Coping with COVID - Staying social from a distance

0:02 A listener production. Hey guys, you're listening to Crappy to Happy. I'm cass Done. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist to mindfulness meditation teacher. And author of the Crappy to Happy books. And in this series, as you know, we talk about all of the things that might be making you feel crappy and give you the tools and the techniques to help you overcome them. And right now I am coming to you from my home where I'm in osolation just like you, with some special episodes that I hope will help you to stay positive as we all navigate the current Corona crisis. I've been getting a lot of questions and requests to cover particular topics, so I'm going to do my very best to answer those and more over the next few episodes. And today I really want to talk about how we stay social even while keeping our physical distance, because we all know that social connection is so important for our health and wellbeing. But with strict isolation measures in plays, we are being forced to find creative ways to stay connected with the people who are important to us for the sake of our sanity and for the sake of our physical and mental health. So we have talked before on this show about the importance of social connections and how just how important they are to our physical and a mental well being. And as we've discussed, there is research that indicates that social isolation and loneliness can be as toxic as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, which is quite scary, and that people who have a lower quality of social connections actually have an

1:36 increased mortality of up to thirty percent. So these are really significant and we've talked before about how important it is to invest in our social networks for our overall health and our wellbeing. But of course, now in this situation that we find ourselves in, that's really hard because a lot of the advice that we've given before is to get offline and get out and see people face to face, and those options just aren't available to us at the moment. But I think before we start, it's also really important that we make the distinction between social isolation and loneliness, because while I've been using those words together, they are actually two different things. So social isolation is the term that is used to describe basically the objective number of connections that you have, so the quantity of relationships or social connections that you have, whereas loneliness is more the subjective experience of how satisfied you are with those relationships. And it's a really important distinction because you know, we all know that you can be in a crowded room, you can be sitting with your own family, or you can be sitting with your partner and still feel lonely, have that subjective experience of feeling lonely and disconnected. And equally, you can be alone, you can be in solitude and be very happy and very satisfied and very connected in various ways. So what we're really talking about is improving

3:06 the quality of those connections, improving our subjective experience of how satisfied we are with the relationships and with the connections that we have. And obviously we're talking about finding really meaningful ways to maintain those connections in difficult circumstances. Obviously, we are social creatures. We are hardwired for belonging, and it's in our nature to seek out trusting and supportive relationships. And when we are stressed and when we're struggling, it is the quality of our connections that really boost our resilience, that increase our resilience and that can mitigate some of the more damaging effects of that stress. So loneliness in itself can also be a cause of stress and distress. Obviously, in the situation that we're in right now, where we have this as we've discussed in the last episod so this pandemic of fear and anxiety and uncertainty, and there's chronic kind of underlying stress, it's more important than ever for us to stay well and healthy, to be maintaining those social connections because it can be easy to go into withdrawal, and we know that it's when people are depressed, and when people are stressed. Oftentimes one of the instinctive things that people do is to actually socially withdraw And now more than ever, it's important to not do that, to actually reach out and make connections with people, but it's

4:38 important that those connections be the with the right people and in the right way. So if you think about our social kind of our evolution as a species, if our brains have evolved to interact with others, if we are tribal, and if our survival has depended on our ability to communicate and to connect and to be long to a group. It makes sense that the experience of loneliness is almost like an alarm bell that goes off in our brain. It like sends a signal that something's wrong. It's from an evolutionary perspective, it's like sending a signal to our brain that we've been separated from the tribe. And this is why loneliness can be so damaging to our physical health and wellbeing, because it sets off an inflammation response in our body.

5:26 It sets off the flight or flight response, and. Particularly in older people who are the most vulnerable really, especially in this situation that we're in at the moment, it can lead to earlier dementia, to high blood pressure, all sorts of really significant health conditions, as well as obviously the psychological and the emotional distress. So I just wanted to also make the point that while we are in a fairly uniquely challenging situation right now with this forced isolation, which is very very unnatural. It goes against everything that we're wired to do and how we're wired to interact and live our lives. But I just want to make the point that the experience of loneliness and social isolation is not a new thing. In fact, in twenty eighteen in the UK they appointed a Minister of Loneliness because of the very fact that this was considered to be a public health issue, because of just the volume of people, the percentage of the population who reported feeling lonely and isolated, and because that is such a damaging and dangerous thing. And here in Australia, in twenty eighteen, the Australian Psychological Society of the APS they conducted surveys and they found that at the time of the survey, one in four people reported experiencing loneliness at the time of the survey and one in two, So fifty percent of people reported experiencing loneliness at least one day a week.

