You’re doing great. It will be okay!
Don’t feel like ‘getting things done’? It’s okay not to be productive during a pandemic
If you’ve found yourself trying to decide whether you should bake bread, join a meditation webinar, create a color-coded home-school schedule, or just curl up in a ball and cry, you’re not alone.
As we stay at home in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, we are being inundated not only with a storm of anxiety-inducing news but with an onslaught of suggestions for “making the most” of our (alleged) extra time. “There’s a huge push of people thinking that because we are home right now, we can be productive and that we’re all going to be able to stay as focused as we were a month or so ago,” says productivity expert Racheal Cook. “But that’s just not the case.”
Cook says there are a number of things working against the accomplishment of any tasks, so if you feel pulled in multiple directions and are having trouble focusing, it’s completely understandable.
It's difficult to be productive during a crisis
“We are going through a collective trauma experience,” Cook says, referring to the upheaval, fear and grief caused by the covid-19 pandemic. “Anxiety is up, depression is up. From a productivity standpoint, it’s challenging because we’re navigating these huge emotional hurdles with an uncertainty that most of us have never really experienced in our lifetime.”
Pandemic anxiety is making us sleepless, forgetful and angry. Here are tips for coping.
And the time and energy expended on adjusting our entire lives to this new normal — which may mean working from home while assuming the role of home-school teacher, caring for ill family members, sanitizing our groceries and dealing with the fallout of mass layoffs — are magnifying the intense emotions. “None of these things are setting us up for high productivity or high performance,” says Cook.
For some populations, additional stressors such as job loss, discrimination and access to health care may amplify anxiety even more, says Bukola Oladunni Salami, a registered nurse, expert on immigrant health and professor at the University of Alberta. “We’ve seen there are some immigrant communities experiencing backlash,” she says. People struggling to survive or afraid that accessing health care could lead to deportation aren’t looking for tips on reorganizing their spice drawers.
Because individual circumstances differ and people process difficult experiences in a variety of ways, psychotherapist Dana Dorfman says, “there’s no ‘right way’ [to get through this] other than allowing yourself to be your own way.” You are not obligated to accept every live-stream yoga or virtual happy hour invitation. If you’re carrying any guilt about not producing your best work, writing a screenplay, learning to quilt or putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle, you have permission to let that go. Dorfman says if you “respect the range of coping styles and view people’s behavior as their way to manage their anxiety, you can feel less judgmental” — of yourself and others.
Being productive can be a coping mechanism
It’s also okay to dive into a household project, pick up a new hobby or sign up for an online course, if that’s what you’re drawn to. “In the throes of something that is so frightening and can be somewhat traumatic, people often funnel their anxiety into productivity,” Dorfman says.
Being productive can be therapeutic in turbulent times, but Dorfman warns this coping mechanism can be maladaptive in excess. “Be careful not to overextend,” she says. “And do acknowledge what you’re feeling. That doesn’t mean you need to wallow in it, but labeling your feelings — recognizing you’re sad or overwhelmed in some moments — will allow you to function better.”
While you might have a surge of creative inspiration to complete a Pinterest project and cook a gourmet meal today, don’t be surprised if you feel differently tomorrow. “You’re going to vary. This is a one-day-at-a-time kind of experience,” Dorfman says. “There are going to be days when you’re less focused and more overwhelmed. And that is okay. This is a very stressful time and you shouldn’t be operating on all four cylinders all the time.”
Both Dorfman and Cook recommend tempering your expectations for the time being. “Start with compassion for yourself,” says Cook, and then extend the same to others. It’s okay to lower the bar a bit right now, “not because we don’t have high standards, but because we understand that during this period we need to give ourselves a little grace.”
That may mean starting your day with a simple three-point to-do list. “Focus on getting those tasks done and then give yourself permission for a break,” Cook says. If you’re feeling stuck, take some time to try something new. You don’t need to master everything, she adds; simply doing something different can “activate other parts of your brain and help you think more clearly when you sit back down to work.”
Doing nothing, if possible, is okay, too
Don’t underestimate the power of doing absolutely nothing if the mood strikes you.
“Everyone’s situation is different,” Cook says, “but if that’s an option for you — if you don’t have to work or you want to spend time with your family at home or if you can scale back and just take some pressure off a bit, go for it.”
