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Introduction: Here's another edition of the BayCare Health System’s Podcast Series, BayCare HealthChat with Melanie Cole.

Melanie Cole: For better or worse our world and our way of living have changed dramatically. Welcome to BayCare HealthChat. I'm Melanie Cole, and I invite you to listen in, as we discuss how to embrace this new normal that we're living in a way of living and thriving. Joining me is Mr. Tracy Daniels, he's a Behavioral Health Educator and Master Level Practitioner with BayCare Behavioral Health. Tracy, it's a pleasure to have you join us today. And this is such an important topic right now. Tell us what you see going on as far as this new normal, what does that look like? What are we going through right now?

Tracy Daniels: Sure. Thank you for inviting me, Melanie. I agree with you. This is a very important topic. And right now, as we are all experiencing the different symptoms of either stress or anxiety, looking at our new normal is different for everyone because my new normal could be now that I have to prepare to wear a mask, I may be wearing gloves any place I go to. For some other people, their new normal could be different, but I would say right now, understanding how to embrace this time of seasonal change that we're all in. What are my emotions have they changed since the time of COVID starting, which was back in March, to where I am presently? What are the things that I'm learning about myself during this new normal time change? Have I learned to be more tolerant? Am I paying attention to my emotions and my behaviors? And am I developing new ways of thinking and creative concepts to help me process through the season of change? When we look at new normal, and I talk about it, I talk about it from the ideal of getting people to realize that we are in change no matter what we think, no matter what we might be experiencing, this has changed and the virus is here. So we have to learn now how to incorporate our lives and begin to move forward and move up and out of all the things that might cause us to stray in our thinking. So that's the part, when we talk about new normal, what does it look like for me? And how am I embracing it?

Host: Wow. I mean, what we're going through right now is so different than anything most of us have gone through. And so how is it impacting our emotional wellbeing? As much as a lot of us are trying, Tracy, it's really hard to keep yourself centered, keep yourself in a good place and not start to freak out over what's going on all over the world and you know, with everything going on. So tell us how this impacts our wellbeing and literally, what are we doing to our physiological and emotional selves when we're not dealing with this well?

Tracy Daniels: So, one of the things I tell people is how am I paying attention to my behaviors changing? And when I look at that, how am I really balancing my emotions that go along with the behaviors that I might be exhibiting? So from the psychological point of it, am I seeing myself now on the emotional side, more sad? Am I seeing myself now more frustrated? Am I seeing myself now more anxious or even having the anger? How am I seeing those things? Have those things increased in me when I'm talking about emotions? Now, if I am seeing those increased, how are they affecting my behaviors? Because one of the things that's happening through this phenomenon is people got out of their routines, which effected them psychologically. And it began to cause them now to exhibit behaviors that they never exhibited before, such as prior to COVID, all of us just worked. We went to work at a certain time. We got off at a certain time, but what we did not really pay attention to was that that was a routine.

And when COVID hit, it changed all of our routines where now what happened is, we began to stay inside the home a lot more, which is a phenomenon that's called cocooning. And so cocooning took place because we were all told to stay inside. So what people begin to do is they begin to now focus on their homes and they begin to now begin to live in their homes. Like they've never lived before. So that created this phenomenon where people are really anxious about going outside about doing things outside. And so it caused a lot of psychological problems where people were dealing with a lot of fear and worry. And so that's how it began to shape us. And one of the things that I talk about is how do I understand that part of my fear and worry? Because we know there's two types of worries and worry in and of itself is okay. But when I start to live in the practical worry, which is the worry that I really need to live in, that's the, those are the things that I can control. And so now psychologically, if I feel like I can't control what's going on in my narrative, it begins to cause me to have hypothetical worries.

And those are worries that we can't control. Like at the beginning of this, we could not control what the governor was saying or what the government was saying or what this person might've been saying. We can't control that. But what it was doing was causing a lot of fear and a lot of worry in people. And so, because I couldn't control that narrative, it began to affect me. But the part that we want to begin to work on is our practical worries. Those are the things I can control such as my sleep. I can control that such as my diet, those things I can control, you know, such as exercise. I can control those things. And I believe as we're living through this new normal, we have to go back and get a balance of the things that I can control versus the things that's out of my wheel-well that I can't control because this is a new way of living for every one of us during this time. And what we have to do is develop skills to help us balance our lives during this time, and not only develop the right skills, but learn how not to live in our worries and our fears. And that's key when we start looking at this new normal.

Host: I think you just described me, seriously. That was great advice because we do live inside our fear if we let them become that pervasive, you know. The thought process in our mind and nesting, as you say, cocooning is really a way of comforting ourselves in some ways. So give us some, you mentioned exercise and I'm an exercise physiologist, so definitely I'm right there with you, but give us some behavioral living style changes that you want us to do. As we're trying to nest, maybe we're fixing up our homes or, you know, slapping a new coat of paint on a wall, doing something to make us feel like our little cocoon, our little space, our little environment is pleasing to us and can help us with that mental wellbeing. So give us some living style changes you want us to embrace.

Tracy Daniels: So, some of them I would say is become more aware of yourself, what I call your self-care. You know, because I believe during this time, because we got out of our routines, it affected us a whole lot. And now what happened is people’s self-care began to not be as an important as it was prior to COVID. Such as, you know, we all had routines, which was, you know, at the end, like if I went to work in the morning, of course I had certain things I did. And then at the end of the day, my routine was to go to either the gym or I would go do something to kind of wind down. So some tips right now that's important is to pay attention to your self-care. If you were exercising prior to COVID, continue to exercise, pay attention if you're looking at too much news or you're binge watching too many programs, because that's what breaks your sleep cycle. And so, these are the things that we want to pay attention to –  is how much sleep am I getting? That’s number one. What has changed since this COVID? And since I've maybe have been told to work from home, or maybe now I'm still working from home and I have these concerns. Another one I would say too, is to begin to embrace the change, start going out. If you know mindfulness, that's another good technique to use is to be aware of more of yourself.