6:54 So even when we are living our normal lives and we're out and about and going to work and socializing and doing all of the things, loneliness has still always been a very real problem. And so I would hope. That while we're all currently being forced to find ways to connect, and while we're all being it's being highlighted to us really just how important those connections are. We would hope that some of the changes that we make to the way we live our lives and the way we connect and the way we prioritize relationships that they might actually carry on even after this crisis is over, and hopefully that might be one positive thing that does come out of the experience that we're all going through at the moment. And I wanted to also make the point that while loneliness has always been a problem, it's not a new thing. So has too much busyness. And if we hark all the way back to episode one are season one of this podcast, Tiff and I talked about the cult of busy and our society's addiction to being busy, and I think it's important to note that for a lot of us, the struggle that we have with being isolated and stuck in our homes is partly that we are having these withdrawal effects from our normal, busy, daily routines. And yes, of course a lot of those things that we do are of value, the social things, the ways that we live our lives and get out and exercise and experience art and culture and all of those wonderful things. But there's also the fact that we

8:25 do tend to fill our lives and fill every minute of our lives with activity because we are just not able to be alone and be still, and because we've been conditioned into these lifestyles that have us convinced that being busy is the only way to live. These are the markers of a successful, fulfilling, and meaningful life, when in many ways they're actually not. They're actually just contributing to more stress in our lives and more overwhelm. And there is. Something to be said for being able to spend time a lie, to be able to be with ourselves in our own company, for being still, and for being quiet.

9:07 So as much as this episode I want to talk with you about how we can stay connected and creative ways that we can do that, I think it's really important that we be aware of being able to find that balance, and of also being able to use this time to maybe practice a little bit of a slower lifestyle and a little bit more being in solitude, being in meditation, being able to sit with ourselves and find ways to entertain ourselves that don't involve this frenetic kind of compulsive activity and busyness that we are typically used to. So, having said all of that, we are now confronted with this uniquely challenging experience where we're locked in our homes and we're forced to find creative ways to connect and engage with people. I think what's important at the moment is to be focused on those quality relationships in which you feel seen, felt heard, and understood. Those are the markers of a quality connection, because I think we can all agree that in our normal day to day lives, and even if you look at your social media feed, like there are a lot of people in our circle, many of whom we don't necessarily share those deeper, more meaningful connections with. So when we're talking about maintaining connections, it's really important, I think, to understand which are the people who are of most value at a time like this.

10:38 Who are the people who you can really be authentic with and honest with, who you can talk to if you are struggling, rather than just having one hundred different people on your Facebook feed or on your Instagram that you can share jokes with and share memes with. And you know, we all love that and that's all very fun. But who are the people that you can actually have really important person and all conversations with. So I want to talk about that kind of idea of being seen, felt, heard, and understood, because this is a fundamental human need. And when we talk about being lonely and the damaging effects of that, that is really when we're in a relationship with somewhere where we don't necessarily feel felt. And feel felt is kind of a psychological term that we use, which is a marker of a quality attachment relationship. This leads me to another really important point that I wanted to talk about. Johann Hari was a journalist who wrote the book's Lost Connections and Chasing the Scream, and most people know him by his famous Ted talk in which he said, the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And I think that's really relevant in a time like this, so to put that into context.

11:52 The prevailing view of addiction for a long time was that addictive substances are addictive, and that's why people get addicted. The fact of the. Matter is that many people who use addictive substances, whether they are people who go into hospital and are given morphine, or they are people who try drugs and they don't really like them, or they drink socially, a lot of people can be exposed to addictive substances and don't get addicted. So part of the reason that we had this idea about we get addicted because of the dopamine hit and the reward of addictive substances was because of studies that they did with rats. And when they put a rat into a cage and they gave the rat a choice between plain water and water that was laced with heroin, the rat nine times out of ten would drink the heroin water. And then even if the rat was drinking the plain water, as soon as it got a taste of the heroin water, it would continue to drink the heroin water. It would very quickly become addicted. And so therefore we formed this view that as soon as you were exposed to an addictive substance, that you would become addicted.

12:53 But then somebody came along and said, well, hold on a second, rats, much like humans, are social creatures. So then they took these rats and they put them into a big, much bigger cage. So these were solo rats in a small cage. So then they put these rats into a cage that was two hundred times the size of these small cages, and they put them with twenty other rat friends. And then they put in hamster wheels and balls and gave them things to play with and partners to mate with, and they made these like rat park, like heaven for rats. And what they found was when they put the plain water and the heroin water into the rat cage, the rats didn't touch the heroin water at all. And rats aren't humans, but rats are social just like humans. And so this led to this other way of thinking, which was that it's not the addictive substance.