This could help not just in the present, but in the future. “We’re at a point where foundational self-care is one of the first things everybody could implement to ensure that when things settle down, when the rubble is cleared a bit, we are able to be productive because we didn’t try to just grind through this whole situation,” she says. “We need to be sure we’re doing things that will help us navigate this not just from a productivity standup but from a human standpoint.”
And in the downtime, don’t be afraid to find joy. “That has reverberating benefits as well,” says Dorfman. “When we feel good or nurtured or feel like we’re discovering things about our relationships or ourselves, that enhances us as human beings and extends to other people. Despite social distancing, we’re all very connected.”
Although there is a tremendous amount of heartbreak and fear right now, it’s okay to experience positive emotions; we probably need them now more than ever. “You can have two very different, seemingly competing feelings” at the same time, says Dorfman. “Enjoying certain moments does not deny that you are also sad, scared, worried or anxious. Allowing yourself some kind of pleasurable, compassionate, loving moments will replenish your emotional inventory, so you are also equipped to help others.”
As Dorfman puts it, “this is a marathon, not a sprint.” It may help to even think of this time as a relay; we don’t all have to be running at the same moment. Some people, such as health-care personnel, may need to put their heads down and work for a period, then process feelings later. “If that’s survival mode, that’s acceptable, too,” she says. “When the crisis subsides, when the dust settles a little bit and you find yourself left with the trauma,” it’s not too late to reach out for help or find ways to understand and channel your emotions.
If, on the other hand, you are someone who wants to produce or contribute in some way, but you don’t have the bandwidth right now, there’s no need to push yourself. “There will be time and opportunities to offer support, to do work, to produce . . . not just in the eye of the storm, but in the reverberating experiences later on,” Dorfman says. “We just need to pace ourselves.”
Routine is essential
Teletherapy: Connecting therapists and clients during a time of separation
Teresa Brown has had a life without luxuries or much security, or any peace of mind.
Correspondent Susan Spencer asked her, "Talk to me a little bit about this feeling of stress, that has basically been with you since you were a child."
"In order for me to kind of talk about it, I have to think about the traumas that I've been through," said Brown. "Traumas like, not just growing up poor but growing up where we lived in apartments that didn't have heat, or grew up in neighborhoods that had high crime, or went to schools where you were bullied, those things."
She spent years trying to process those traumas, all the while raising her three nieces in New York City. Finally, she found help from a therapist.
"What kind of things do you talk to the therapist about?" asked Spencer.
"Pretty much what is it I could do to either relieve my stress, or find tools to help me deal with the situations I have been going through."
But three weeks ago, she wasn't sure she'd ever see that therapist again.
The pandemic meant that Mosaic, the non-profit mental health center in the Bronx where brown goes, had no choice but to close its doors to in-person visits – no one-on-one therapy, no counseling.
Spencer asked Donna Demetri Friedman, the executive director of Mosaic, "When you realized the magnitude of this pandemic, was there a time when you weren't sure that you'd be able to continue to serve your clients?"
"Yes," she replied. "And that frightened me tremendously."
Friedman said she could not imagine leaving more than a thousand desperate, low-income clients with nowhere to turn in the midst of a terrifying pandemic: "The stakes are very high. Some people have anxiety. Some people have major depressive illness. And that's all heightened, of course, in this crisis. So, we would be seeing people really begin to decompensate."
So, three weeks ago, Friedman's staff of 100 took drastic measures, switching all mental health counseling to teletherapy, a fancy name for using the phone. They were not authorized to do so until the pandemic hit, and New York State waived its regulations.
Spencer said, "It seems like this must have been a sea change for you."
"We mobilized immediately actually before we even had guidance," said Friedman.
"What about the challenges in terms of actually helping anybody this way?"
"There was some resistance from the clients, and some resistance from the staff: 'How are we gonna do this? Is this really gonna work?' But pretty quickly, people kind of have pulled together and are doing this and doing their part and responding."
Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, chair of the Psychiatry Department at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said teletherapy "is ideally suited to providing mental health care under the current circumstances. And it's being used more now than ever in history."
