Why the hysteria around Corona virus might be damaging your health (and your business) more than the virus itself
Coronavirus has a lot of hysteria attached to it. But should we worry about it?
Did you know that by being fearful, there is a greater chance of being infected by Coronavirus - and it has nothing to do with your lungs. Right now, the panic around COVID-19, aka coronavirus, is causing a cognitive epidemic of coronavirus. The fear and worry around it is literally becoming toxic to our mind and mental state.
A podcast caught my eye (or perhaps I should say, ear) this weekend - the guest was Samuel Veissière Ph.D. an interdisciplinary anthropologist and cognitive scientist. He was looking at Covid-19 from a different perspective - from how it is affecting our minds.
He says “When you don’t have hard data right in front of you — which you won’t, if you’re watching the news or reading an article in passing — you’re probably not going to judge risk very accurately.
In fact our judgment of risk is usually higher than the likelihood of the thing that we are worried about, actually happening, causing us to think irrationally and start to panic, as our minds play out the scenarios of catching it – and worse case – dying from it
There’s a mode we enter into, when we become irrationally afraid of something, based on our skewed idea of the risk around them and that is.... moral panic.
“Moral panic, simply put, is when people freak out and act irrationally and do really stupid things based on ideas about things, usually risks that are not actually the case, that are not actually there,” says Veissière.
Why? We are evolutionarily wired to be afraid of things that were risky in the pre-industrialised world — predators, competing humans and tribes, and germs”
This is likely what’s happening with reports of coronavirus. It’s unfamiliar, you feel out of control of its spread, and as far as your brain is concerned, it’s shaking up your predictable routine. It’s the perfect storm for panic: you’re likely to overestimate risk, your evolutionary wiring tells you to fear germs, and your brain turns your fear response to max power.
So what happens when your brain turns your fear response button up to max volume?
Apart from panic buying toilet roll - what is that about?? & tonic water (sorry quinine won't protect you) & please give a thought to the rest of us who need a G&T to calm their nerves...
When our brains turn our fear response up...
....we get sick – our stress levels go up, we find it difficult to focus on the important things like work and life, which causes us not to sleep well, we comfort eat (scientific research tells us that we crave carbs when we don’t sleep so our brains have an easily accessible supply of fuel) as result our brains get foggy, we gain weight and our our immune system weakens which leaves us more vulnerable to catching bugs and viruses like Covid-19
And because this causes more fear, we enter a vicious cycle. This not only is seriously bad for our health, but it is seriously bad for business too. Our businesses are only as healthy as we are - if we can't work, no one else can step into our shoes and we wont get sick pay either!
So what can we do to calm our brains and the state of irrational panic the world seems to have entered into, to not only protect our health, but the health of our businesses too?
If you have any concerns or have an underlying health condition that could affect your resilience in coping with the virus, please familiarise yourself with the guidelines from the World Health Organisation, which can be found here https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public
Please note: the following is for information purposes only and should not be taken as advice. Any advice given is not meant to take the place of advice by other health professionals, nor is it to prescribe or assess. If you have any concerns regarding your health, in the first instance, please contact your primary health provider, according to the guidelines associated with coronavirus (Covid-19)
So what can we do to calm our brains and distance ourselves from the state of irrational panic the world seems to have entered into?
Don’t self isolate yourself if you don’t need to – i.e. if you have no health issues and no symptoms. Meet with others – be sensible with this, perhaps meet with the people you love, who you can be creative with, have meaningful conversations with. Do the things that light you up – if you hate networking, but push yourself to be in a room of people you don’t know every month, give yourself the permission to take some time out, otherwise get out of your office and meet with real human beings
On the subject of isolation, we already have a huge loneliness epidemic across the world, and loneliness has been shown to lower immunity and put people at a higher risk of illness like Coronavirus or even chronic conditions like cardiovascular diseases than smoking 15 cigarettes a day!
“There’s a lot of everyday things that people can do that can strengthen their immune system. One of them is to spend time with loved ones, to participate in spiritual religious kind of ritual activity, do things where you get to practice just gratitude with others,” says Veissière.
Avoid the news & media coverage of the outbreak. The media love to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt and loves to sensationalise, so it may not be the best source of information on disease outbreaks, right?!
“You must have heard, ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ In the news cycle, anything that’s about an outrage, a panic, a danger or something, they know, will grab our (and our brains) attention” says Veissière.
Go about your life & work. Travel. Attend that conference. Co Work. Meet up with your Mastermind. If Coronavirus became a true threat, health officials would make sure that messaging came through clearly - as of writing this article this is the case for China and Italy but not for the UK and many other parts of the world
Up your hygiene. Treat any outbreak as you would a flu outbreak. Wash your hands more often (no need to use anti bacterial wash or gel – this is a virus, not a bacteria) avoid touching your face, wipe surfaces with a home made, toxin free spray made with essential oils which are naturally anti viral, this recipe is one you can easily make - Toxin free, multi purpose spray 'recipe'
Share this article. Send it to your friends, your business buddies, your clients and anyone you know whose brains are experiencing the effects of moral panic and putting their mental health and potentially their business health, at risk.