Panademic flux and the resilience crisis

In March 2020, Australians had faced some of the worst natural disasters in its history. Australia is now over 18 months in to living with the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving many business owners, managers and employees alike, feeling emotionally depleted and exhausted.?With around one in five Australians already vulnerable to mental health issues, risk is heightened when dealing with prolonged isolation, financial stress and, for essential workers, fear of contracting the virus. COVID-19 dominates the news cycle 24/7 with the parallel spread of worry, uncertainty and instability. When will this all end??What is going to happen next??When will we come out of lockdown or go in to the next one? We have hit our limits of surge capacity. Tara Haelle defines the concept as:

“Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems — mental and physical — that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters. But natural disasters occur over a short period, even if recovery is long. Pandemics are different — the disaster itself stretches out indefinitely,”

Haelle concludes that the pandemic has demonstrated both what we can do with surge capacity and the limits of surge capacity. When it’s depleted, it has to be renewed. The acute crisis phase has now become chronic and we are running a marathon of unknown length like a sprint race still. The stress response is only designed to fire for brief periods of time. In a chronically stressful environment, the body's stress is jammed on, like a faulty car alarm. There is very little relief.

Toxic stress

Toxic stress isn’t as much about the cause of the stress, but about the chronic and ongoing nature of the stress. The degree to which toxic stress will cause damage depends on a number of things, including genetics, the availability of at least one strong, loving relationship to act as a buffer, and lifestyle factors that can potentially fortify the brain against the assault of toxic stress.

Experience changes the brain. The more a particular part of the brain is activated, the stronger and more active and permanent it becomes. When the threat response is continually triggered, we develop a hypersensitivity to threat. This plays out as a tendency to misread ambiguous or non-threatening situations as threatening, in a greater likelihood to sense anger or hostility (even when there is none), and the likelihood of being in a constant state of high alert, even in the absence of any real stress or threat.

When driving a manual car, it is important not to red-line the engine for too long or it may blow up.?Problem is, we don’t actually know when the engine is going to blow until after the fact.?We gamble with our wellbeing in a similar fashion.?Exploit our resilience with repeated surges in performance and resilience red-lining in to deficit and for a while, we get away with it.?This reinforces a maladaptive coping mechanism against toxic stress.?That if we just keep going, pushing longer and harder, we will be fine and push through.?This is not how car engines or human biology work.??

Resilience

How do we adapt when the only thing certain about the “new normal” is its indefinite uncertainty?

Resilience is adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress.?But it has it limits. People should be proud of themselves for being resilient, but it should not be their only option or its absence viewed as personal failure.?We need to be careful not to weaponise resilience in to code for “you’re on your own, sorry”. Humans cannot be resilient in isolation.?And resilience is a finite resource that requires replenishment, rest and recovery.

Relationships are also key to resilience and healthy, supportive, stable ones have an extraordinary capacity to fortify people against the damaging effects of toxic stress. The power of human connection is profound, making the impact of social distancing, social isolation and lock-downs even more damaging to wellbeing.?

When our minds gets stuck in the threat state, a chain reaction kicks off. Fear begins to narrow our field of vision, and it becomes harder to see the bigger picture and the positive, creative possibilities in front of us. As perspective shrinks, so too does our tendency to connect with others. Our surge capacity is faltering and over-exploited.

Pandemic Flux

The term "pandemic flux" has been coined by Cuddy and Riley in the Washington Post. With the threat from the Delta variant bearing down across Australia, it’s almost hard to remember the optimistic days earlier this year when many of us were experiencing relief as we began to resurface from the pandemic. Barbecues, dinners out, live music, dancing at weddings, connecting with people face-to-face — all of the pleasures we’d been craving became tangible realities. We'd beaten this thing! And then Delta escaped medi-hotels, vaccinations were scarce and the lockdowns started again.

