Worry burnout grows with omicron variant; see tips to face the problem

For nearly two years now, we’ve been living through a painful and protracted pandemic, and today every bit of news about the omicron variant may seem like too much to process.

Burnout, a psychological term for exhaustion and overwhelming distance, was part of the popular lexicon for years, used in connection with work. But it became even more common when it infiltrated all parts of people’s lives during the pandemic.

“When you’re faced with prolonged and endless uncertainty and trauma, there’s a limit to what you can take,” commented Thea Gallagher, clinical psychologist and associate professor at NYU Langone Health.

Gallagher said that after natural and man-made disasters, acute stress often results in exhaustion and hopelessness over time.

This kind of profound exhaustion in times of extreme stress is normal and predictable, said Dr. Srijan Sen, director of the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Center for Depression at the University of Michigan. In the first two months of the pandemic, he personally observed an unexpected and significant drop in depression among healthcare professionals, something he attributed to a sense of togetherness and common purpose. But as the pandemic has dragged on, Sen said, health workers are becoming increasingly anguished and exhausted, facing “a degree of worry and vigilance that could be sustained for perhaps two weeks or two months, but not two. years old”.

We talked to experts about the signs and symptoms of “worry burnout” and ways to combat the problem.

What causes ‘worry burnout’?

There’s a reason we feel emotions, said Jeffrey Cohen, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. Fear is an evolutionary tool for reacting to danger; anxiety sends an alarm signal to the brain, alerting us that we need to protect ourselves.

But at this stage of the pandemic, he said, we’ve been facing the constant threat from Covid for so long that we no longer trust the brain when it tells us we’re under attack. “We’ve come to question whether the alarm is still real,” Cohen said.

The physiological symptoms of stress are leaving us drained, he explained. Our nervous system reacts to worry: cortisol levels skyrocket, heart rate speeds up. We ended up entering a state of chronic and intense exhaustion.

“The body can’t maintain high levels of anxiety for very long without getting fatigued,” said Michelle Newman, a professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University and a researcher on depression and anxiety.

This fatigue and the way in which it compels us to distance ourselves from worry can have a positive effect on people – it can signal a radical acceptance of the new reality.

Anxiety drives us to solve problems, Cohen said. But we cannot devise strategies to get out of the pandemic, however much mental energy we expend on it.

“With radical acceptance, we are doing no more than acknowledging that the facts of the world are what they are,” he said. We are more comfortable with the endless uncertainty. But at what point does acceptance turn to complacency? And is it still a positive condition if you’re exhausted and depleted?

Why it is advisable to break the burnout cycle out of concern

Refusing to worry can be a protective impulse, experts say — a coping mechanism to protect our minds from additional stress. But when we’re so exhausted that we overlook measures that can ward off the virus, we put ourselves at risk.

Chronically stressed people get discouraged and become confrontational, said Angela Neal-Barnett, professor of psychology at Kent State University and author of “Soothe Your Nerves: The Black Woman’s Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic and Fear” ( Calm Your Nerves: A Black Woman’s Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety, Panic, and Fear).

“People say, ‘It doesn’t matter to me anymore.’ When you get to that level, it’s a sign that you’re overwhelmed, that you feel powerless, that you’re hopeless. You say, ‘Do whatever you want, it doesn’t matter to me. ‘”

This apathy can affect public health on a global scale. The World Health Organization released a document last year in which it cited “pandemic fatigue” as one of the greatest obstacles to people complying with precautionary measures against Covid.

In January of this year, researchers found that as the pandemic dragged on, people’s adherence to social distancing measures declined.

Identify the signs of burnout out of concern:

You avoid the news: According to Dr. Gallagher, you may feel like you can’t bear to read one more dark headline or hear one more recent news story about the virus. She herself felt it a moment ago when she came across a newspaper on TV and immediately changed the channel. “I thought, ‘I’d rather see some Seinfeld rerun’.”

You feel numb: Worry burnout may be associated with what psychologists describe as “learned helplessness” — an overwhelming sense of helplessness after a person has suffered trauma, said Dr. Judson Brewer, associate professor at Brown University and author of “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind” heal your mind).

In the early days of the pandemic, stress may have pushed us to look for solutions to make the lockdown more tolerable, but now, he said, many of us have found that we can’t control much except our individual behavior.

The need to face this incessant uncertainty leads us to question, consciously or subconsciously, what is the point of caring and why we should bother to pay attention to the news in the first place. This emotional numbness is also seen in victims of natural disasters and in health professionals.

You are tired all the time: After an intense period of anxiety, Dr. Newman, people often feel depressed and drained. Whether the source of worry is a global disaster or everyday stress about work or family, anxiety causes us to be constantly on the lookout for possible threats, until we reach the point of exhaustion.

You are hopeless: People think they did “everything right” in the pandemic, said Dr. Neal-Barnett –they practiced social distancing for months, got vaccinated, followed official guidelines–, but even so they find themselves trapped in a disaster that is slowly unfolding. “You find yourself thinking more and more negatively,” she said.

You feel angrier than usual: Anger can also set in when we are emotionally exhausted, said Neal-Barnett. We may be more easily irritated or more impatient.

Putting together an action plan can help to be rested and refreshed. The plan might involve talking to a therapist, meeting friends in safe situations, or setting aside times to seek peace and mindfulness.

“The days of just trying to put up with the fatigue are over,” said Neal-Barnett. “Going on like this doesn’t benefit us anymore.”

Experts suggest starting a meditation practice, even if it’s only a few minutes a day, to get back in touch with our emotions and feel present in the moment.

If you’re worried about burnout, try to follow the basics of a healthy daily routine, Sen suggested — a good night’s sleep, a balanced meal plan, regular exercise — and pay attention to the elements in your life that recharge your energy.

If you still worry again and again, she said, the best thing to do is try to break this cycle as soon as possible and look for activities and routines that help you relax.

“A lot of people believe in a myth that worrying is beneficial in some way, but it isn’t,” she said.

_{Translation by Clara Allain}