13:44 If rats have got the option of having really engaging, vibrant lives and relationships and things to do to keep them busy, then they don't necessarily go to the addictive substance. And that is also very true of we humans. The people who are more likely to fall into problematic drinking or drugs or addictive behaviors are the ones who struggle with the quality of their social connections. And a lot of that goes back to our early childhood. And I do have a point with all of this. A lot of this goes back to our early childhood experiences and the way we're raised and the way we come to understand relationships and how relationships work. And I don't want to go off on a big tangent about this, but I think it's relevant that as children, when we are cared for by our caregivers, if our needs are met and we feel seen, heard, felt understood, somebody is consistently available to us, then we form a secure attachment, and therefore we grow up with healthy emotional attachments with other people, which means we have the ability to depend on people to express our emotional needs, to have other people depend on us, to have healthy interdependent relationships. But for many of us, in fact, sixty percent of the population grew up with some variation of an insecure attachment, which means

15:14 that for all of our parents' best intentions, they were inconsistently available. So maybe they were emotionally not really there for us. Maybe they were physically present but distracted, or we weren't encouraged to express our feelings, or maybe they were intermittently available so we got anxious. Weren't ever really sure if they were going to be there for us, So we could either be like have an anxious attachment style or a more avoidant attachment style, but either way we would grow up with some sort of impairment I mean this isn't These are not a big deal because, like I said, sixty percent of the population has some variation of an insecure attachment, and this affects the way we engage and the way we get our needs met in adult relationships, and how effectively we get our needs met and how effectively we form those connections. So a significant proportion of the population potentially is at risk of developing anxiety and depression and addictive behaviors if we are not able to form the quality social connections that are necessary for our emotional and psychological health. So we all have the same needs essentially, whether you're an avoidant person and you tend to keep your emotions at bay and you keep people at arm's length, whether you're an anxious person and you tend to be quite more needy and clingy with people like we all have the same emotional needs.

16:43 We just have different abilities to have those needs met. And if we struggle to have those needs met, then we're more likely to fall into maybe emotional psychological problems. So why am I telling you all of this Because this is a critical time over the next few months to have an understanding of this and how it may affect you, And I want to make the point that there's a lot of people making a lot of jokes about the only way through the coronavirus is gin like we happy hour is going to start earlier and earlier, and there will be particular people in the population who for whom that is not a great message. There are particular people who will be more likely to be susceptible to falling into anxiety, depression and potentially risky behaviors with whether it's drinking or drugs or whatever it might be.

17:34 So more than ever, we have to be looking at how we get our needs met for connection so that we keep ourselves from potentially really very damaging experiences and behaviors. What we do now over the next few months is going to have a compounding effect. The routines, the healthy habits, the supportive self care strategies that we put into place are going to benefit us exponentially as time goes on. We're at the very beginning of this, really, and if we start using unhealthy and unhelpful coping strategies, then potentially that's going to really have an exponentially damaging effect over the coming weeks and months. And we all want to come out of this with our health and our well being intact. I saw somebody post on social media speaking of memes. I don't know where I'll go first when we come out of isolation, weight watchers or AA and that can be very funny, but that's potentially really the road that we're on if we don't start to put in place some structures and some strategies to really look after our social connections so that we are not using those other unhelpful coping strategies. So let's talk then about who are the people who you need to have in your circle through this difficult time. So obviously some of us live alone, some of us are with our immediate family.

19:05 There are people sharing with. Friends, and so some of us will have access to our immediate family group for that support. Ideally, if we have positive relationships with the people in our immediate circle, and that's not everybody, I understand that. But then outside of that, who are the people that we choose to invest our time with. And you may say, well, look, we've all got lots of time now, but really it's about focusing in. It always has been about focusing in on the key people who are your inner circle, and who are those people who can give you the positive support. That you need. There will be people. We all have, the people in our lives who we have bonded with over you know, our shared dislike of the boss, or because the only thing that we do together is to go drinking, or you know, these are very superficial kind of relationships and we've all got them on our social media as well. What we want to look at is who are the people who are available to you as an emotionally supportive person that you can call in a crisis. And again, I know, sadly many of us have very few people that we can call in a crisis. But this is the time, this is the opportunity when we're all in isolation and we're all focusing on reaching out and making those supportive connections, but we can actually start to reinvest in some of those relationships.

