Respond Instead of React: Managing COVID-19 Anxiety

As we face the coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic, it’s normal to feel anxious or even panicky. However, if we allow anxious thoughts and feelings to start dictating our everyday actions, we can put ourselves into a state of ongoing panic. Panicking, unfortunately, doesn’t tend to be helpful, as it can cause us to make poor decisions, lose perspective, and increase our anxiety unnecessarily.

Borrowing from some cognitive-behavioral therapy tools for anxiety, in my new Psychology Today blog post, Respond Instead of React: Managing COVID-19 Anxiety, I share five ways we can learn to turn our anxious reactions into more useful responses, helping us and our loved ones cope well in this time of crisis.