fact, at times these very tools can bring me a lot of joy and facilitate keeping my life going.  For the truth is, without my crossword puzzle app or online shopping, just where would I be these past four months?

Remember the marshmallow test?  It was developed by Walter Mischel at Stanford University and was made even more famous by Daniel Goleman in his book, Emotional Intelligence.  In this experiment, preschoolers were offered the opportunity to have one marshmallow right away or wait 15 minutes and receive two marshmallows, in other words, delay gratification.  What Mischel found (and has been repeatedly replicated) was that the children who could use strategies such as counting, pacing, or talking to themselves in order to resist the immediate temptation for a future greater reward had higher success as measured by better grades and increased self confidence years later. 

Recently, another group of researchers repeated the marshmallow test with a twist.  In the ‘solo” condition a child was given a cookie and told if they could wait to eat it, they would be given another cookie, essentially the same experiment as the marshmallow test.  But in the “interdependent condition,” two children in separate rooms were given cookies and told if they both successfully waited to eat it, both would get a second cookie.  What they found was that significantly more children delayed gratification in the interdependence condition than in the solo condition, even though the children did not even know each other.  The authors who published their findings in Psychological Science concluded this as evidence that the children had a sense of social obligation to others at a young age and that children are “more willing to delay gratification for cooperative goals than for individual goals.”  Co author Rebecca Koonan noted the children felt they “shouldn’t let their partner down.”

So now the pre-schoolers grow up and are adults with years of being encouraged to think about what “I” want or what is good for the people “I” love.  They don’t like being told what to do and in fact will become defensive and argumentative even if what they’re doing is self destructive or potentially harmful to others. Prolonged behavior change, in fact, is very difficult to achieve by simply telling someone they need to change.  That’s why NYU psychologist and leading researcher, Jay Van Bavel, in his paper combining the work of 41 experts in such fields as economics, psychology, and sociology regarding handling the response to the COVID-19 virus suggests a social modeling strategy over a directed appeal.  He writes, “If we’re asking people to behave in an altruistic or pro-social way, it helps to show a respected member of their social group modeling that behavior and to highlight the prospect of receiving approval from others in their social group.”

But in order to be persuaded or influenced by a group, we first must feel a sense of belonging to the group.  Somewhere between the preschooler wanting his unknown partner to have a cookie and our decisions not to wear masks and social distance, we have lost a connection to and a trust in what Damon Linker, columnist for The Week.com, refers to as the “social whole.” He writes:  “We resent being told what to do.  If wearing a mask is unpleasant, we don’t want to be forced to do it.  In fact, a governing authority – or really, anyone, even fellow customers at a grocery store – reprimanding us for failing to do our part for public health is enough to make us dig in our heals and stubbornly refuse to go along.”  Our connections to a “social whole” have faded into an us versus them mentality.  

It’s no wonder Americans are experiencing high rates of stress, anxiety and depression during this pandemic.  We don’t know who is “on our side” when we enter the public arena.  We wonder what the best course of action is and how the behavior of others will affect us.  This is a lonely experience.  Researchers in China found low levels of mental health problems among returning workers compared to high rates in America.  The reason for the lower levels of stress was the confidence the Chinese workers had that prevention measures would be strictly upheld.   What we gain in individual freedom, we lose in cooperation and trust.  What feels good in the moment of doing as we please, in the long run leaves us in vulnerable isolation.  

The truth is, we need each other.  We certainly do better when we work together than when we have to act alone. We are happier, more resilient, and have a sense of purpose when we feel connected.  To confront the societal problems we face, we will need to establish a feeling of a social whole, to act in the common good, not just for “our side.”   We will have to give up doing what “I’ want in order to support this larger community.  Certainly by delaying our own personal gratification, we can move to a more successful collective good for many.  Indeed, what we can learn from a pre-schooler is the power of social cooperation, not just with someone you know, but with a someone in the other room who might just also want a cookie.  

