anxiety Archives - Deborah Beckwin | Content Strategist for Mental Health, Healthcare & Edtech

March 26, 2020

An infographic by the TheCounselingTeacher.com (Sheltering in place)

Sheltering in Place: Healthy Ways to Deal with Anxiety and Isolation

The Mental Toll of the COVID-19 and Sheltering in Place As more cities, counties, and states begin sheltering in place due to the coronavirus pandemic (including my county), life in the great indoors is becoming our new normal. A lot of us are working from home, trying to learn how to create routines for ourselves and our children. But today we learned that close to 3.3 million people applied for unemployment insurance in a single week. On top of the work and employment concerns, we’re encountering empty shelves in grocery stores, enduring increasing amounts of cabin fever, and probably, most of all — we’re worried. There’s so much uncertainty — of how we’ll pay our bills, if we’ll get sick, if we or our sick loved ones will get better, or if that cough is due to seasonal allergies or something else. It’s OK To Be Worried So I’m not here to say you shouldn’t be worried. This outbreak is a serious matter. In the U.S., our infrastructure has been laid bare and low. Hospitals are scrambling to find masks, gowns, ventilators, and more medical professionals to keep up with the growing amount of people who need to be hospitalized. The economy has essentially shut down because need to keep physically distant from each other to help contain this virus (and not like everyone is adhering to those recommendations). It’s a scary time. Worry and anxiety about the present and the future aren’t feelings you should shove to the side. […]

September 4, 2019

A GIF of radar looking at Hurricane Dorian off the Atlantic coast of Florida

Dealing with the Emotional Stress of Hurricane Dorian

It’s a gloomy morning in Central Florida. I struggled to wake up as the thick clouds blocked the rising sun, filtering it into weak, pale light. It’s a little breezy and spitty out as Hurricane Dorian whirls away from the Floridian coast in a counterclockwise, northwesterly motion. The eye of the storm has remained about 90 to 100 miles offshore, with sustained winds of 105 mph, a Category 2 storm. It’s parallel to Daytona Beach which is north of me. This storm will probably wreak havoc on the southern tip of Georgia and the Carolinas, just like Hurricane Matthew did three years ago. By tonight, Hurricane Dorian will have left the state of Florida, and all the hurricane and tropical warnings and watches will cease. We have spent a long time waiting, and as Central Floridian Tom Petty (God rest his soul) used to sing, “the waiting is the hardest part.” The Stress of Staying or Leaving It’s been a surreal past few days for me, and this small article from Reuters reminded me of the psychic toll that just preparing for a hurricane can take. My fellow Floridians and I have been on an “emotional roller coaster” for sure. Sometimes that involved hurricane cakes and parties, and sometimes it involved boarding up our windows and leaving town. And for the rest of us, it involved sheltering in place, preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. Last week around this time was when I was pretty sure our […]