The line
between reasonable and unreasonable anxiety is subjective even in normal times,
and we are in weird times. Most Australians are experiencing a small level of
fear, and a few of us are experiencing a lot. It’s really not for us to say if
that is reasonable. But it is on us to help each other, if we can.
Six steps how you can help a colleague or employee who is feeling highly
anxious about coronavirus:
- Detecting anxiety in yourself and others
- Helping others with anxiety
- Helping with a panic attack
- The risk of using facts
- Thinking about longer-term anxiety issues
- How to stop anxiety spreading
1.
Detecting anxiety in yourself and others
You want people in your workplace to feel safe. If they’re feeling anxious, you
want them to come forward. The best detection method is encouraging people to
be self-aware. Questions that people can ask themselves:
- Am I feeling a bit overwhelmed?
- Am I constantly checking the headlines and looking for updates?
- Am I ruminating so much on coronavirus that I’m not focusing at work?
- Am I able to hear objective facts or am I focusing on fears and potential scenarios?
If people
are washing their hands and wiping down surfaces, that could be appropriate
given the circumstances. But doing things that go beyond the advice of any respected
authority might be a sign the anxiety is becoming too much and you should reach
out.
Often when people are anxious and they’re not expressing it, whether that’s
something to do with fears or their personal life, they will have strong
reactions to other things that make them angry, frustrated or annoyed that seem
somewhat disproportionate. When people are reactive above and beyond what you
would ordinarily expect, that’s a sign that they’re not coping.
2. Helping others with anxiety
If you believe someone is anxious this six-step process can help guide how you
approach and talk to them. It applies to individuals but could also be used as
the framework for wider organisational messaging.
i. Recognition
Let the person know that you’ve noticed they seem to be behaving in a certain
way and clarify this is okay. Recognise the wider coronavirus concerns and
nationwide stress. Validating the person’s emotions is a key step. Even if you
can’t comprehend why someone else would be so worried, take their feelings at
face value.
ii. Understanding
If someone confirms they’re feeling anxious, show them understanding. People
have different experiences – for example, someone who cares for an ageing
parent is likely feeling more concerned about the virus – so show them you see
where they’re coming from.
iii. Compassion
Compassion is showing that human kindness of, ‘I actually do care, I can see
that you’re suffering, we want to be able to help with that.’”
iv. Offering support
This is when you begin to become more action minded. Let them know they can
talk to people and that the organisation wants to be there for them. For
example, remind them to access EAP Assist. Also ask the person if they have
ideas for what might help them feel better.
v. Suggestions
It’s worthwhile going beyond support and offering other suggestions that people
can hang onto, that are grounded and tangible. A suggestion can be encouraging
people to check-in with themselves for the signs listed above, pointing them to
worthwhile online resources, or to reach out to their families, independent
professionals and so on.
vi. When to ask for help?
This is offering future advice and something of an ongoing framework. The
anxious person perhaps now has a plan based on your suggestions, but here is
where you tell them what to look for in themselves going forward. Let them know
it’s okay to ask for support and that you will check back in with them.
3. Helping with a panic attack
Sometimes anxiety escalates into a panic attack. This is serious. Panic attacks
aren’t always caused by dire situations. They can be instigated by fears of
coronavirus but can also be caused by something as small as a negative
judgement from a superior.
It doesn’t matter what the content of the worry is, the brain is responding to
it as if it were a tiger – something they need to fight or run away from.
Your goal is to de-escalate their mind from a state of primal fear – fight or
flight – and back into a more measured way of thinking. You want to engage
other parts of the brain so their body stops pumping itself with adrenaline.
A few practical techniques include:
- Give them out-of-order number sequences such as 7, 8, 11, 15, 21, 2, 7, 10 and ask them to repeat them.
- Play the alphabet game. Pick a topic such as ‘animals’ and take it in turns to name a different thing in that topic with each letter of the alphabet – so “antelope”, “bear”, “cow” and so on.
- Try sensory redirection. Give the panicking person a drink, give them a stress toy or object and say “feel that, focus on what the texture feels like”.
Unfortunately,
what doesn’t tend to work is telling people to breathe normally or calm down.
They want to breathe normally, they want to calm down, but they can’t.
Of course, if things keep escalating and the above techniques don’t work, call
in someone else. Don’t crowd the person, as that might exacerbate the problem,
but find someone with more authority, ability or training to help. In dire
circumstances, you should call an ambulance.
4. The risk of using facts
Some people might believe the trick to calming someone who is experiencing
anxiety about coronavirus is to use facts. The problem here is that anxiety
often leads to vigilance and hyper-vigilance. An anxious person is likely to
know more about coronavirus than you do – they’ve been feeding their growing
fear on a diet of live blogs and catastrophic headlines.
You shouldn’t engage on a fact-based level unless you are very confident in the
facts: Focus on the emotions and encourage them to seek out very authentic
sources.
5. Long-term anxiety issues?
For some, coronavirus will be the root cause of their anxiety. Their troubles
are reactive. But others are living with longer-term anxiety issues.
If a person has been more predisposed to experiencing anxiety, and it just so
happens that the current context we’re experiencing is proving hard, take
comfort and hope in the knowledge that anxiety can be turned around quickly
with the right evidence-based strategies.
6. How to stop anxiety spreading
An anxious person doesn’t always keep their anxiety to themselves. Often they
feel the need to express it and the act of this can make other people anxious.
This can involve simple office chats, where someone regales a colleague with
all the worst coronavirus stories from around the world.
But a lot of organisations have formal and informal ways for employees to
connect digitally. The company messaging app (think Slack) or social media
platform can become a forum for an anxious person to make others anxious, which
can be accomplished with something as simple as a news link and the message “we
need to all quarantine now”.
The best way to contain this is to get ahead of it. Encourage workers to share
their worries with leadership first. If they see a news link they think is
relevant to others, get them to hand it to their manager who can vet the
article for appropriateness.
Be explicit that you are creating a channel for people to air their concerns as
a responsible step you are taking to avoid unnecessary anxiety.
If the cat is already out of the bag and someone has already begun deluging
your digital channels, you should confront them respectfully. Try the
following approach:
- Let them know you’ve seen the posts, and that they seem highly anxious.
- Say you want to make sure they are feeling safe.
- Say that you want people to share information, but you don’t want undue panic.
- Ask them if there’s anything the organisation can do to better support them.
The more you make it about them, the more receptive they are going to
be. If employees feel they are being supported and encouraged, not criticised
and controlled, they are going to respond more cooperatively.
For further support & advice contact: https://eapassist.com.au/