Lori Walsh: As COVID-19 numbers continue to rise in South Dakota, the coronavirus crisis feels deeply personal, anxiety levels are high, and self-care is extremely important, as coping with new ways of doing things isn't always easy. Dr. Emilia Flint is associate professor of psychology at Black Hills State University and she's returning today with a mental health check-in and tips about how to go on with this new way of living. Emilia, welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Emilia Flint: Thanks for having me back, Lori.
Lori Walsh: I feel like we invite you here for ourselves as much as for our listeners because I'm really looking forward to talking to you.
Dr. Emilia Flint: Yeah, trust me, when I speak this out, too, I think, "Oh, I better put this into practice."
Lori Walsh: Right. You go back and listen to your own conversation later and say, "Oh, that's right, I do know how to do this." Why is that so hard? Because I think everybody's having the same... You can be in a good place for five minutes and then say, "Oh, okay, I've got it figured out," and then five minutes later, you're unraveling a little bit. Why is it so hard to stick that kind of awareness, that we have to be reminded so often how to deal with this?
Dr. Emilia Flint: You're absolutely right, Lori. It does sometimes feel like a moving target, right? Once you first get it down and then moving onto the next thing and suddenly, the target is moved or you're feeling different and five minutes later, it's a different situation, to be sure. I think the thing to keep in mind is that that is just going to be the reality for at least a few more weeks, if not months here.
While that's hard to accept, acknowledging that to be true really helps take the pressure off of needing to get it right or needing to feel a certain way at a certain time and really just taking those deep breaths and saying, "Yes, what I am feeling right now is true for me in this moment and it doesn't have to be true five minutes from now and that whatever I'm feeling five minutes from now will also then be a passing thought or a passing experience." Boy, that, to me at least, fits well in my fold. Okay. It takes the pressure off, at least temporarily.
Lori Walsh: What do you know about what we will remember and what our children will remember? Let me tell you what I'm trying to get at there. My daughter's 19 now, so just having her here home from college, she's doing the dishes, she's helping, I'm watching movies with her. She's just a godsend for me right now. If she had been five or six or three or an infant, some of the challenges my parent friends are having are so extreme. From my perspective, when I look about hard times that we had when she was growing up, she doesn't remember. She remembers, or at least she tells me she remembers these good things, she has forgotten some of the stressful times. What do you know about what kids remember that might help parents realize that not everything is at stake if you have a mommy meltdown?
Dr. Emilia Flint: Right, yeah. What we do know is that kids start forming their earliest memories right around age four or age five. I hope that that does take the pressure off of the parents of tiny humans, right? Yeah, mommy meltdowns are okay and that the kiddo isn't necessarily going to remember that. As well, children tend towards positivity. They are a lot more resilient than we give them credit for, so their ability to bounce back is pretty tremendous. Thus, what we do see as they grow up, they're going to remember more of the positive memories than the bad ones, so I hope that that gives people some hope out there, too.
In particular, right now, as you know, I'm also a clinical psychologist and I do treat some teenagers, these teenagers right now as they talk about their experience with COVID-19, they're actually saying they enjoy their time with their mom and their dad. One kiddo on Zoom the other day, his eyes got so wide and he's like, "I love this time. We're playing ping-pong, Scrabble, these things I'd never heard of before. It's so cool."
Lori Walsh: My daughter has this great memory of the funeral after my father died, which was five, six years ago. What she remembers of that we, we're all together and that we had time to sit and spend the weekend together and the goofy things that me and my siblings kind of messed up during the ceremony or the funeral itself, the way we tripped over each other, she just thinks that that's some of her great memories are this warmth and she loved seeing him in the hospital. You might just really be surprised.
OnPoint was doing a fascinating hour earlier. I don't know if you heard it or not, Emilia, but they were talking about the pressure that is on this generation of kids of all ages, really, but the activities and the grades and the performance and the getting into college and someone said: "This is this generation's chance to breathe." That is a expansive question for all of us right now.
Certainly, you're not breathing very well if you lost your job. However, there are moments where everything has slowed down and we look at one another and we realize how much we love one another. Talk a little bit about finding some of those spaces of expansion, no matter how difficult your situation is right now.