My daughter graduated from college this past weekend (celebrating virtually, of course).  As a proud parent I’m so impressed with how hard she worked, how much she gained in both academic and personal knowledge, and how much more worldly she is at her age than I was.   Her education was so important in not only building a foundation of knowledge, but in challenging her thought processes and exposing her to new ideas.  It got me thinking about how at the tender age of 21 our formal education generally stops, but how our need for learning is actually lifelong.  Unfortunately as so many of us become comfortable with what we know and enjoy the confidence that  familiarity gives us, we may overlook the potential cost in becoming increasingly closed off to new ideas and inflexible to change.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of experience!  I use it every day in my work and sometimes feel a  bit like a fraud when my interns ask how I know something, thinking I’m so talented,  when it’s just that I’ve seen similar patterns or presentations so many times before.  But I do notice that as I get older I can become a bit complacent and set in my ways.  (Which, ironically, is actually part of why older people are happier according to research).  When I listen to young people challenge the status quo and question why things are as they have been, it’s a wake up call.  When I go to a protest organized by young people, it shakes up my acceptance of how things have to be. Inexperience has its advantages.  There is a freshness of opinion and a willingness to try something new.   There is definitely a trade off in having to tolerate discomfort when you are open to change, and I ask myself about this unease.  Change is scary.  Change brings uncertainty, and with change is the very good chance that you may be left behind or, worse yet, dismissed, or rejected.  

This last month has been a big lesson for me in the downsides of comfort, as I wonder how much my own comfort with how things have been stands in the way of someone else’s need for change.  As I look at so many of our leaders in Congress holding on to their seats well into their 80’s (but not you RBG!!), it does give me concern for how hard it is to change things when our leaders are so comfortable in their power and the style and leadership that keeps them there.  If ever there was a time to embrace the youthful vision of possibility and marry it with the wisdom of experience, it is now.  But in order to do so we must ask ourselves what are we afraid of?  Rather than shutting down the hope of change, we must support its energy and guide its direction.  We must look fear in the face and be willing to give up some of our certainty and with it, some of our authority.  As a society, we must start to share the load of vulnerability.  Equality doesn’t mean all of us being the same, it means a shared ownership of power and its flip side, a leveling of the burdens that must be carried.

As I lift my glass to toast this year’s graduates and see the beauty of their visions for how they would like the world to be, I am pained with its contrast to the world we have handed them.  But I am also inspired with their ingenuity and passion.  With the climate changing, with the country divided, with inequality rising steadily, they are not comfortable, thank God.  Now, if the rest of us can allow ourselves to give up a bit of control, us old dogs may just learn a few new desperately needed tricks that might make our world a better place, despite us..

To be honest, I’ve been speechless this week.  Despite thinking for days about what I might have to say in the midst of what is happening in our country, I sat at my computer with a complete loss for words.  The same thing happened in my work meetings when we tried to support each other.  All I could find to say was “how very awful” it was and “how sorry I am” and how “profound the grief is.” At first I thought it was just about the pain.  What does one say in witnessing George Floyd on the ground, grasping for his last breath. Or in imagining being hunted and shot like an animal, as was Ahmaud Arbery, the last words he heard being a racial slur?  The pain of these truths of injustice is so deep and so difficult to tolerate.  Yet I am a psychologist, and one who works with trauma, no less.  I am trained to talk about emotional pain.  The meaning I find in my work is in this very act of putting words to the darkness one feels from traumatic pain in a process that promotes personal agency and awareness.  So why was this pain any different?  Why was I struggling to find anything of use to say?