And it's a long history. Back in 1959, the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute first used videoconferencing. A decade later, teletherapy consultations were available to troubled travelers at Boston's Logan Airport. And about 30 years ago, telepsychiatry became a subject of serious study.
Spencver asked, "Do you think that really it's as effective as it is to have a one-on-one conversation?"
"Well, there's actually substantial data from systematic studies which show that it is effective," Dr. Lieberman replied.
It better be, now more than ever. New research shows that living in quarantine can have grave long-term mental health effects, as New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently recognized. "I am asking psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists who are willing to volunteer their time to contact the state," he said.
More than 6,000 people responded … no surprise to Dr. Lieberman. "This is gonna have a population-wide effect of PTSD proportions," he said. "It's almost primal. It's almost apocalyptic in its nature."
Spencer asked Katie Riordan, a mental health counselor at Mosaic, "What are the challenges that the whole teletherapy thing poses in itself?"
"What is lacking is the ability to see someone's face," she replied, "to, you know, feel what someone brings into a room, But I don't know where we'd be without [teletherapy] right now, frankly."
Lately, Riordan has been on the phone, a lot, offering therapy six days a week, about 10 hours a day.
"It's been exhausting, it's been exhausting," she said of the last few weeks. "It's, it's a strain."
One of Katie's patients is Teresa Brown, whom she knows as Teri: "Teri is the, you know, the guardian of a family balancing so many different challenges: financial, educational, physical space. This pandemic didn't get rid of problems that existed prior to it coming along, right? So, all these stressors that have led people to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and anxiety and powerlessness before this emerged, now they're just compounded with the world as we knew it, you know, being shaken up."
"That's your challenge, isn't it?" asked Spencer.
"It's Teri Brown's challenge," she replied. "It's my challenge."
Brown told Spencer, "Yes, I have a lotta anxiety, but I am trying so hard to be positive about this, because it's not just for me. It's for my children. And I want them to understand that, 'Don't panic. Things will get better.'"
For now at least, that may be the best advice of all.
Journey to the wise mind
Working from home with ADD: Try these apps to stay on task
This isn't my first rodeo working from home with ADD, though. Experience has taught me to implement many of the same preventative work from home measures a lot of you already do: Be careful to rebuild and maintain the regular rituals of the workday, stay at the desk at all costs, don't ditch your medication without your doctor's orders, get proper exercise, keep an eye on blood-sugar levels and eat brain-healthy foods. Along the way, however, I've used some steadfast online tools to bolster my efforts.
Here are a few of my favorite apps and tools to help others with ADD work from home more effectively.
Hold your attention with timers and white noise
Getting started on a work task can be a beast, but staying with it through the end is the real fight for a lot of us. I use a combination of two digital tools to reinforce my follow-through: the white noise from the cockpit of a 1944 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a stopwatch.
The stopwatch is a simple concept for me. I'll use the timer on my phone and countdown to the next coffee break, or set a hard deadline for myself to artificially induce those classic ADD adrenaline contractions that kick into high gear when a countdown nears its end. But staying in my seat requires something more.
Mynoise.net has been online since 2013 and has seen up to a million hits a month, with mobile apps available in both Google Play store and the App Store. While any number of online white noise generators could do the trick to distract your wandering mind (and Mynoise has nearly any to suit your taste), few sounds are as successful in muting the internal monologues of yours truly as a layer of propeller thrum interspersed with mostly unintelligible tower radio chatter.
Bonus distraction: If you're looking for a creepy thrill, check out Mynoise's Evil Charm soundscape.
Step away from social media
Hyperfocusing on social media is a silent killer. One second you're stopping to check a message, and the next thing you know 18 years have passed and a kid the state says is yours is somehow in college.
Try the RescueTime app. Available for free on Google Play store and the App Store, RescueTime automatically tracks which apps you're using and how long you're using each of them to populate visualizations describing where your day went. It's also available as a desktop app. You don't have to keep glancing at it either. RescueTime's notification feature pings you when you're getting too far down an attention-sucking rabbit hole, so you can pull yourself back on track. For the competitive among us, the app's "Productivity Pulse" gives you a chance to compare your days.
Yes, it's a privacy nightmare for those who'd rather not hand over a record of their every click to any single app. But if you're looking for something simple to keep track of time spent, it's a tried and true productivity hack that you can customize to help you sort your day out.
