How to Cope With Depression in the Post-Pandemic Recovery (Video and Podcast)

By Dr. Gleb Tsipursky | June 1, 2021 |
7 min read
How to Cope With Depression in the Post-Pandemic Recovery (Video and Podcast)

To cope with depression in the post-pandemic recovery, find new ways of fulfilling your needs for exploration, love, and meaning and purpose. That’s the key take-away message of this episode of the Wise Decision Maker Show, which describes how to cope with depression in the post-pandemic recovery.

 

Video: “How to Cope With Depression in the Post-Pandemic Recovery”

 

 

Podcast: “How to Cope With Depression in the Post-Pandemic Recovery”

 

 

Links Mentioned in Videocast and Podcast

Transcript

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the wise decision maker show where we help you make the wisest and most profitable decisions. And today, we’ll talk about decision making that will help you cope with depression in the post pandemic recovery. And by depression, I mean negative moods of all kinds doesn’t mean very full out depression, very deep sadness, very much fatigue and all that. It just means to press negative moods of all sorts. And it’s pretty easy to fall into depressive states. Despite the recovery from the pandemic, you know, it’s meant to be a happy time. We’re dealing with a pandemic, the virus is going away, people are getting vaccinated more and more. I hope you got your shot, I definitely get my shot. So it’s supposed to be a happy time. But in many ways, it’s a challenging time, because really now starting to cope with the pandemic during the pandemic itself. We didn’t really have time to cope, we just needed to deal with the situation as it was. It was one big on the rolling crisis, sea sort of situation, a big big emergency, a very unusual time. Now that we’re going out of the pandemic, we’re in the post pandemic recovery stage. It’s the time that we’re coping that will really realize what we lost. And so depression has been on the rise throughout the pandemic, we need to realize that depressive states moods, negativity, it tripled actually, during the pandemic itself. So it was pretty difficult for people in the pandemic itself. And right now, it’s going to, of course, add on because we’re coping with what’s happening in the pandemic. We don’t have statistics right now, because it’s just going on. But I can tell you that it’s going to be more difficult in some ways than it was during the pandemic, because we’ll be coping with what happened in the pandemic itself, or you really strained mental health resources, especially because people couldn’t see therapists in person. And of course, telemedicine is great. And I engaged in telemedicine myself, and tele therapy is great. But there are certainly some aspects of therapy that you can’t get from teletherapy. So that’s something to consider. Now, this is something especially important to realize that lower income groups are particularly at risk of mental health challenges. And that doesn’t mean that if you’re in a higher income group, you’re not at risk. But there’s particular risk during the pandemic, of course, more of them were essential workers, so they were facing the virus more, they were getting sick and dying at higher rates, their friends and neighbors were getting sick and dying at higher rates. And that’s something to consider for those who are at special risk. Now, depression, you have to understand it manifests itself in different ways. It doesn’t only manifest itself in sad moods, sometimes it can manifest itself in a lack of emotions. Or it can manifest itself in physical states like increased exhaustion, fatigue, that’s definitely a way that depression manifests in me when I feel depressed, it feels, I feel fatigued, I feel low energy. So that’s really, I feel apathetic, not caring about things. So fatigue, exhaustion is definitely a way that manifests, of course, indifference, not caring about previous activities and hobbies. That is something that manifests that way in some people. For me, that’s a slight aspect of depression. For me that exhaustion, fatigue is more of a problem. But for other people, indifference, sad moods around previous activities, and hobbies, lack of motivation, inability to focus, you might have heard of brain fog, it doesn’t only come from COVID comes from depression as well, and insomnia, so inability to sleep, all of that sort of stuff, not having good sleep cycle, breaking your previous sleep cycle, and other problems with routines, for example, challenges with sticking to your eating routine, sticking to your diet, your exercise routine, and so on. Now, after the pandemic, we have to realize what’s going on is that not only are we coping with the pandemic itself, but we have a lot of uncertainty as we’re going into the post pandemic normal. What does it mean? How will we recover from the pandemic, so there’s a lot of uncertainty and people feel anxious and scared. And then sad about uncertainty. I mentioned we’re dealing with trauma from deaths or damaged relationships. And now we’re kind of coping with that. Now we’re kind of coming to terms with that. There’s of course disrupted work routines, and whether we go work all in person, all remote or hybrid, who knows and maybe want to decide to not work in your previous fields as you’re really having the spirit of transition. redefined