This is a scary time, plain and simple.* And right now, the main message we are getting is that we need to be “hiding out.” Less time with other people and more time to think and worry means that we are at risk of getting caught up in negative thoughts and emotions. Many physicians, who have been taking calls from patients, report having had many more calls related to anxiety and fear than about preventing or treating COVID-19.

What are some ways to work with fear? Here are two options:

1. Calming Emotions: “Name it to Tame it.” 

The phrase “name it to tame it” is from author Shauna Shapiro.¹ She makes the point that to work with a challenging emotion, like fear, one of the most important things we have to do is notice it -and name it- in the first place. We are wired to feel an emotion before we ever think about it. Only by looking straight at our emotions do we have the power to really work with them.

A few years back, there was a study on students that looked at what happened to their brains if they focused on naming emotions they saw in pictures of people.² This was compared to what happened when they named something else about the pictures that was not related to emotions. Naming emotions calmed the students’ brains down, while naming other things did not. And the same thing happens when we name our own emotions – we calm down. So how can we use that to help ourselves?

When something is uncomfortable, whether it is an emotion or pain, or some sort of symptom, it may be that that best course is to face it. To really know it. In terms of fear, that means being aware that you have it, naming it, and then understanding more about it. Where do you notice it in your body? How does it show up? Tightness? Tension? Clenching? What triggered it in this moment? Have you felt the same thing before? What are some associated thoughts or stories that may be going on in your mind? Can you observe it with curiosity and allow it to be, just as it is, right in this moment? What helps it go away? The more you know, the more power you will have to work with it. It may not always mean getting rid of it, but it can always mean learning how to cope with it better.

If we do not name our emotions, it can cause problems. We can try to ignore them or bury them, but that can be a lot like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole – we knock the emotion down, but it pops up somewhere else. In one study, people who ignored their feelings found that the feelings actually stayed around longer.³