I would say another key one is having compassion for yourself, really using that side of what we do when we're caring, use that for ourselves in not only operating the compassion for us, but for other individuals. But I'll say another big one too, Melanie, is that we have to give ourselves permission to feel. We have to give ourselves permission to say it's okay. I'm okay. This is going to be okay. This is just a season that we're going through, just like any natural seasons, come and go. And this is a seasonal change that we're all going through. So I would say one of the key factors right now is just us paying attention to our awareness and continue to do the things that we were doing prior to COVID, such as if I was exercising, let me continue to exercise. If I'm going out for walks, let me continue to go out for walks. Let me do those things that's going to keep me not only mentally healthy, but also physically healthy also. Another big tip I talk to people about is their diet. I know some things change where people started, you know, stress eating because of what was going on with the COVID, but pay attention to your diet. You know, these are really easy factors that we all can live in, but I say the key thing is self-awareness, pay attention to you during this time.

Host: That is absolutely great advice. And before we wrap up, because we could really go on about this for quite a while, because it's such an informative segment. People can take what you're saying, Tracy, and use it right now. How do we stop ourselves? You mentioned that you would like us to feel and be aware, but with so much bearing down on us, whether it's, you know, our country or the climate or COVID, whatever it is, it's difficult not to try and numb yourself to it so that you don't cry every day. How can we feel and be aware without becoming numb so that we don't feel all the stuff we're supposed to be feeling?

Tracy Daniels: You know, that's a good question, Melanie, because I've worked in a private practice and you know, I get these kinds of questions a lot. And one of the key things I would say, and going back to the feeling part is, that's our emotions. And sometimes what we don't do truthfully is we don't put the right emotion with the right behavior. So if I'm feeling frustrated, let me really understand that it's frustration and not overwhelmed because if I'm feeling frustrated and now my behavior is operating as if I'm angry or overwhelmed, those two things are going to cause me now to be in confusion. So I want to be able to pay attention to what is the emotion that I'm actually going through. And then the other part too, is to be realistic in how we are examining ourselves. Don't beat ourselves up during this time. Don't say I'm an idiot or I'm stupid. Don't use those negative narratives that bring a negative outcome, begin to speak positive affirmations.

So, if I'm having some mind dump, and what I mean by mind dump is that my mind is racing, racing, racing, and now I'm being inundated by all the stuff that's going on. You know, from the news, I've been watching the news 24 hours a day. Now I'm listening to my friends who are talking about the same thing, and then I'm just inundated and really overstimulated with everything. How do I get out of that? One of the ways to begin to pay that attention is how to separate my thinking and not allow it to run away. And how we do that is we begin to put it in the right context. It's kind of like doing the triage method where I'm going to adjust those things that are most important and those other things that's not, I'm going to get them off my plate. That's the way thinking that we have to begin to operate in during this time of not only COVID, but also this new normal, because what's happening to a lot of people, their minds are racing, which we know anxiety is the number one disorder in the United States. It is not depression.

And so, when we look at this, it's helping people understand right now that our anxieties will increase. Now, it doesn't mean I have the disorder, but it means that I'm exhibiting anxiety symptoms. So how do I deal with that when I'm feeling anxious and my mind is racing, one of the ways to do it is write down those thoughts and put them in sequential order. The one that's at the top. That's the one that I want to really focus and begin to work on, the rest of those I'm crossing off the list because I can't do anything about them. I talked about the hypothetical worries. That's what those are. I'm worried about something that I can't control. So I'm only going to focus on what is important at this time. And once I can do that, then it helps me to decrease my stress. And it also helps me to lower my cortisol levels. That once again, can get me out of that fight or flight stage and that's how we want to do it.

Host: Wow. We certainly do. I am taking everything you said Tracy, to heart because I think, listeners, that everything he said should just hit you right where you live because he hit the nail on the head and these intrusive thoughts and these worries and things, they are really affecting our emotional wellbeing. So, Tracy, wrap it up for us, summarize your best advice. This is great information and summarize for us what you'd like us to do to embrace this new normal and be our healthiest selves.

Tracy Daniels: Yes. Thank you, Melanie. So what I would say is pay attention to how you are actually feeling, you know, and understand that it's okay. During this time we're going to have these emotions and these feelings as we go through this period in season of change, it's okay. Document for yourself periods of times when you are feeling a little down, a little up. So now you can begin to look at the positives that you have going on and not live in the negatives. And I say this all the time, listen, we're all transitioning through this and we could have a negative view, but I want to help people understand that I don't want to live in negativity. I want to live in the positivity that is there because everything around us is positive. It just depends on our view. And during this time of the new normal, that we're all living in, begin to focus on those positive changes that you have made in your life. Set up positive narratives, that will bring you into positive outcomes because when you do that, it will help you now to not only embrace this new normal, but also give you a better opportunity to operate in the change that's in your life.

Host: So well said, Tracy, thank you so much. What an amazing guest you are. To learn more about mental health and wellbeing and all the services BayCare Behavioral Health offers. Please visit our website at BayCareBehavioralHealth.org for more information, and to get connected with one of our providers. And that concludes this episode of BayCare HealthChat. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all the other BayCare podcasts. Listeners, please share this show with your friends and family on social media, because that way we're all getting this great advice from the experts at BayCare together. And this particular show is one that we can all hear, listen to and take to heart. We can do as he says, and embrace this new normal in a healthier, positive way. I'm Melanie Cole.