Break tasks down to avoid procrastination paralysis
One of the worst ADD feelings is the bottom of the almighty Project Cycle. You know what I'm talking about: You get all ginned up about a great project idea and start writing down all your hows and whens and whys in a fit of manic genius, only to come back to a disorganized mess of notes on scrap paper and the paralyzing feeling of having bitten off more than you can chew. You get overwhelmed by the ambitious scale of your big idea and its seeming insurmountability.
That's when you should Remember the Milk. This deceptively domestic errand-running app is designed to break down your to-do list into manageable tasks, rewarding you on each baby-step with the sweet serotonin hit of a check mark as you plow through subtasks toward larger and larger parts of your list.
Available for free (but with in-app purchases) in both the App Store and Google Play store, Remember the Milk is not specifically designed for my off-market project management uses, but instead to head off domestic interference during the workday by syncing across devices and integrating with Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter, Evernote and other apps.
Focus your brain
When you've got an extreme need for social media distancing, there are plenty of ways to put your apps to sleep (she says, refreshing her Twitter mentions). But one of the easiest ways is to use the Brain Focus productivity timer.
The app is free in both Google Play store and the App Store, and is simple enough not to draw you into a spiral of attention-sucking customization options. Just install it, tell it which apps to shut up for you and set the timer. It will then block you from accessing those apps for the amount of time you set. If you want to track your time, it's got features to help you, but its streamlined interface is geared toward a quick tap to get you back to work, based on the Pomodoro Technique.
If you've never heard of the Pomodoro Technique -- long-time fan here -- your ADD might appreciate you giving it a go. It's a productivity technique that rhythmically cycles through short bursts of work and short breaks by setting timing micro-limits. Named for tomato-shaped timers common to Italian kitchens, the technique is designed to hitch your attention to an audible ticking and dinging until your brain starts pumping out focus like Pavlov's dog drips drool.
Brain Focus is just one of the productivity apps borne out of the technique, which might account for some part of its efficacy.
Jeez, my leg is really twitching today.
Wait... What was I saying... ?
Do you need a charge?
Which fox are you today?
How to Work Remotely While Home-Schooling Your Kids
In addition to fundamentally reshaping the nature of work for millions of Americans, and whether they can continue work at all, the coronavirus is also placing an almost impossible expectation on working parents by casting them in the role of teacher.
For parents who are pivoting to remote work, this can mean attempting to manage their own full-time jobs in addition to home-schooling their children, something that many parents have no experience doing. For parents who aren't able to telework because their roles in health care, food service, transportation, the media and more are deemed essential, the current crisis has placed a harsh spotlight on the lack of resources, including affordable child care, facing many Americans.
"You know when they tell you on airplanes that in the event of losing cabin pressure, it's important to adjust your mask before helping others? Well, that's how I feel about working from home with school-aged kids," says Allison Bozniak, a communications executive with a nonprofit organization in the District of Columbia who is teleworking while also home-schooling her 12-year-old son and her 14-year-old daughter. "This week came up on me like a brick wall, trying to prepare to work from home, eat from home, entertain ourselves at home and, of course, worrying about friends and family."
Bozniak's two children are in middle school, don't need constant supervision and are accustomed to submitting assignments online already, which helps some with the transition to home schooling. And in addition to creating her own dedicated workspace in a guest room, Bozniak is creating "learning environments" in the kids' rooms so they can focus on schoolwork.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 1.7 million students were home-schooled in the U.S. during the 2015-2016 school year (the most recent figures available). In fall 2019, there were 56.6 million students in the U.S. overall. Kieryn Darkwater, the director of outreach at the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, suspects that as states mandate varying levels of shelter-in-place regulations, many of those students will be in some sort of emergency home schooling situation, at least temporarily.
Closing schools impacts more than coursework. Across the country, children facing extreme hunger often rely on school meals to meet their basic needs. The closing of libraries means less access to educational materials, although many school districts are scrambling to provide online resources if publishers and authors agree to make them available.
