Who are the Ones Surviving the Corona-coaster of Emotions?
They’re out there… the resilient. The ones who are not only surviving but thriving during isolation. So, who are they and what can we learn from the people who are thriving during isolation?
For many of us, emotions are running high as people around Australia face a second lock-down and more forced isolation. This time around, it’s really dealt a blow to a lot of people’s psyches. We thought we were about to step off the Corona-coaster, it looked like it was rolling back to the start. We dared to hope. Despite all the ups and downs, the good times and the scary times, we made it through. But 2020 had other ideas. And instead, we’re all strapped in for a second ride that no one wanted to take. Here we go again.
Not only that, but the rhetoric has shifted recently too adding more stress and worry to our daily lives. It didn’t take long to move from an unprecedented unified front between State and Federal governments to the usual blame game. Media commentators and talk-back radio soon followed with far more negative talk and frustrations being vented this time around. People are mad and they’re not holding back this time.
It’s like everyone forgot to take their afternoon nap, and all that “community-first” good behaviour has gone out the window. Whereas before, everyone held their tongue, now they feel justified in having a tanty. And who can blame anyone? We’re all just tired and fed-up.
The Resilient
Yet despite it all, there are some, a special few, who are doing just fine. For them, this is just another day in 2020, filled with hope and promise. They haven’t had bad days or bad weeks. They haven’t felt periods of mild depression or moments of anger and tears. In fact, rather than feeling an increase in anxiety or loneliness, they’re feeling more grateful, more positive and more satisfied with their lives. They’re happy.
These are the resilient ones.
It’s not that the resilient don’t feel any frustration, worry, anxiety or any of the other negative emotions that are completely normal in the midst of a global pandemic (what’s normal in this situation anyway!?). No. It’s just that these resilient people have found a way to power through with barely a bump on their emotional rollercoaster, and certainly not the 90-degree climbs and falls everyone else is experiencing.
So, what are these people doing differently to the rest of us? What’s the secret?
Who are the Ones Surviving and Thriving in Isolation?
Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab have been looking into who is fairing best during these unprecedented times.
In their research, they found a group of people who are coping better than most, and even better, they’ve worked out what activities these people do to help them be positive and resilient. It’s worth mentioning again that these people aren’t perfect, they feel negative emotions too, they’re just not paralysed by their emotions and they bounce back faster.
The Secret to Surviving Isolation
So, what are the commonalities among this group of resilient people? What are the things they’re doing that lead to these positive emotions and keep the negative ones at bay?
The research shows that exercise, hobbies and self-care activities like meditation, kindness, gratitude and prayer are among the most common ways to maintain resilience during COVID.
“So the more stressed, anxious, lonely or depressed you are, the more it matters that you take time to exercise and care for yourself. We have found it useful to put repeating events in our calendars. That way, we’ve always got blocks of time dedicated to these things, and also reminders,” say researchers Barbara Fredrickson and Michael M. Prinzing.
On the flip side, the one thing that hurts your resiliency: scrolling through social media. The researchers showed that passively browsing and scrolling through social media is one of the worst things you can do – I’m sure in part due to all that negativity that we mentioned earlier.
Lastly, the research showed that people who spend more time actively interacting with others experience more positive and fewer negative emotions. So, doing the activities with someone is a double whammy. Or, if you can’t (isolation means isolation after all) then make sure you’re proactively making time to speak to people on the phone or on video chat. Text messages just won’t cut it.
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