20:24 We've all had friends who have or friendships that have fallen by the wayside because of our busy lives, and we're so busy and we keep planning to catch up and then we never get around to it. This is the time, this is the time to put in those phone calls, to have those FaceTime calls to send an email and to start re establishing those connections with the people who can really be there in a really positive, supportive way. Few We've also got a whole lot of people in our world and in our extended network who are the negative people, the complainers, the you know, we talked about it in the last episode, the conspiracy theorists. Or whatever it might be. And this is what we've got to put really firm boundaries in place. We have limited capacity for that kind of stuff when we're already stressed and struggling. So again, it's just filtering out some of that noise, filtering out those people who aren't adding value to our lives at the moment. Now, more than ever, is when we get ruthless about who we let into our space and how we invest in those relationships. And also it's a time for us to look at how we contribute to the people around us, like how are we being supportive of our friends, how are we we being available to be somebody else's emotionally supportive person. So now is also really the time when we can think about how we are contributing to the other people in our lives and how we can be supportive of them, because while we are all separate, and while we're all going through this in our own unique way, we're all very much together. So this is really a time for us to be looking

21:55 out for each other. And we get as much from giving as we do from receiving, So if we can be that supportive person for somebody else, that's really great for our own health and well being as well. So having said all of that, I really wanted to spend some time talking about what are the creative ways because we're all at different times climbing the walls looking for things to do, looking for ways to connect, and there's loads of really creative fun options out there. So obviously we all know we're all doing our work meetings by zoom. We're all getting very familiar with zoom calls and Skype calls, and we're connecting by FaceTime. There's an app called house Party which you can have a group get together with, which is great. So there's lots of those options which we all know about. There's also people who are having drinks in the driveway connecting with the neighbors. I saw something really lovely on social media the other day where a family cut a square hole out of their timber fence so that they could sit and have backyard drinks with their next door neighbors, their elderly neighbors who are alone.

23:00 So people come up with really creative ways to stay connected while keeping a distance. So that's all great. If there are older people, we can be going out and you know, as we talked about last time, you know, putting notes in their letterbox, doing grocery shopping for people, finding those ways to make sure that we're looking out for each other. There's a real sense of community at a time like this, and it's a really great time to be doing those things that are are adding value at a community level, because those community connections are as important even as our individual connections. If you are in lockdown, this. Is a great time to actually improve the quality of the relationships in your own home. And we're buying jigsaws and we're playing board games. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to buy a jigsaw I tried the other day.

23:48 And whether it's pictionary or Monopoly or any of those fun games that you can play at home, this is the time to do those things together because I mean, we're all as much as we're socially isolated within the four walls of her home. Sometimes we could just use five minutes piece. We're all fighting over the Wi Fi and everybody is in everybody's space, So finding positive ways to connect with the family. I saw a really great thing the other day with Russell. Brand's wife has a book called The Joy Journal, where she she comes up with all of these really fun, creative things that you can do with kids and so together on his Instagram and on his Facebook, they did this. They made this squishy soap which is really simple and obviously it's promoting the hand washing for little kids, but it's food coloring and it's this squishy ball where kids can wash their hands. So her Instagram handle is the Joy Journal, so I would check in with her. The other thing is that we need to be making sure again because if you go back to the fact that this loneliness and isolation triggers our stress response and triggers actually a fight or flight response in our body, it's more important than ever to be doing those calming activities meditation, journaling. You can actually find really a sense of connection from meditation specifically designed to increase your sense of connection, loving kindness, meditation is one.

25:13 You'll find it on any mindfulness app. Journaling as well to process any difficult or uncomfortable feelings that you're having. Journaling is as effective as therapy really for processing emotions that you might be experiencing, and as I said, already showing kindness to others. But in terms of all of the other creative ways, obviously you can have virtual happy hour. And my husband works for a global company. They all work remotely, and only since this coronavirus and all of their travel being canceled and all of them being really stuck at home, have they started having virtual happy hour. I think they're spending more time connecting socially now than they ever have before. They will have a theme often like they'll have a I don't know, some sort of theme and they all get together and it's from all of the countries in Asia and Australia. But they also have a team in the US and in Spain.

26:06 The time difference is a difficult for those but there's a lot of organizations now having virtual happy hours, so you can get together and have those social connections with your team even from a distance. Book Club, you can run online book clubs I've in fact started my own online membership and we have a book club as a part of that. I can tell you more about that later. Online trivia is a great option. You can play online trivia. You might want to check out Jackbox Games or Jackbox TV. Cards Against Humanity, the fun game that we all know and love. You can now play that online. Just google that one and you can find that you can play that online. Netflix Party.

