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it's been months of unease, stress and anxiety. now what are you going to do about it?

yoga, cbt and meditation are just three tools recommended by experts to take the edge off of pandemic life.

by robin roberts

jun 7 2022

6 minute read

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what's the best way to ease months of unease, stress and anxiety?

there are ways we can reduce anxiety on our own like through breathing techniques and building awareness of our own thoughts. getty

to be human is to be stressed, and a little anxiety every now and then is a part of life. it can even have an upside: anxiety keeps us alert and aware of dangers ; it can also galvanize us to be more productive; it can energize us when we turn it into excitement. but when it becomes too heavy for too long (pandemic, inflation, climate fears and wars can do that), or disrupts our everyday lives, it can have debilitating effects on our emotional, mental and physical health.

according to a recent poll by the centre for addiction and mental health , a quarter of survey participants reported feeling moderate to severe anxiety over the past year. our mental health sector is strained to breaking trying to help the most vulnerable. but for those of us with milder unease, there are ways to cope.

want to try some yoga?

yoga is an ancient, spiritual practice rooted in indian philosophy that uses poses, breathing and meditation techniques to calm the mind and strengthen the body. dr. steve knish, psychologist, counselling and clinical services with the university of alberta, and registered yoga instructor, says, “modern science is catching up with ancient wisdom [in understanding] why it works.”

he says people who have anxiety disorders tend to have lower heart rate variability, which, according to the cleveland clinic , happens when the amount of time between heartbeats fluctuates slightly. healthy people can have it, but it can also indicate health problems, including anxiety and depression. knish, who has integrated mindful awareness and meditation into his practice, says there’s some research that shows yoga can increase the variability. “the more variability the better; it means we can adapt and come back to a baseline,” he says.

yoga can certainly help with stress and anxiety, knish adds, but it doesn’t happen overnight. “some [of it] will work quickly but, for the most part, we need to wire [it] into our nervous systems.”

he says regular practice for four to six weeks should give results, and it works best when combining mindful movement, meditation and breath. also that it’s typically the inversion poses — downward facing dog, forward fold, legs-up-the-wall or head stands — that help lower blood pressure and wind down the nervous system.

pranayama, the practice of breath control where you sit comfortably with eyes closed, taking deep breaths while focusing on each inhalation and exhalation, has a calming effect.

“if you can bring all these things together — the mindful awareness, the mindful movement with the breath — we are letting the brain really settle in, and letting the mind find that coherence and balance,” he says.

mindful meditation

“mindfulness is a state of mind characterized by present moment attention with a non-judgmental attitude,” says dr. joe flanders, phd, clinical psychology, founder and director of mindspace in montreal.

he says the brain is neuro-plastic, meaning it’s flexible and adaptive to the demands placed on it, not unlike a muscle in the body. “when you work out, you’re building the strength and flexibility of the muscle. same with using meditation to build this capacity for mindfulness in the brain so it becomes more a part of your day-to-day consciousness.”

flanders points to the condition called negativity bias, where we tend to be overly negative in our thoughts, perceptions and memories, and imagine there’s more threat than there is.

“there’s a survival advantage to that,” he says, “but if you’re able to cultivate mindfulness, you’re able to see that the problem [or] worries are a little exaggerated.

mindfulness allows you to be less reactive. it’s about becoming aware, noticing things, what your mind and body is doing, in an open and non-judgmental way. it really disarms a lot of the triggers that activate our bodies in that way.

but as with any skill, it takes practice. the programs at flanders’ clinic are typically eight weeks, enough time to acquire the building blocks and skills, and start practicing those skills. if you can’t make it to a clinic, there are many apps for anxiety, such as calm , oak , headspace and insight timer . even anxiety canada has an app, called mindshift , based on cognitive behaviour therapy (cbt), which helps you relax, be more mindful, and learn how to control your anxiety.

the benefits of cbt

cognitive behavioural therapy is “a therapeutic approach that helps people become more aware of their thoughts and supports them in evaluating those thoughts,” says shannon tabor, msc., registered provisional psychologist, university of alberta counselling and clinical services.

“the way that we think influences how we feel and how we behave,” she says. “thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all bi-directional, meaning thoughts influence feelings and feelings influence thoughts, and so on. in cbt, we can help change how we feel by changing our behaviour. to further change how we feel, we can also change our distorted or unhelpful thinking and learn to take more helpful or rational perspectives on situations; this is the primary focus in cbt.”

for example, she says, “if a person texts a friend and the friend doesn’t text back promptly, that person could have an automatic thought of, ‘my friend must not like me.’ we tend to take our thoughts at face value, so if that person believes that thought to be true, they might feel anxious, get agitated, maybe even notice an elevated heart rate. so they may avoid messaging that friend again in the future or, in the extreme, avoid initiating conversation with anyone for fear they might not respond.”

taking the same example, a person not prone to anxiety or who has more rational thoughts, might text a friend and, if they don’t receive a prompt response, have an automatic thought that the friend must be busy. they’re less likely to feel anxious, and will continue on with their life, texting that friend again at a later time.

if, however, the fear and anxiety are borne out, tabor suggests facing that fear head-on by, for example, asking the friend in the texting example if they got the text, or if there’s a problem.

“a cbt therapist would help a person gain insight into their thinking and how it relates to their emotions, their physiological arousal and their behaviours, and help them check those automatic thoughts for accuracy and for helpfulness, to see if their thought is distorted in any way and if there might be alternatives,” says tabor, adding that cbt is considered short-term therapy though you could see results in as little as one session or as many as 24, depending on your level of anxiety, and how engaged you are.

she also integrates mindfulness and yoga into her practice, and uses breathing exercises for relaxation. she singles out two types — diaphragmatic breathing, which fills the belly like a balloon, holding it, then exhaling. “the focus is really on exhaling fully and slowly and smoothly. the exhale is connected to the part of our nervous system that says, ‘ok, we can be calm here.’”

box breathing is another one of tabor’s favourites.

“imagine a square,” she says. “breathe in as you go up one side of the square, hold as you go across the top, then exhale as you go down the other side, then hold across the bottom. it’s really helpful for calming and restoring balance.”

sessions with a therapist, especially one specifically trained in cbt, is not usually covered by health insurance. for those with limited funds, there are ways we can reduce anxiety on our own, through breathing techniques, building awareness of our own thoughts, challenging unhelpful thinking and engaging in helpful behaviour. we could also benefit from practicing time management, setting boundaries or engaging in self-care, and maybe making dietary or exercise changes.

“this is a period of significant difficulty for a lot of people and they’re desperate for tools,” says flanders.

and according to the experts. yoga, mindfulness and cbt are some of the best to keep in your kit.

robin roberts is a vancouver-based writer.

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robin roberts

it's been months of unease, stress and anxiety. now what are you going to do about it?