social norms. That’s a huge one, how we interact with each other post pandemic, you know, masking, we’re not masking all of these sorts of things. How will we actually feel anxious about interacting with others in a crowded space, especially indoors. So all of that stuff will be complex. Want to navigate that, and that causes certainly both anxiety and depression. Now what you’ll need to do to address depressive states post pandemic is determining your needs and your underlying needs. So the same thing as pre-pandemic, but it’s going to be especially important post pandemic, because these needs, while the underlying needs are going to be the same, the way that you satisfy them will be different. So you’ll need to figure out how to satisfy them in ways that you did not do so before the pandemic because of the change circumstances or during the pandemic because again, of the change circumstances, so we have these disruptions to the satisfactions of our underlying needs. And we need to realize that this is something that we’ll have to deal with and recognize as we navigate into the post pandemic normal. So there, the key to coping with depression is meeting these needs, figuring out these needs for yourself and meeting them. Now, the free underlying needs that we all have for self actualization for fulfilling our higher order desires, not talking about kind of some of the, those desires that are more basic fundamental, but those higher order desires to really give us joy, give us happiness, give us pleasure, things that really help us cope with depression. So meeting self actualization needs that are free, three key things that you want to be thinking about. One is exploration. Another is love. And another one is purpose. So those are the three areas that you need to be thinking about for yourself, and how you satisfy them, for yourself. So that’s what you want to be thinking about. Now, exploration, what does that have to do with that means learning more about yourself, the world around you, other people, that’s what exploration is about. So that’s what you want to be thinking about as part of exploration. And of course, as we go into the post pandemic, normal, there’s gonna be a lot to explore. Because this will be in many ways a different world than either the time during the pandemic, or the pre pandemic, normal, picking up new skills and hobbies, that’s going to be great, that’s going to be important for you to do to learn more about yourself learn more about the world, I picked up during the pandemic, for example, the hobby of indoor gardening. So I have a lot of plants, I have a lot of lights. And that’s been really important for me. And that’s something I’m determined to keep after the pandemic, and also expand my repertoire and knowledge of how to do indoor gardening, or plans and so on. That’s satisfying, and that’s pleasurable for me. I need to find something that’s satisfying and pleasurable for you. So for example, my wife and business partner, Agnes Vishnevkin, who works with me, and Bridget helps produce the wise decision maker show. She picked up the hobby of arts and crafts. She created this craft right here, this part right here. So this is something that you have to think about, or these weights. So I’m doing more exercises right now, kind of as part of my daily routine. So these are the kinds of things that you want to be thinking about, what kind of skills and hobbies that you want to be picking up. Exercise, right, I talked about the weights, you can do exercise by yourself. And I generally do exercise by myself, or indoors. Or you can also do exercise with others and online classes. Lots of people picked up various sorts of online classes during the pandemic, and they will continue them and you might consider continuing them post pandemic. In green spaces outdoors, this is a good time, maybe you want to maybe consider still avoiding gyms, while case counts are still high. Even if you’re vaccinated. I’m currently avoiding gyms. I will probably go back to a gym. If there’s an if the case counts continue going down in the late in the mid late fall, when it’s too cold to exercise outside. Right now it’s fine to exercise outside with group classes. So consider that. And of course, if there are new variants by the fall, or there’s a high rise in case counts, I probably will not go to the gym. So that’s the kind of thing you want to be thinking about. If you’re still the pandemic, while we’re in the post pandemic recovery, the pandemic is not over. So, love. Next point, what does that have to do with? Well, that has to do with loving yourself and loving others? What does loving yourself up to do? What’s that about? That’s about self care. So what does self care mean for you? What does that mean for you, taking time for yourself, maybe taking time to read a book, maybe taking time to cook for yourself? Maybe exercise is a form of self care for you. It can actually be for some people, for some folks, you know, some folks are really motivated by that, or stretching or something like that, then this is an important thing that I want to highlight, consider online therapy, Tella psychology of all sorts. That’s going to be something that if you haven’t done that, and if you feel increasingly in a depressive state, that might be very helpful for you. Then love also has to do with others, so loving others