Several organizations are making resources available for free to parents and children alike. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has a series of age-appropriate teaching guides on forced displacement available on its website. The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting offers a "journalist in a classroom" program, which can be conducted via video chat. Archives at the Smithsonian and Library of Congress also offer great educational resources. And an ever-growing cadre of resources, from celebrities reading children's books online to new games and tools, are freely available.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order that ensures schools continue to receive funding during the statewide shelter-in-place order, the first in the country.
"Even though a school may be physically closed, educating and feeding our kids shouldn't stop. Students still need instruction, even if it's at a distance," Newsom said in a statement. "Our low-income students also continue to need access to free or reduced price, healthy meals."
At the San Francisco Unified School District, administrators are trying to provide a plethora of online resources, while emphasizing that they're optional. "All of these ideas can be done with regular household items. At the same time, we know that for some families, doing formal learning activities at home is not an option right now, and that is OK," says Laura Dudnick, a public relations manager for the district. "No students are required to do school work at this time."
San Francisco isn't the only school district offering resources. Darkwater says it's happening throughout the country and recommends reaching out not only to your kids' school, but to teachers, state and county education boards, community organizations and other neighborhood resources to see what's available.
"Additionally, teachers, neighbors or elders in the community may be willing to offer remote tutoring or supervision if children are old enough to be left unattended with the internet," Darkwater says. "We don't recommend leaving children to fend for themselves when it comes to making sure their education is happening, but also know this is a trying time and we all have to do the best we can with what we have."
But, like Dudnick, Darkwater is also urging parents not to stress.
"Don't try to replicate a school day in your home. Use the resources and materials your school is sending you, and use the internet to help your family stay connected with friends or even go on field trips. Screen time is OK," Darkwater says. "Everyone's emotional health is just as important as physical health. Home schooling is about flexibility and doing what works for your family and children individually."
For Bozniak, worrying she's keeping her kids on track academically is only part of the challenge facing her as she's working and home-schooling.
"More than anything, I'm worried that I'm not supportive enough as my kids are dealing with heightened anxiety over the whole thing," she says. "I'm just trying to come to terms with it. I'm usually the mom with all the answers, but here I have none."
Although home schooling is a twist to teleworking for many parents, the teleworking basics still apply. It's important, as much as possible, to set up a dedicated workspace, which includes a space for videoconferencing, an area for work-only supplies and materials and a schedule for the family that earmarks time for dedicated work, school, play and family activities. Communication is key, too. After several weeks together, even the most loving families can start to have a little tension, and being clear about work, personal and family needs – with each other, and bosses, teams and schools – can go a long way.
And although it may not seem like it now, this is temporary, and many people around the world are going through the same thing. There will be more answers and resources to come as kids go back to school, and people return to their jobs. For now, it's OK to focus on remaining healthy and safe, and worry about the rest later.
10 Minute Reset
In these uncertain times, you control more than you think you do.
Let Go of What You Can't Control
That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
Some of the HBR edit staff met virtually the other day — a screen full of faces in a scene becoming more common everywhere. We talked about the content we’re commissioning in this harrowing time of a pandemic and how we can help people. But we also talked about how we were feeling. One colleague mentioned that what she felt was grief. Heads nodded in all the panes.
If we can name it, perhaps we can manage it. We turned to David Kessler for ideas on how to do that. Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief. He co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazard’s team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of www.grief.com which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries.
Kessler shared his thoughts on why it’s important to acknowledge the grief you may be feeling, how to manage it, and how he believes we will find meaning in it. The conversation is lightly edited for clarity.
HBR: People are feeling any number of things right now. Is it right to call some of what they’re feeling grief?
Kessler: Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.
You said we’re feeling more than one kind of grief?
Yes, we’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this, but all together this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.
What can individuals do to manage this all this grief?
Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s Acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.
Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually.
When we’re feeling grief there’s that physical pain. And the racing mind. Are there techniques to deal with that to make it less intense.Let’s go back to anticipatory grief. Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety, and that’s the feeling you’re talking about. Our mind begins to show us images. My parents getting sick. We see the worst scenarios. That’s our minds being protective. Our goal is not to ignore those images or to try to make them go away—you mind won’t let you do that and it can be painful to try and force it. The goal is to find balance in the things you’re thinking. If you feel the worst image taking shape, make yourself think of the best image. We all get a little sick and the world continues. Not everyone I love dies. Maybe no one does because we’re all taking the right steps. Neither scenario should be ignored but neither should dominate either.