"But now, many people are experiencing a starkly different set of feelings — blunted emotions, spikes in anxiety and depression, and a desire to drastically change something about their lives. If this sounds familiar, you might be one of the many people experiencing what we’ve begun to refer to as “pandemic flux syndrome.” It’s admittedly not a clinical term, but it seems to capture something about the moment we’re living through...the Delta variant arrived just in time to break our spirits." Cuddy & Riley

In a mid-July poll by CBS News of American adults, 62% reported feeling concerned about the spread of the delta variant, yet 52% also reported feeling hopeful about the near future. People are experiencing conflicting feelings as they grapple with the swings and mixed signals of threats, shifting public health policies and uncertain social behavior. This prolonged liminal state is clearly taking a collective mental health toll, and several distinct psychological processes may be contributing to our unease:

• No demarcated "fresh start" - a clear finish line offers a fresh start and renewed motivation which help us pursue important goals. The COVID-19 pandemic has no finish line.
• Depleted surge capacity - our brains and bodies are simply fatigued, and recalibrating to the new circumstances is too much with depleted resources.?This feeling is further compounded by relentless 24/7 media coverage of cases and deaths and vaccination numbers.
• Inaccurate affective forecasting - human tendency to be reliably inaccurate when predicting the intensity and duration of our emotions after significant possible future life events, and maybe the “return to normal” in general underwhelms as we had expected to feel so much happier.
• Attempts to regain control - some of us try to regain control by changing what we can, including maybe our jobs, relationships or appearances, in the process redefining our self-concept.
• Same storm, different boats - it does not feel like we are in this together anymore. Our trust and faith in our Government is waning. In NSW, media images of vaccinated people enjoying a picnic at Bondi Beach provided stark and bitter contrast to those locked down in western LGAs with scant recreational opportunities. The fortress of Western Australia is cash rich and COVID-free whilst Victoria suffers through over 220 days of lockdown since the pandemic started. The schism between vaccinated and unvaccinated is growing and this divisiveness will escalate over coming months. People with safe well paying jobs are saving money whilst small business owners in many sectors go to the wall. And children are missing school and friends and freedom.

All in all, if you’re experiencing increased sadness or anxiety along with an urge to dramatically change something about your life — some of the markers of pandemic flux syndrome — be assured you’re not alone. Many people are feeling such tensions. Although human beings are more resilient than we generally appreciate, it will take time for many of us to stably recover, to reflect and recalibrate.

Put your oxygen mask on first

Too many of us have been far too resilient for far too long in 2021. A twisted view of resilience can form at the cultural level of organisations, around “sucking it up” and keeping on going in the face of unbearable pressure and traumatic exposure. We too often have asked our people to overplay resilience. The cost of this is burnout and compromised self-care. An unspoken mindset is perpetuated that “I should just be able to handle all this pressure and trauma without needing a break” or “I can’t be seen as struggling, I need to push harder and do better”.

I am not sure many people are actually lacking in resilience. They are lacking the permission to take care of themselves, the ability to recover and refresh and the capacity to get past guilt so that they can embed rituals that allow them to do things that restore their wellbeing.?They are lacking the permission to be human and experience a normal reaction to a deeply abnormal environment. We have overplayed and weaponised the concept of resilience, turning it in to an individual pursuit and a tool to make us feel weak and work harder despite relentless demands on our surge capacity during COVID-19. Resilience needs to start with allowing people to bring their whole selves to work, to then use their energy in a dignified and sustainable way and to place wellbeing and psychological safety front and centre of why and how we work.?

Resilience is not toughing it out and enduring. Resilience relies on recovery and rest. If you have too much time in the performance zone, you need more time in the recovery zone, otherwise you risk burnout and failure in surge capacity. Many people we are working with currently have spent many months in the performance zone and are running on empty. Mustering your resources to “try hard” requires burning energy in order to overcome your currently low arousal level. This is called upregulation. It also exacerbates exhaustion and is a certain path to burnout over time.?Put your oxygen mask on first.

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