In thinking about how to work with this, I went to another therapy technique.  When someone is so overwhelmed by a trauma that they cannot talk about it, we address this by first  “talking about the talking about.”  We explore with them what feelings come up in just the idea of talking about the trauma.  What fears do they have, shame they might be carrying, or guilt?  What must be worked through before they can move forward?  There are many layers to what can silence someone from opening a lid on a box filled with pain.  So I sat with this.  For a while.  And what emerged for me was a real sense of anxiety in not knowing the right thing to say.  As a person with white privilege I am afraid of saying or doing something that will be seen as wrong, hurtful, or even worse, assuming I know something I don’t know.  I am keenly aware of being caught in a dilemma between speaking as if I can understand something I cannot possibly understand and the fear of being silent, which is even worse.  So I say little, try to listen a lot, all the while feeling badly because I know that I am not doing enough.

Fortunately, in trying to understand what is going on for me, I came across an interview with a woman named Robin D’Angelo who is a diversity trainer and author of a book called White Fragility:  Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.  Her words rang true for me, even if it was humbling.  She states “Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we either are unaware or can never admit to ourselves, we (white people) become highly fragile in conversations around race.  We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge to our very identities as good moral people.  Thus we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as an unsettling and unfair moral offense.  The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable.”

Yup.  That about sums it up.  I try not to be a racist, I try to be aware of my biases, knowing, however, I can’t help being racist as a white person raised in a culture and society that is racist.  But it hurts to think that I am a part of the system that continues to oppress.  That I and my family benefit from the effects of one race dominating over all the others.  For the truth of it is, the very white privilege I have has allowed me to avoid the racial stress, thinking my empathy and good intentions at trying to be kind to everyone are enough.  Or that expressing outrage every time there is a victim or an incident that is brought to my attention is enough, all the while having the privilege to move on and go about my life until the next news cycle.

The good news?  The book by Robin D’Angelo is back ordered; enough of us white people want to understand and are willing to read a book entitled White Fragility, or a novel The Vanishing Half by black author Brit Bennett, or How to Be An Antiracist by IbramX Kendi, and the picture book I am Enough. As of last Wednesday (today is Friday as I write this) 15 of the top 20 best selling books on Amazon are about race, racism, and white supremacy in the US.  

We are a traumatized nation.  In grieving both a viral pandemic and a racial pandemic, openings are being created to become aware of injustice and to express it.  There will be a backlash, as we see, not just politically, but within ourselves.  It is up to each of us to take the steps to not only read the books, but to follow through on supporting change in our societal structures.  But for me personally, this week has been a sorrowed recognition of my own discomfort and avoidance.  I’ve awakened to the fact that I can’t do anything until I can first tolerate the awareness of racial inequality (and how I benefit from it) and find the language to talk about it.  I will need to be vulnerable enough to take ownership of it rather than thinking it’s about other people. For me, this will be a needed first step and one that I no longer want the luxury of not taking.

This is not a post to take a side.  I’m not advocating for staying “locked down” or for “opening up”.  What I am advocating is for us to resist the temptation to what we call in psychology “black and white thinking.”  Black and white thinking is when we divide into extreme positions on one side of an issue or another while missing all the shades of gray. This style of thinking is, in fact, considered a defense mechanism.  Against what?  Against the painful complexity of not being sure, of uncomfortable inconsistencies and complexities, and of the scary feeling that we may not be doing things “the right way.”

I’ve noticed as each state begins to “open up,”  there’s a lot of opinions about what is acceptable.   On the extremes are people who feel the whole lock down is a bogus infringement on “freedom”.  On the other extreme are people who are horrified by anyone who selfishly ventures out and puts the entire community’s “safety at risk”.  These extremes come down to an argument, along with harsh judgments, regarding the perception of freedom versus safety.  And this to me is a great example of the polarizing effect of black and white thinking.  

The fact is, if you really think about it, you can’t be free if you are not safe. Both of these concepts need to come together as we consider what is the “right” or “best” thing to do.  For those of us who have an underlying health condition, the terror of becoming infected is a great infringement on our freedom.  And for those of us who are financially on the edge, needing to return to work or open a business, the financial implications are also a great infringement on our freedom.  Because in order to be free, we need a certain amount of safety.

