Self Care for Starters
As 2020 came to a close, the entire world awaited 2021 with hopeful, but cautious optimism. Although we were met with catastrophic environmental events that rippled across the united States, the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine (although a bit troubled at the start) gave us some long awaited good news and feel-good vibes. Visions of us hugging our loved ones, seeing our friends, and returning back to work and school were suddenly not just a rosy fantasy, but a not-so-distant possibility.
But as we start firing up the engines, and getting the gears turning for a hasty return to normal, it will be anything but. Things will never be the same, for so many reasons. Our past year has been brutal for our emotional and psychological health. The CDC reported that symptoms of anxiety increased by 3 times from 2019 to 2020, going up to a quarter of individuals surveyed. Depression went up by almost 4 times that which was reported in 2019. Just as the pandemic took a disproportionately worse toll on people of color, and individuals in low socioeconomic situations, the same trend followed with mental health.
You may have found (or still find) yourself amongst the many that reported high levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness caused by the pandemic. What access individuals have to resources that help them deal with this greatly varies. From the stigmatization of therapy to the cost, many do not have access to mental health services. So they either leave these issues unattended to or look to other forms of dealing with pandemic related hardships such as talking to family, friends, and colleagues.
During the beginning of the pandemic, my team spent a lot of time checking in with each other. Every zoom meeting I had started off with genuine questions as to my wellbeing and how I was coping. If you are fortunate, this practice is probably not unfamiliar to you, as many workplaces, schools, and teams made space for community care over zoom meetings, phone calls, and (for those that had to) in person meetings. These experiences likely happened naturally and informally. They may have also been more prevalent during the beginning, and became more scarce as time went on. It’s also likely that you found yourself in a job where the business-as-usual mentality prevailed, with little consideration to your mental and emotional wellbeing. All this despite the fact that we were dealing with a global pandemic that has since claimed 2.6 million lives. At the end of the day, capitalism is overly preoccupied with efficiency and so spending the first 20 minutes of every meeting to discuss people’s mental health probably isn’t a priority for many workplaces (despite the growing evidence that demonstrates happy, healthy employees do a better job).
Although we may be looking at a declining number of COVID-19 infections and restaurants, stores, and other businesses opening back up, the mental anguish we endured during the pandemic might not be so quick to fade into irrelevance. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might not kick in for a month, up to an entire year later. And that’s not to mention the existential, physical and emotional repercussions of environmental issues, political upheaval, and racial injustice that we will undoubtedly be faced with in the future.
So what can you do about it? Giving yourself time and space to reflect on your feelings and unpacking those traumatic experiences is paramount. Creating self care activities and regimens are also a necessity, along with reaching out to others to help you stay grounded and committed to taking care of yourself. And if and when you feel you’re in a good place (feeling centered and energized), help others create these opportunities for themselves is what we will need to get through it.
Over the past 3 years my colleague, Jessica Brown, and I have been building tools to help us do just that. Originally these were intended for individuals engaged in equity work (which causes a great deal of stress and anxiety). But now that everyone is dealing with varying degrees of pain and trauma, we felt it would be useful to share these resources. You may have seen some of these assets on the d.school resources page, or even gotten to experience them at one of our workshops or classes. Although we released some of them as standalone tools, we learned that without context or instruction on how to use them, they might not be as accessible as we want them to be. For this reason, we’ve been working on a prototype “starter kit”, which we hope will bridge that gap. This tool, The Self Care Starter Kit, is a slide deck compilation of three tools, along with instructions and videos that will help you facilitate these experiences for your family, friends, or colleagues. Please feel free to try them out. We also ask that you provide feedback on the starter kit (there is a link to a google form in the starter kit) so that we can improve it.
Self care is more important now than it has ever been, and you deserve a moment to focus on your well being, especially if you find yourself in a place that won’t afford you that time. Beyond that, we hope you can turn your self care into community care, and that together we can address and alleviate the colossal levels of psychological, emotional, and physical harm this pandemic has caused.
