I was doing pretty good for a while--a bad day here and there but mostly minimal symptoms. Between the continuing stress of dealing with the pandemic, financial problems, marital problems and other emotional stresses I started having a terrible flare a couple of weeks ago, with no signs of letting up. How has the stress of the pandemic affected everyone's symptoms?
Blah! I have to agree with you. I wasn’t sure how much the pandemic/lockdown got to me, but these last few weeks have been not good. I went to see my neurologist and he said...how have you been handling what’s been going on....I didn’t realize until that moment that I haven’t been handling it well at all. I went from sterilizing everything...including family members in my home to not wearing masks around people I don’t even know (I live near the Wisconsin border and they had been a lot more lenient with restrictions until recently). It’s the whole unknown thing that has me so stressed and that in turn has caused my symptoms (including ones I never had before) to appear. That on top of other every day stresses. I’ve been trying to work on relaxation techniques to help combat the excessive stress.
The unknown factor is terrible. This has gone on longer than anyone expected and we still have no idea of when it will end. And this whole situation has had so many terrible, negative effects far and beyond the illness and death toll. Any so-called relaxation or stress-reduction techniques might help in the very short term, if at all. There is no getting away from this.
Vipassana is a mediation practice that works, & can be practiced & employed long-term. Cultivating this quality of mind has been shown to modulate pain, mitigate anxiety & depression, improve cognitive function, & produce changes in gray matter density in regions of the brain related to learning & memory, emotional regulation, & self awareness.