expresses good things toward others. So strengthen existing relationships again, coping with broken relationships. Some people died and some people really discovered incompatibilities during the pandemic. And you want to focus on strengthening existing relationships and forming new ones, especially now that there’s more opportunities for face to face interaction after the as the pandemic is winding down, especially with people who are vaccinated, you can hang out with them indoors, or hang out with them outdoors, still the safest thing, but you can also hang out with them indoors. So that’s going to be great. And then consider volunteer work, you can certainly do online volunteer work, you can also do in person volunteer work with other vaccinated people outdoors and not unvaccinated people. Outdoors is fine, too, with other vaccinated people indoors is great. So consider those sorts of things. Finally, purpose. So figuring out your purpose, what does that mean for you? What is your purpose? Some people’s purpose has been quite disrupted by the pandemic itself, and they can’t go back to the pre pandemic normal. So think about the things that give you purpose, a pretty common one is family and friends, our connections to family and friends, how we feel about them, what kind of things do they give to us? What kind of things do we give to them? So this, of course, intersects with the previous one with love. So there’s a natural transition. So nurturing your family and friends is going to be an important one, then your colleagues, so helping your colleagues gives a purpose to many people, as a mentor, as a coach, as a guide, helping your colleagues in the professional setting that’s really positive and powerful. So that’s a way of getting purpose in your workplace, and then contributing to your local community. Already, you mentioned volunteering, but this doesn’t have to do necessarily, with specifically volunteering, you can be an activist of some sort, you know, get expansion for your local zoning board and allow them to build more affordable housing in your neighborhood, or maybe clean up the streets to some things about recycling, or anything like that helping help your local community maybe help you to local businesses that were hurt by COVID and organize together with your neighbors to help them out somehow. So there are a variety of ways of enriching your local community as part of seeking your sense of purpose. So again, that that exploration that love and purpose are going to be critical for you, in order to meet your needs in the post pandemic recovery or self actualization needs, which will help you cope with depression, which is surprisingly going to be an important thing to address as we’re in the post pandemic recovering despite this being a supposedly happy time. All right, everyone, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the wise decision maker show. And please click like, if you’ve liked this show, please follow us on whatever venue you’ve heard this, we have a podcast and video cast before being announced. So make sure to follow us Subscribe. That’s going to be great. Leave your comments, thoughts, suggestions, you can leave them in the show notes or email them to me directly at Gleb at disaster avoidance experts.com I’ll be happy to answer them. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this show. And there are more notes about these topics in the show notes. Alright everyone, and I hope that this episode will help you make the wisest and most profitable decisions, and we’ll see you next time, my friends.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai 

 

Bio: Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is an internationally-renowned thought leader in future-proofing and cognitive bias risk management. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-proofing consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, which specializes in helping forward-looking leaders avoid dangerous threats and missed opportunities. A best-selling author, he wrote Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters (Career Press, 2019), The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships (New Harbinger, 2020), and Resilience: Adapt and Plan for the New Abnormal of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic (Changemakers Books, 2020). His writing was translated into Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, Polish, and other languages. He was featured in over 550 articles and 450 interviews in prominent venues. These include Fortune, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, CBS News, Business Insider, Government Executive, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Time, Fast Company, and elsewhere. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training for mid-size and large organizations ranging from Aflac to Xerox. It also comes from over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist, including 7 as a professor at Ohio State University. You can contact him at Gleb[at]DisasterAvoidanceExperts[dot]com, LinkedIn, Twitter @gleb_tsipursky, Instagram @dr_gleb_tsipursky, Medium @dr_gleb_tsipursky, and gain free access to his “Assessment on Dangerous Judgment Errors in the Workplace” and his “Wise Decision Maker Course” with 8 video-based modules.

 

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