Safety comes in many forms.  It can be the safety of knowing where your next meal is coming and where you will be sleeping each night.  Safety also comes in the form of being free of debilitating health concerns or at least having access to the care you need.  And it also can be the safety of knowing you are free from violence or abuse.  Or freedom from overwhelming emotional distress such as anxiety and depression.  Freedom and safety are not opposites, but in my mind are very much interrelated.

My older daughter put it really well when we were talking about the polarization’s happening all over social media: “You don’t know someone else’s story,” she said.  So very true and this perspective gets right to the heart of the debate.  When we judge someone for their actions, we don’t really know all that is going on for them that’s behind the choices they’re making.  It’s a defense mechanism to think that we know better what is the right way to be.  The simple truth is, these are complicated times with unprecedented uncertainty.  We still don’t know enough about COVID-19, the ways that it is transmitted, what it means to be infected, and the long term implications for our health and for our economy.  Uncertainty is hard to tolerate, especially on such a long term basis with such gigantic implications.  And so we retreat to our corners where certainty feels more comfortable and reassuring. 

What we all have in common is a sense of threat that is invisible and yet so very real.  How we respond to this threat is so important in terms of our capacity to ride it through and work together as a community and society.  We are all doing our best to make good choices and to manage our own safety issues. (Can my hair be considered a safety issue?  It is definitely becoming a threat).  So I invite us all to avoid the temptation to run to the black side or the white side.  Now more than ever we need to try on the various shades of gray (like my hair). Freedom and safety are not mutually exclusive. Being human is all about being vulnerable and doing our best to manage our lives through the choices we make, hopefully out of love and thoughtfulness rather than fear and rigidity.

Have you seen the movie Groundhog’s Day?  The one where Bill Murray keeps waking up to find he’s living the same day over and over and over?  That is a reference I’ve heard a lot this week with our shelter in place orders going on and on.  Many of us wake up in the same place, work in the same place, eat and sleep in the same place, interact with the same people doing the same things day after day after day.  There seems to be a collective sense of burn out, for sure.  The only thing that I hear making a reliable difference is getting out in nature, for those lucky enough to do so.  So today my post will sing the virtues of interacting with nature.  It isn’t just a hunch or a sense, but there is real science behind the psychological benefits of interacting with natural elements.

Biophilia (for once a “philia” term you actually want to have) refers to our attraction and affinity for living systems and natural things.  It posits that we humans have an inborn need for contact with nature and that this connection is essential to our health and well being.  Exposure to nature has shown a positive impact in recovering from surgery faster, improving the ability to focus and improving blood pressure levels.  There is even an emerging treatment method in Japan called “forest medicine” to take advantage of the healing benefits of our interaction with nature.   Being outdoors gives us energy, makes us happier, helps us to relieve stress, and even opens the door to being more creative.

While authors, poets and naturalists have been sharing the benefits of their profound experiences in nature for hundreds of years, scientists are now able to see the changes in the brain and body that underlie these physical and mental health benefits.  Results of various experiments show that people who walk in forests had significantly lower heart rates and reported better moods and less anxiety than people who walked the same distance in an urban environment (so it’s not the exercise alone).  In one study, a researcher focused on how walking in nature affects rumination, which is associated with the onset of depression and anxiety.  He used MRI technology to look at brain activity to compare people who walked in either a natural or urban setting.  People in the natural setting reported decreased rumination and this was supported by their brain scans, which showed increased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (I bet you didn’t even know you had one), an area of the brain whose deactivation is affiliated with depression and anxiety.  Further research shows increases in problem solving tasks, short term memory and creative problem solving when we spend time in nature.  (Of important note, these positive effects all go away if you use a cell phone during your walk, showing the brain activity of someone with attention overload!).