Dr. Emilia Flint: Right, yeah, just treasure those moments, right? Whether it's that laughter from your child, that smile from a stranger, somebody leaving groceries on your doorstep, or the opportunity to leave groceries for somebody else, take advantage of those smaller moments and treasure them, to be sure.
You're absolutely right when you talk about this being this younger generation being in the age of pressure and the pressure is off. As you know, I teach college students and a lot of those students are sent emails with question after question after question at first and then the minute that they got the chance to sit back and relax a little bit, they recognize the bigger picture, right?
It's not about what assignment is due when, and I did my best to communicate to them: "Look, we're flexible right now. I just want to work with you to get through the semester." It's about recognizing, "Okay, that feels a lot better now that I can hear that from my instructor and I can sit back and actually take a few deep breaths and enjoy my family or not experience as much pressure to do it right or to do it right now."
Lori Walsh: Talk about unplugging because we talked about this before and that's a real challenge for anybody who is having just a hard time staying away from the news, but also for people who are really in it. As we in Minnehaha County face these spike in cases and these continued increase in numbers, those healthcare providers are going to work incredibly long hours, journalists are working incredibly long hours. Let's talk a little bit about tips for what does it look like to unplug when you have to stay somewhat connected with the world outside your door.
Dr. Emilia Flint: Yes, that is an outstanding and so important question. Keep in mind that it's not an all-or-none thing, "Either I have to have it on or it's off," right? The idea behind that is that this has been exposed to us now for at least a month, if not longer, right? We didn't really become good at thinking or worrying about the virus overnight. We got practiced at it, right? It's an unrealistic expectation to think that you can just completely unplug right away, but you get practiced at that, right?
It might mean truly shutting off all media, making it as quiet as you possibly can for five seconds the first time. That was five seconds more than you've ever had before in this last month, right? Then it becomes 10 and then it becomes a minute and suddenly, you realize, "Okay, the world is still going. I am healthy, I'm able to help others, and I do need this unplugging time."
Generally speaking, I know we've spoken about this before, but yeah, I would like to say maybe try to get yourself up to about a half an hour in the morning and a half an hour in the evening where it is that unplugging time, shutting off the TV, putting on some calming music, listening to your children's laughter, staying in the moment with your family, savoring that family meal, oh, the taste of that T-bone steak or whatever's for dinner that night, so important to do, especially right now. Then, of course, turn the TV back on to stay informed as you need to.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, and you mentioned last time really noticing how those emotions feel in your body and that was something I really took to heart because you have those moments when you're relaxed and feeling great and then you check the news on your phone and I can just feel my throat constrict and it brings to home that the impact it has longterm: chronic stress, chronic worry, chronic anxiety. It must be doing something to you physically. Once you feel those physical sensations, it's easier to recognize what you're really going through.
Talk a little bit again for people who didn't hear us last time about paying attention to the physical sensations that you feel during this time and deciding how to interrupt that tension. What do you do when you know you have shortness of breath, not because you're sick, but because you're panicked?
Dr. Emilia Flint: Right, yeah. That's just it. You summarized that really quite well. Those first few signs can be anything from your stomach feeling queasy, short of breath, maybe pressure on your chest, sweaty palms, or your mind feels like it's going 90 miles a minute, spinning outside of your control. Whatever that first sign is, that is the point at which you say, "Okay, I do have to close my laptop for just a second here. I do need to find my belly button and breathe from my diaphragm. That long, slow breath in and then that long, slow breath out."
Even as I said that, I was modeling a slower language myself. That really does help because the person who is in panic or is highly anxious, you see that their speech pattern really does speed up. Even being around that person, you notice that you match their speech patterns, which is ineffective for you. What you should be doing is then slowing your own speech patterns down. Doing these things will help then calm your body back to a point where you can open our laptop back up again or reconnect with media.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. Emily Flint, you are helping all of us traverse this time and I want to say thank you in just a close with some thoughts on it's okay to be happy, too, during this time, even if you have lost your job. It's okay to experience those moments of happiness. You don't have to feel guilty about that. Just hold onto them.
Dr. Emilia Flint: Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better myself, Lori. Thank you so much for having me on.