In our unprecedented times, one small step we can take on our own is to identify our personal signs of stress, which is the foundation of our mental health offering. 

When there's persistent, continuous stress, you may be experiencing:

Rumination, which is characterized by extreme brooding and dwelling on negative thoughts and worries. 

There’s Negative Bias, which occurs when we end up catastrophizing and getting stuck in a negative fantasy loop about the future. 

There is Emotional Numbness, the loss of the ability to feel pleasure from usual activities and goals, which can lead people to find solace in addictive behaviors including alcohol and drugs. More about them here:

Rumination

We all have inner thoughts and moments of reflection. We all worry. But do you ever find yourself stuck in a loop of brooding self-reflection that you can’t get out of? To the point that it negatively affects your life and keeps you from being productive, finding joy and going about your day? That’s Rumination. This Biotype is characterized by extreme brooding and dwelling on negative thoughts and worries, which can result in feeling paralyzed and worthless. 

Negative Bias

The Negative Bias Biotype occurs when we find ourselves stuck in a cycle of negative thought patterns. As a result, our capacity to receive positive information gets shut down. Our brain is naturally hardwired to react more quickly to negative than to positive information — this is actually necessary for our survival, not only physically but also in other settings like the workplace. Usually negative reactions also resolve quickly. But the Negative Bias  occurs when negative reactions persist and we end up catastrophizing and getting stuck in a negative reaction loop. 

Threat Response

The Threat Response is a specific form of negative bias where our fight-or-flight response actually stays on and in alarm mode. Normally, our brain returns back to its usual baseline after a threat-related event. But imagine an extreme form of feeling fight or flight, possibly triggered by some kind of trauma, and you find yourself stuck in alarm mode and unable to recover. 

Anxious Avoidance 

The salience circuit of the brain becomes extra tuned into internal changes — like physical signs of anxiety or pain — as well as to external changes in the world around us, like new social situations or sounds. We can end up feeling overwhelmed with stimulation and may want to dampen it down by avoiding and getting away from sources of stimulation. Think about someone who is hypersensitive to light or sound, or fearful of social situations, speaking in public, etc. Anxious Avoidance is an extreme version of that behavior. 

Cognitive Fog 

The Cognitive Fog Biotype arises from a disruption in the circuit involved in conscious will — the one used to control our thoughts and actions in response to current goals. If you undergo a period of sustained stress and the source of that stress is not in your control, this circuit will be under pressure and a Cognitive Fog Biotype might appear. In this situation, your brain may feel foggy rather than sharp. It’s hard to execute on decisions, to implement tasks at work and home, to plan ahead, and to regulate unwanted reactions. 

Inattention 

We don’t typically associate inattention with depression or anxiety, but it’s actually quite common. Think about the times you’re experiencing negative stress or feeling anxious — it’s really hard to concentrate, isn’t it? In this Biotype your capacity to sustain attention over time is disrupted. Basic functions at work and at home may become extremely difficult or impossible. It may feel quite exhausting to pay attention to the task at hand. 

Emotional Numbness 

The Emotional Numbness Biotype refers to a loss of the ability to feel pleasure from usual activities and goals. It can develop when we are under intense and chronic stress that leaves us feeling emotionally numb. In this situation, you can imagine how the brain’s capacity to respond to anything positive is burned out. We feel empty and not able to get pleasure from social interactions, or to feel meaning or purpose in life. With Emotional Numbness, we might find ourselves overindulging in food or alcohol in an attempt to feel any emotion at all. Right now, the growing fear and anxiety are leading people to find solace in addictive behaviors:

The C.D.C. warns that the outbreak can lead to increased use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

Everything that we used to get excited about doing may now feel like a drag and an effort. We may feel like we are going through the motions. Even in this situation many people are still able to function like high performers at work. They may pay the price by collapsing at night and shutting down the rest of their lives. 

Context Insensitivity

The Context Insensitivity Biotype is a very particular form of Emotional Numbness. Normally we have different contexts in our life (though right now, of course, it might seem like they’ve all been collapsed into one context: our home!). We have our work, our family, our friends, our hobbies, and so on. But in this biotype, there is no sense of context between the different domains in our life. Normally, there are different things that motivate us to do something — something that might give us a burst or sense of energy that motivates us to keep moving through our day — maybe a project at work, or a forthcoming vacation. But if a Context Insensitivity Biotype develops, motivation and context are lost. And this can take us into a deep state of burnout.

Once you understand these biotypes, you can take action using recharge strategies and Microsteps — small daily steps — to build the mental resilience to help you navigate this new normal. Some of the Microsteps have even been found to specifically help certain biotypes, but every Microstep will help strengthen your mental resilience. Here are a few: 

1. Set a news and social media cut-off time. While being informed can help us feel more prepared in a public health crisis, setting healthy limits to our media consumption can help us have a restorative rest and put the stressful news into perspective.

2. Focus on the rising and falling of your breath for 10 seconds. Pausing several times a day to simply breathe allows you to feel less tense and more present in your life.

3. When you’re washing your hands, take the 20 seconds to think of three things you are grateful for. This will help you lower your risk of viral infection while reinforcing a more positive mindset.

4. When you feel overwhelmed, focus on your breathing instead of reaching for your phone. We often use our phones to distract us from challenging moments, but this often leaves us more stressed and more disconnected from what matters most. Allow yourself a moment to turn inward instead and focus on your breathing.

5. If you find yourself judging your emotions or responses around the pandemic, remind yourself that they are normal and justified. Studies have found that pathologizing your responses by viewing them as “something wrong with you for reacting so strongly” actually increases your anxiety. Instead, say something to yourself like, “You are going through a crisis, and you are reacting in a normal way to an abnormal situation.”

6. When you feel overwhelmed by a problem you face at work, identify the smallest possible step you can take to address it. As you face incredibly complex challenges, practice breaking them down into small, manageable steps by asking yourself, “What’s the smallest step forward I can take in this moment?” This increases your sense of control and self-efficacy..