Ok, you may ask, but what if I can’t get to a park or natural setting?  What if I don’t live near one I can walk to in our lock down, or am too vulnerable physically to go out?  The good news is that you don’t even have to be outside to get the benefits of nature.  Studies show that just watching a video of nature or even looking at a pretty plant has benefits for decreasing stress and improving our sense of well being.  There is even a design movement known as biophilic interior design that uses natural colors, images, and textures in office spaces.  It has proven to reduce absenteeism and mental fatigue, promote emotional satisfaction and increase productivity.

Believe it or not, according to a surveys by the Environmental Protection Agency, even when we are NOT in lock down, Americans stay inside for up to 93% of their lifetimes (when you include time inside and in transport).  Maybe one of the silver linings of all of this staying at home will be for us to truly appreciate the gift of keeping our natural word protected and the benefits it has for us.  In the meantime, we can buy pretty flowers, watch Nature on PBS (the one about weasels is adorable-Season 38, episode 12), and watch for birds out our window.  And if we watch closely enough, we might just get to catch a glimpse of that dang groundhog!

I must confess…I’m not thriving.  I’m not baking incredible things, recreating famous paintings with household items, or running marathons around my house.  I’m not sewing masks, arranging parades down the block for a lonely child’s birthday, or spearheading a fundraiser.  I think about it a lot, though.  Every time I see an image of what others are doing, I feel a little guilty.  I should be doing something better.  I should at least be doing something more.  And if I can’t do more, at least I should be able to be more helpful to other people.  I talk to my patients all day and feel I should have answers to their concerns, I should know how to help them.  And with my family I should be able to protect them and keep this pandemic from disrupting their college lives and business so intensely.

The stress of this pandemic is enormous.  But the stress we can add to it by our own expectations of ourselves is a whole other matter.  It’s lovely to celebrate the creativity and feel good stories of other people’s efforts, but it can contribute to the guilt and pain we experience in feeling we’re not doing enough.  A lot of us feel we’re in over our heads.  We’re trying to handle the emotional roller coaster of our personal and family life.  I heard a great metaphor that seems so appropriate: We are all weathering the same storm, but in very different boats.  Each of us has our own situation and vary in our resources, both emotionally and practically.  It’s an unfair practice to compare ourselves with others.  This is not a time to judge ourselves or other people for how we each are keeping ourselves afloat.

An important skill comes to mind in thinking about this overwhelm and “should” expectation frustration.  It’s what psychologists call “radical acceptance”:  accepting everything about yourself, your situation, and your life without blame, question, or judgment.  When a situation is out of our control, fighting against it only leads to more suffering.  By accepting things as they are, not pushing to have things as you want them to be you, you can reduce your added stress and actually increase your coping. It doesn’t mean you agree with what’s happening or even attempt to make the most of it, you merely allow yourself to accept what it is that you cannot change and stop fighting against it.

When I accept that I can’t change what’s happening and accept things as they are, I take the pressure off myself by letting go of my “shoulds”.  With this space, I actually begin to see that there is a lot I actually am doing and can reassure myself that, in this very moment, I am fine.  Radical acceptance takes away the judgement that there is some other way I need to be or some expectation that I must live up to.  Things are as they are.

In fact, once I free myself from the burden of non-acceptance, I tend to feel a sense of calm.  In this calm,  I can shift my focus to the things I can do.  For example, I may not be able to fix things for other people, but I can listen.  I can’t sew masks, but I can show appreciation to the woman who made one.  Little by little I find myself working my way out of the paralyzed state of overburdened should.

In this time of helpless staying at home and waiting for time to pass, perhaps it’s an opportunity to remind ourselves of the value of connection and relationship.  It’s a time to shift our focus from doing to being:  being together, being with ourselves, being apart.  We can listen to our thoughts and deepen our emotional experience with one another and with ourselves. Our regular lives are so focused on performance and activity, perhaps during this unprecedented time we can give ourselves and others permission to just be – where we are, who we are, and as we are.  Now isn’t that radical!