Having trouble focusing on work? Irritable and anxious? You have pandemic fatigue — here’s what to do about it

As it turns out, surviving the COVID-19 pandemic is more of a marathon than a sprint.

When lockdowns began in March, WoodGreen Community Services faced an unprecedented surge in demand for its help.

That need never went away.

The seniors’ helpline alone has fielded as many calls in half of 2020 as it normally would in a full year, said Julia Chao, WoodGreen’s director of mental health, addictions and developmental services.

As we enter the pandemic’s ninth month, Chao says WoodGreen staff — especially those who provide mental-health services — are beginning to show signs of strain.

“The thing we’re hearing most is that there’s a sense of helplessness among the staff, of not being able to do enough,” she says. “They have to worry about their friends and family, but also the clients they support. One thing we worry about is managing burnout for those staff.”

That extra weight on the shoulders of mental-health workers is a symptom of a problem affecting Canadians in all walks of life: Pandemic Fatigue.

Whether you’re navigating the technological barriers and isolation of working from home or braving the public contact of staffing the cash at a grocery store, working in 2020 means facing a whole new set of obstacles and stress.

Lawrence Blake, program manager for the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mental Health Works enterprise gives an example of how long-term stress is fundamentally different from short-term pressure.

“I drink a lot of coffee throughout the day,” says Blake. “I can pick up that cup of coffee from my desk multiple times a day, put it to my lips. But if I had to hold up that cup over my head all day every day and only put it down when I go to sleep, I’d end up with an injury.”

In the same way, he says, we may have been ready to spring back from the acute worries of layoffs and lockdowns in the early days of the pandemic. But as those short-term pressures become the new facts of daily life, they stretch the human brain’s ability to cope.

For those facing exposure to crowds on public transport, “Even things like the commute to work have become hazardous,” he adds.

Chronic stress begins to affect the way our brains function, says Steve Joordens, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. “Less blood flows to the frontal lobe, which handles abstract thought and more goes to the limbic system which handles emotion,” he says.

This can make focusing on complex activities such as reading or planning meetings more difficult. It can also make it easier to feel overwhelmed by anxiety.

“That’s why some of us might start to feel duller at work,” he says. As stress hormones build up without their normal chance to dissipate, the quality of our work can suffer.

And that’s where you start to see burnout, says Dr. Donna Ferguson, a clinical psychologist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. It can trigger exhaustion, slow or reduced performance and increased irritability.

“People can work through burnout, but it can get to a place where you can no longer function,” Ferguson says. Left unaddressed, those symptoms can worsen into clinical depression or anxiety.

“It’s OK to have the ups and downs in terms of mood and anxiety,” she says, “But when you feel that you can’t get yourself out of that down, (then) there might be some issues you need to address.”

Many recommended treatments for pandemic fatigue are the same as any other kind of workplace burnout: Take care of your physical health, eat a healthy diet, follow a regular sleep schedule and get consistent exercise.

Know when to call in sick or take what Blake calls a “tactical pause,” even for 20 minutes when feeling overwhelmed.

Limit stressful news intake and take the time to connect with family and friends — even remotely. Set aside time to indulge in activities that take your mind off the pandemic for a while, says Joordens.

These positive habits really do have an impact, even if people tend to lose patience and begin to despair when they don’t fix their stress levels right away, he says.

“These are not instant fixes,” Joordens adds. “We have to acknowledge the stress hormone buildup — the levels of this crap in your system.”

The goal is to gradually reduce that buildup to a manageable level, he says.

The problem is, these techniques aren’t equally available to everyone. “The experience for those at risk of crises isn’t equal,” says Chao.

Not everybody can afford to work from home. And those who continue to work in public facing positions in the retail and service industries face different stresses from those who have been moved to their home offices.

“We’re failing to recognize that there are workers who are still going to work,” says Blake, “and the added burden of being anxious about their health and the health of their loved ones.”

Self-care strategies such as maintaining a quality diet or a regular sleep schedule — even taking sick days — require time, money and schedule regularity. These resources aren’t as easily available to lower-income, hourly workers who are statistically overrepresented in those public-facing jobs, not to mention personal-care and health-care workers, many of whom also face low wages and inconsistent hours, says Chao.

The result, Chao says, is that the workers at the highest risk often face the most barriers to stress reduction and mental-health care.

“Those people may not be able to afford $80 to $200 for a counselling session. They may need to choose between that and keeping their housing,” Chao says.

WoodGreen provides some free counselling services on a walk-in basis. But with staff already overwhelmed, Chao says, the solution needs to start with interpersonal support in the community — especially in the workplace.

It’s an employers’ responsibility to make work/life balance attainable for their staff, she says. This can be done by helping to structure work so that it allows time and resources for self-care at home, and also by incorporating compassionate practises into their leadership.

That may mean taking time in meetings to air out stressful feelings, or showing gratitude when workers persevere in difficult positions, Chao says.

Blake recommends that managers especially lead by example — by being open with workers about their stress and vulnerability to normalize taking mental health seriously.

Blake says he often hears from employers who say “ ‘I want the high resilience staff. How do I find them?’ And my answer is, you already have those resilient staff. One hundred per cent of us are coping with something,” Blake says.

His question to them is “What are you doing to inculcate a culture of resiliency within the workplace?”