World events boost anxiety levels, psychologist says
A clinical psychologist says a number of world events, including the emerging coronavirus, are contributing to an overall increase in anxiety levels.
Simon Sherry, who is also a professor in Dalhousie University’s department of Psychology and Neuroscience, said anxiety concerns abound in early 2020.
“Certainly the virus you mentioned, Kobe (Bryant)’s death, Trump’s impeachment, more locally the Desmond inquiry - there’s a lot of doom and gloom at the start of 2020 when it comes to widely discussed media topics,” Sherry said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
“We are undoubtedly living in an age of anxiety. We’re seeing generational increases in anxiety. In other words, from generation to generation, we’re seeing anxiety levels rising with the heights of anxiety being observed in today’s millennial generation. It is alarming. You could argue that poor mental health is becoming a new norm for us in Canada. That it’s becoming statistically normal to have poor mental health in terms of identifying stress, anxiety and depression being a problematic part of your everyday life.”
He said roughly one in four or one in five Canadians will have a diagnosable anxiety problem at some point in their life.
In addition to people who are above a diagnostic threshold for something like generalized anxiety disorder, there are also those who have what he called “sub-clinical levels of anxiety.”
“Those individuals are at ultra-high risk to go on and transition to having a fullblown anxiety disorder,” Sherry said. “And their symptoms - the sub-clinical symptoms - are also associated with significant distress and impairment."
He suggested that social media can likely be considered part of the problem.
“I think with social media, too - and this gets back to the coronavirus, the Trump impeachment and the like - there can be a sort of digital distortion that occurs whereby social media disproportionately gives us a doom and gloom, dreadfilled view of the world.”
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, said he’s well aware of the effect social media has had on spreading fears related to the coronavirus.
“The social media coverage of this and the amount of
information and the accuracy of information is an issue,” he said on Wednesday.
“I think it is feeding into this creating a perception that this is a much bigger issue than it really is.”
To help alleviate public fear, he is reminding people that the virus has not spread significantly outside of China.
“In Canada, we’ve had three cases, but there’s no indication at all of any spread of this virus within Canada at this time,” Strang said.
According to the New York Times, several nations close to China have reported cases, while farther afield, there are five in Australia, five in the U.S., and four each in France and Germany.
“For Canadians, the only risk is if they've recently travelled to that part of the world, or have been in direct contact with somebody who has travelled and is sick or direct contact with a confirmed case,” Strang said.
Public Health Canada has tracked all those who have had contact with the Canadian cases, he said, and made sure they follow the recommendations of staying home, watching for symptoms, and if they appear get into the health system right away.
He said it's important to follow credible information sources to counter unfounded ones that foster anxiety.
Sherry suggested people should actively choose to replace problematic screen time with something else or look to more positive uses of it.
“Mindlessly scrolling through Facebook doesn’t do much to promote mental health, but if your screen time involves building a community or interacting with other people, or even something paired with physical activity, that’s much more positive use of screen time,” he said.
“We now live in a world with an awful lot of perceived pressure to meet unrealistic, lofty expectations. It’s never been harder to keep up with the Joneses than in 2020, and that itself is conducive to a lot of anxiety. So we have to look at these personal and social values as well as these wider socio-cultural factors as likely culprits in this rise of anxiety.”