Deep Breathing during Online Game Advertisements: Finding Surprising Moments of Calm, Self-Reflection during COVID-19

The world finds itself coming to the realization that we are experiencing a time in our history when our illusion of control is being undermined by Covid-19, setting us on an unknown path. What do you do when you can’t visit your friends, go to a movie or the gym, sing at a concert or at church, or have Thanksgiving dinner with more than 3 people and when you might have to stay in your house (or room!) for 14 straight days? Well, many-almost all-of us develop symptoms of Covid-19 fatigue. The intense and prolonged stress of Covid-19 undoubtedly affects our mental well-being and physical health. We hope medical science and an effective vaccine will provide us relief from Covid-19 fatigue, but we also need to take responsibility to seek solutions that work for us individually. So, how do we deal with the reality of Covid-19 without being overwhelmed by it? One tactic, of course, is avoidance. For the November 3rd U.S. election, I found that watching the results trickle in on television over the evening, days, and then weeks generated a sort of Election Anxiety Disorder (self-diagnosed). Simply turning off the television and avoiding most social media allowed me to steer away from that mental health pit. However, knowledge is power (at least it used to be; I’m not quite so confident about that these days) and I don’t believe we can just turn away from the information on the Covid-19 pandemic and how it is affecting the world, our healthcare and frontline workers, our family and friends and ourselves. So, the question becomes, what can we do to cope with stress we can’t, for the moment, escape?