Why the pandemic’s end spurs anxiety

Each day in the United States, an average of 3.1 million COVID-19 vaccines are going into people’s arms. According to an April 9, 2021, White House briefing, a quarter of the country’s adults are now fully vaccinated. The pandemic is not yet over, but vaccination could soon yield a much more normal life, especially for those who have been vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, now recommends that fully-vaccinated people can visit with each other indoors and travel without quarantining.

But for many, reopening comes with its own set of anxieties. According to APA’s Stress in America polling, around half of people say they feel uneasy about readjusting to in-person interaction postpandemic.

Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and author of How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxietyopens in new window, is an expert at clinical strategies for calming anxiety. She spoke to APA about what’s driving postpandemic anxiety and how psychologists can best help.

Anxiety is driven by uncertainty. There is so much uncertainty right now, from the vaccine roll-out to society reopening to the new normal workplace to the virus and the variants themselves. Every day there is more evidence that vaccines keep us and people around us safe, but there are lingering questions about how long immunity lasts, how susceptible kids are to COVID-19, and when they will get vaccinated.

Nobody alive today has ever emerged from a global pandemic into a digital world and navigated this before. We’re making it up as we go along, so of course we’re anxious. Here at the Center, we have the longest waitlist in our 25-year history. So many people are emerging from the pandemic feeling exhausted, burned out, anxious, or depressed. Collectively, our resources are low, which makes it harder to navigate the layers of uncertainty.

The fact that reopening is a moving target makes it difficult to align with other people. You and your bubble might be ready to dine in at a restaurant or get on a plane, but the family next door might have a child who is immunocompromised and is living as they were in January. There are more variables to manage compared with before the pandemic.

Plus, social anxiety is driven by avoidance, and we’ve all been avoiding social interactions for the better part of a year. The fact that we’re all rusty is going to make us feel wobbly as we reenter.

It’s OK to say we don’t know how to do this, and it’s OK to ask people what they’re comfortable with. That normalizes the uncertainty and awkwardness, and it’s quite validating to say, “What are we doing?” or “How does this work?” It can help you feel like you are united with the other person against this larger problem, as opposed to negotiating one against the other. This is a strategy borrowed from couples therapy, where it is often highly effective.

There’s one question I’ve been getting over and over from people who struggle with social anxiety. They’ll say, “I did so much work prepandemic to get to the point where I could give a presentation or raise my hand in class.” They’re worried they’ll be back at square one when they are again in large groups. But social confidence is like a muscle. If you have done work on your social anxiety in the past, that architecture is still there. It will feel awkward at first, but it will come back faster than the first time around. As for feeling comfortable returning to everyday activities, there are dozens of points of reentry. There will be a first time on public transportation, a first time in someone’s house, a first time taking a rideshare. We’ll work our way up to large gatherings.

Just because you feel rusty or nervous doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re getting back out there. Your brain will recalibrate with experience. We all need love, support, and community. Studies show that the quality of our relationships predict our future health, happiness, and even longevity, so it’s worth it to push ourselves a little to get the interaction we all need, even if we are the most introverted of introverts.

Psychologists have a big job ahead of us. It may be hard to balance supporting and pushing our clients simultaneously. It’s important to support each individual’s comfort level and choices, but psychologists also need to notice and address life-limiting avoidance. These are anxious, uncertain times, but there is also a sense of hope and renewal. It is an honor that we as psychologists get to play a leading role.