26:47 I have just discovered that there is a plug in, It's a Chrome plug in called Netflix Party where you can watch a Netflix show with all of your friends online. If one person pauses, it pauses it for everybody box so that you can chat about the show that you're watching. And I'm fairly sure that this is just a new thing that they've come up with, I think since this whole self isolation situation that we're in. So Netflix Party is great. You google that and you'll find it. We've all heard of pub choir. Now they've turned that into couch choir where you can all sing from your comfort of your home. Singing is actually a great way to relieve stress. So singing in a couch choir or even just getting together with your friends and having a sing along online is a great way to connect.

27:34 Playing music with friends as well. We've all seen. Musical icons jamming from their own homes and performing concerts from their homes because they can't perform their live shows, so that's great. But we can all do that. If you've got an instrument that you play, or you're learning an instrument online, if you've got free time, then you can jam with friends online. And there's also loads of really positive social media groups that are really focused on being supportive and uplifting and they're really positive spaces. Quarantine with jam and Claire is a Facebook group created by Jamilla Risby and Claire Boditch, both of whom have been lovely guests on this show. They normally do an event called Tea with jam and Claire down in Melbourne and they've turned that into Quarantine with jam and Claire, which is great. And they've also been doing a lot of Facebook live interviews with people on the topic of the coronavirus and how we can all look after ourselves and some really positive stuff going on in there as well as just the positive social interaction.

28:38 Of course. The other thing I saw online the other day was and I thought This was such a great idea. It was Jennifer Aniston talking about how her and her friends are doing these paint by numbers, but they're like these massive paint by numbers, so you order them online. Again, probably hard pressed to find them, but it's a good idea. So as you paint, and as you start to paint a bit of picture, they take a photo of what they're painting, but it's only the tiniest bit of the whole picture and send it to their friends. And as it gets bigger and bigger, and. As the painting gets more full, they keep sending photos and everybody has to try to guess what the painting is before they're finished. So not only are you doing the fun painting, which is a great creative thing to do, but you're also having this game with your friends while everybody tries to guess what it is that you're painting.

29:24 I thought that sounded like a really great idea. Playing Xbox games or other sorts of online games. Obviously we don't need to worry about our kids. They are so savvy with communicating and connecting online. And I would just say on that we haven't really talked about it, but the social isolation potentially, like it's really tough for kids who can't see their friends in school holidays, but they are so used to snapping, tweeting, messaging, tiktoking, all of the things that they do that I actually think most of our kids are fine, and I I think this is a time that we don't necessarily want to put a whole lot of limits around that screen time because that really is the way that our kids, especially teenagers, have grown up connecting.

30:10 Is that's what they do. So I think that it's just really important to let them have that because that's their form of social connection. And the other thing that we haven't talked about is pets and the benefit of companion animals. We know that they are great for reducing stress. We know that they are I mean, they're really good for your health, especially older people. But it's been so pleasing to see the number of pets being fostered and adopted, especially now that families are all at home, those that have enough space, like suddenly they've decided that this is the time to get that puppy because everybody's home and they have the time to train it and. Walk it and all of the rest of it. So I know that's not an option for everybody, depending on the space that you live in, but they're always looking for foster carers. I know my mother in law used to live in an apartment and she used to foster kittens, so when they were dumped at the RSPCA, I don't know if that's still an option, but she used to be able to just raise them from when they were tiny until they were ready to be adopted out, so it wasn't a permanent arrangement, and because they were so little, she was able to keep them kind of in a box or something in her apartment. So there's lots of options there as well. But also don't dismiss the fact that there are still options. We are still allowed at this point to go out for exercise, We're still able to meet one other person as long as we're keeping a distance. And so if it means that you can still go to the local park and take a walk with a friend, even if it's a couple of times a week, and just maintain that sort of connection, then just use those opportunities. All of our normal arrangements,

31:43 all of our normal social you know, going to restaurants and cinemas and bands and all of the rest of it may not be available to us, but there are lots of other really great ways that we can still stay connected and keep ourselves well and healthy until we can all get together again. I hope some of those ideas have been helpful for you, And remember, while we can't do anything about having to be physically separated, we can do a whole lot about staying emotionally, spiritually, psychologically connected. Be sure to take care of yourselves and each other, and I will be back with another episode really soon. Rady to Happy is presented by Cash Dunn, produced by David Vilenski, Pudio production by Darcy Thompson.

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