Anticipatory grief is the mind going to the future and imagining the worst. To calm yourself, you want to come into the present. This will be familiar advice to anyone who has meditated or practiced mindfulness but people are always surprised at how prosaic this can be. You can name five things in the room. There’s a computer, a chair, a picture of the dog, an old rug and a coffee mug. It’s that simple. Breathe. Realize that in the present moment, nothing you’ve anticipated has happened. In this moment, you’re okay. You have food. You are not sick. Use your senses and think about what they feel. The desk is hard. The blanket is soft. I can feel the breath coming into my nose. This really will work to dampen some of that pain.
You can also think about how to let go of what you can’t control. What your neighbor is doing is out of your control. What is in your control is staying six feet away from them and washing your hands. Focus on that.
Finally, it’s a good time to stock up on compassion. Everyone will have different levels of fear and grief and it manifests in different ways. A coworker got very snippy with me the other day and I thought, That’s not like this person; that’s how they’re dealing with this. I’m seeing their fear and anxiety. So be patient. Think about who someone usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.
One particularly troubling aspect of this pandemic is the open-endedness of it.
This is a temporary state. It helps to say it. I worked for 10 years in the hospital system. I’ve been trained for situations like this. I’ve also studied the Spanish Flu. The precautions we’re taking are the right ones. History tells us that. This is survivable. We will survive. This is a time to overprotect but not overreact.
And, I believe we will find meaning in it. I’ve been honored the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ family has given me permission to add a sixth stage to grief: Meaning. I had talked to Elisabeth quite a bit about what came after acceptance. I did not want to stop at acceptance when I experienced some personal grief. I wanted meaning in those darkest hours. And I do believe we find light in those times. Even now people are realizing they can connect through technology. They are not as remote as they thought. They are realizing their phones have phones and having long conversations. They’re appreciating walks. I believe we will continue to find meaning now and when this is over.
What do you say to someone who’s read all this and is still feeling overwhelmed with grief?
Keep trying. There is something powerful about naming this as grief. It helps us feel what’s inside of us. So many have told me in the past week, “I’m telling my coworkers I’m having a hard time,” or “I cried last night.” When you name it, you feel it and it moves through you. Emotions need motion. It’s important we acknowledge what we go through. One unfortunate byproduct of the self-help movement is we’re the first generation to have feelings about our feelings. We tell ourselves things like, “I feel sad but I shouldn’t feel that other people have it worse.” We can—we should—stop at the first feeling, I feel sad. Let me go for five minutes to feel sad.” Your work is to feel your sadness and fear and anger whether or not someone else is feeling something. Fighting it doesn’t help because your body is producing the feeling. If we allow the feelings to happen, they’ll happen in an orderly way, and it empowers us. Then we’re not victims.
In an orderly way?
Yes. Sometimes we try not to feel what we’re feeling because we have this image of a “gang of feelings.” If I feel said and let that in it’ll never go away. The gang of bad feelings will overrun me. The truth is a feeling move through us. We feel it and it goes and then we go to the next feeling. There’s no gang out to get us. It’s absurd to think we shouldn’t feel grief right now. Let yourself feel the grief and keep going.
Your Child’s Mental Health Is Important As Ever Right Now
We Will Get Through This
How Was Your Week?
List of National Parks to Get Outside and Moving
Parenting While Depressed: Real Mothers Share How They Cope
Earlier this week, a Twitter user and entrepreneur took to the social networking platform to ask how parents are managing to raise children while depressed. The now-viral tweet has since garnered more than 30,000 likes and 4,000 comments. Within the comments, thousands of parents, primarily Black mothers, share how they’re managing to parent their kids while suffering from the crippling mood disorder. Statistics show that Black women experience depression at higher rates when compared to the general population, which is why this conversation is particularly important. Here are some of the highlights:
Seek the help of a therapist
For some, the only way to effectively parent while depressed is to enlist the help of a therapist. Therapists can offer medication and coping strategies to get through depressive episodes.
Plan ahead
Some parents take advantage of their high moments in order to plan for their lows. One mother explained that she cooks and freezes extra meals for rainy days. She also preps laundry and cleans as much as possible when she’s feeling good.
