The partial meltdown of the powerplant in Fukushima loomed heavily over the Tohoku and Kanto regions for weeks following the natural disasters that precipitated it. It still simmers like a forgotten kettle but there has been time to become better informed about radiation, to slowly begin to come to terms with the victims of the tsunami, and to learn more about others like the residents in Chiba, only 60 min away, whose homes have been tipped and tilted by the shifting soil.
Daily earthquakes still shake the country and our sleep patterns are routinely disturbed by sustained tremors that cause our homes to shudder and buildings to sway. When we’re awake, Asako and I look at the lamps over our kitchen table and the large mirror on the wall to see whether it’s an actual earthquake or just our minds playing tricks on us. When they happen at night we half-open our eyes and hope it ends quickly – with their deep circadian rhythms our kids don’t usually wake up at all. Most of the people I know have turned off their early warning phone apps because they just prolonged the inevitable anxiety by 20-30 seconds as people stood frozen after the tone waiting for the room to start moving.
The vast majority of the epicenters of the more than 1000 earthquakes (click) since March 11 have been in the devastated northern region. Some of them have been quite strong and each time I feel our home surge, empathy goes to those north who have already been dealt so many hard blows. Support efforts are ongoing to bring help, supplies, and hope to survivors but nothing other than time will allow the ground to become more stable again. This feeling of powerlessness is one of our main adversaries for the moment and, combined with disturbances to sleep, can leave us feeling unusually anxious and occasionally culminates in experiences more along the lines of panic.
Linguistically, it’s no coincidence that we refer to a state of being settled and peaceful as being “grounded”. With our “groundedness” in flux it can be harder to find stability so some new approaches to gaining control may be useful. A common theme of the five strategies below is that they help us overcome panic by repositioning us as active agents. While the following are all useful for us under the present conditions, they represent just the beginning of many wonderful resources for better managing anxiety.
1. Focused Muscle Group Contractions - Like us looking at our table lights and mirror to check for imaginary earthquakes, it is not uncommon for people to feel “phantom earthquakes”. This physical disconnection can be disorienting. Try selecting specific muscles or groups of muscles in your body to intentionally contract, hold for ten seconds, and release. As you use this exercise, try working sequentially through your body by starting with your toes and feet and work all the way to the tips of your fingers. Keep your breathing deep, regular, and controlled.
2. Deep Breathing – Try making breathing the entire focus of an activity. Lie down on a flat surface. To monitor the rise of your diaphram as you breath, place one hand on your stomach, just above your belly button and the other hand on your chest. After your hands are in position, breathe in slowly and try to make your stomach rise a little. Before exhaling, hold your breath for a second, then breathe out slowly until your stomach falls. Repeat for several minutes until your anxiety subsides.
3. Control/No Control List – This exercise can be useful in many anxiety producing situations. Make a list of things you can and cannot control. If you spend some time on this exercise you may find there are many more things within your control than things outside your control. One thing I identified I could manage was our emergency fresh water supply. We have quite a few jugs of water placed around the house that I now maintain weekly by replacing old water with new water. I know this will be useful if we ever lose our drinking water in the house and this ritual gives me something I can do to be better prepared.
4. Spiral Technique – In your mind, start to gather the things that you are thinking about. It doesn’t matter whether your eyes are open or shut but give yourself permission to pay attention to whatever comes to mind. Allow thoughts to enter your mind in whatever form or forms they come in – words, images, colors, all are fine. As these ideas come together, imagine them taking the form of a spiral in the center of the room or the space in front of you. Slowly start to rotate that spiral in one direction. Watch it move and watch those things you put in it rotate. Slow the rotation down until it stops and slowly begin to rotate the spiral in the opposite direction. When you are ready to stop, slow the spiral down and bring it to a stop. This technique can have a remarkable calming effect.
5. Acceptance – One of the things that can be hardest to keep in perspective under stressful times is our own inability to control our emotions and levels of anxiety. The details of how we experience these events are our body’s and mind’s efforts to help us become ok again. This can be particularly unnerving for people that have not had difficulty managing anxiety before. Stress related responses including difficulty sleeping, impatience, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, shortness of breath, racing heartbeat, among others are signs of our humanity, not signs of failure. It may be helpful to try accepting these as normal responses to stressful conditions and not additional causes for concern.
As evident in many recent examples (click), people are incredibly resilient and learn to adapt to new challenges with remarkable speed. During the process of adaptation, however, set-backs occur and the above coping strategies may be helpful as particularly difficult moments arise. If you experience ongoing episodes of stress related reactions please seek the help a trained mental health professional. IMHPJ (click) and TELL Counseling (click) are two great resources in our community. – AC
Adam Clark is a school counselor at Yokohama International School in Yokohama, Japan. Find out more at http://whoisadamclark.com/who-is
I wrote this piece in an editorial style but the content has been informed by seminal and current literature regarding stress, anxiety, and coping. The following are among the most influential resources I drew upon in creating this post. I also want to acknowledge Dr. Dawn McBride currently at the University of Lethbridge who I met through the Graduate Centre of Applied Psychology at Athabasca University. She introduced me to the spiral technique among other valuable ideas, during a weekend seminar, ironically about trauma, from March 10-13, 2011 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Elwood, R. W. (2005). Conquering Your Panic and Agoraphobia. PsycCRITIQUES, 50(4), doi:10.1037/040475
Folkman, S. Personal control and stress and coping processes: A theoretical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1984; 46, 839-852.
Ginsburg, G. S., Lambert, S. F., & Drake, K. L. (2004). Attributions of Control, Anxiety Sensitivity, and Panic Symptoms Among Adolescents. Cognitive Therapy & Research, 28(6), 745-763. doi:10.1007/s10608-004-0664-5
Shepherd, R., & Edelman, R. J. (2009). The interrelationship of social anxiety with anxiety, depression, locus of control, ways of coping and ego strength amongst university students. College Quarterly, 12(2), 8. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Posted On: Thursday, April 21st, 2011
Posted In: Counseling
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