Be transparent
Instead of hiding their condition, some parents cope by having age-appropriate conversations with their kids about what’s going on. This helps to keep the children from blaming themselves for mommy’s sadness.
Go through the motions
For some parents, parenting while depressed simply means going through the motions and operating in survival mode to take care of the kids. Unfortunately, while they’re doing what they have to do, they’re suffering tremendously on the inside.
Self-reflection
Self-awareness and honest self-reflection are key for some parents who struggle with depression. Being in tune helps to ensure that all needs are being met and that nothing slips through the cracks.
Just push through
For some, parenting through depression is just a matter of fighting through the overwhelming feelings of sadness to ensure that their children are happy, loved, and well cared for.
Keep the kids distracted
One parent keeps her depression from affecting her children by keeping them active and busy with extracurricular activities.
Know your limitations
Parenting while depressed means that sometimes, you’ll have to be okay with doing the bare minimum of just ensuring that the basic needs of the children are being met.
Hide and cry
Some parents work to put on a brave face for their children and then have their moments behind closed doors.
Take breaks
It’s also important for parents to take breaks as needed. Sometimes an hour or two away from the kids can help parents to get through difficult days.
Take medication
For others, parenting while depressed is best navigated by going on antidepressant medication to help regulate the condition.
Dog-walking group to help men talk about depression
Rob Osman from Bristol in the United Kingdom has dealt with depression and anxiety for his entire life. But throughout the difficult times, there was always one thing that helped - walking his dog.
Realizing the huge benefits that animals and getting out into nature can bring, Osman decided to set up Dudes & Dogs to help other men going through the same thing. Their goal? "To get men out in the fresh air together for a walk and talk."
On the group's website, Osman explains his own battle with depression and how walking his dog helped.
"I think I can consider myself one of the lucky ones in life. I had a good upbringing, fit and healthy, got an amazing family. I guess I fit into the ‘big jolly guy’ category. I hope I do, that’s nice. But yet, I’ve suffered a bit too. I broke my back which put paid to my hopes of playing at a decent level of cricket. I then had to have an operation a few years later when I thought everything was getting better and was reduced to living in my sisters windowless basement smoking far too much weed to care."
"But yet, I’ve suffered a bit too. I broke my back which put paid to my hopes of playing at a decent level of cricket. I then had to have an operation a few years later when I thought everything was getting better and was reduced to living in my sisters windowless basement smoking far too much weed to care."
"I lost my dad in my 20’s. Not that unusual, but still something that can have a massive effect on my mood. The bit that very few know about; I’ve suffered with social anxiety since the age of about 10. When I was younger it manifested in basically throwing my guts up in pretty much any social situation, especially where girls were involved."
Osman goes on to explain how getting a dog helped with his mood, writing: "Picture the scene. It’s one of those horrible wet and windy crappy cold days that we do so well in the UK. There’s no way in hell I want to go out in this, especially not the way I’m feeling."
"But there’s the dog, she doesn’t care that I feel like crap today. She doesn’t care that the weather is rubbish, she just wants to get out and play. With me. Really? Yes really. And you know what, it’s been the best therapy I’ve ever had."
He went on to explain why he set up Dudes and Dogs, writing: "I’ve always known I’ve wanted to do something to help people, just never quite sure what. I started to get a good idea of what it was and decided the place to start was a psychology and counselling degree with the Open University."
"In the meantime I’ve been looking to see where else I could help, through talk groups and charities, but I also started thinking about what had helped me hugely, and that was the fresh air and getting out with my dog, the good it does me is for another time."
"But when I was reaching out to others, part of my message always said, come on a dog walk and it reaffirmed what I already knew. This was a way I could help people. By giving them what I had. That time out, that time away, no signal, no noise but nature, just time."
Dudes & Dogs seems to be working, with plenty of men taking Osman up on his offer.
"The whole concept of dudes & dogs is fantastic," one regular wrote. "I am having a pretty crap time of it lately and meeting Rob and the dudes is gonna be a massive help and I must admit to a couple of blossoming bromances which is awesome. Can’t recommend this highly enough."
While another added: "I joined the trial walk on Saturday morning and if the trial is anything to go by, I can confirm that a Dudes & Dogs Walk takes you to good places, both physically and mentally."