Do you remember how you felt on March 19, 2020, when Gov. Gavin Newsom declared the stay-at-home order because of the COVID pandemic?
My guess is that you were pretty stressed.
I remember wanting to get to the grocery store, and for some reason, one of my first thoughts was that I had to get dog food before the store shut down.
It turns out that it was a needless worry since pet supply stores were declared “essential.”
But the stressors piled up around town. There were dilemmas for people.
How am I going to get Lysol? How am I going to balance working at home and managing the children? What am I going to do now that my business has to shut down? And where am I going to buy toilet paper?
There was stress aplenty.
Chantal Donnelly has written a post-pandemic book called “Settled,” with the intriguing sub-title: “How to Find Calm in a Stress-Inducing World.”
A South Pasadena resident for 20 years, Donnelly is a physical therapist with a master’s degree from Mount St. Mary’s, where she had a part-time faculty position.
She was a great person to talk to about stress during the COVID pandemic because her background provided a lot of insights into what many of us were going through.
“For the first time, in a long time, there was a collective experience of stress,” Donnelly said.
“In some ways, it was enlightening. We can understand how smaller stresses are affecting us. It cast a big spotlight on our body when we are under stress.
“There was financial insecurity; a shifting of the work space; and an environment where the role of the parent got blurred with the role as a breadwinner. Those boundaries blurred. Lunches were being prepared while parents were also preparing for a Zoom meeting.”
But there were some positives, Donnelly notes. For instance, people didn’t have to commute to work. Some people, like Donnelly, like to be “homebodies,” and it gave them a chance to slow down, or to do things like Donnelly who used the time during the pandemic to do research on her book.
Her son was in high school at the time, and she could observe how the shutdown affected pre-teens and teens.
“A teenager’s job is to be social. That’s how they explore the world,” Donnelly said.
“It’s a warped way for it to be just through social media. At least, with FaceTime and Zoom, you felt like you were face-to-face.”
Donnelly said that many people still have not recovered completely, and memories of what we went through are still causing us stress today.
Remember how during the pandemic, we had to stand six feet apart behind markers on the floor? I know small business owners who struggled mentally as well as financially during the shutdown. Some of them discovered that the loyalty of customers and an increased emphasis on online promotion would carry them through the pandemic. Others still worry about losing customers to Amazon.
Friends of mine who have had the flu recently immediately tested for COVID. Then, when the flu continues, they test again. That’s additional stress. Imagine the additional stress that a mom feels when her child has a fever.
“I don’t think we’ve recovered entirely,” Donnelly said. “We’ve pushed some things aside to get back to the life we had before and that can affect us.
“People who promised themselves they would not go back to the way they were before are already finding themselves in a harried life again.”
The effects of stress can lead to health issues such as sugar regulation, diabetes brain fog, aches and pains from inflammation, or insomnia.
Donnelly noted that stress can also be good for us in that it boosts the immune system and helps us to be more focused and alert. It gets more oxygen to the lungs. It’s when we reach what Donnelly called a “fork in the road” that we need to watch out.
“Some folks get to the fork in the road and continue to meander down the ‘stress will help you’ path. Others veer off in the direction in the direction of ‘stress is too much and will hurt you,’” Donnelly wrote in her book.
Certain times of the year — such as tax time — cause what Donnelly labelled “stress-stacking,” in which stress overwhelms us. Already overwhelmed with things that cause little stressors, there comes a tipping point where good stress, which causes us to be motivated, can reach a tipping point.
Donnelly’s book “Settled” explores that a settled nervous system lives in the body. She concluded that body-up approach and body-based tools are often keys to managing anxiety. She said, in describing her book, that it is essential to recognize when your stress is helpful and when reactions aren’t helpful.
“Learn to listen to your body so you can reap the benefits of stress while minimizing its negative effects,” she writes.
Donnelly provides readers of “Settled” with tools to cope with stress. She provides what she describes as “gentle ways to settle the nervous system.”
I’d suggest reading the book, which provides so much more detail than I can fit in this column. Her book is available on Amazon and at the South Pasadena Public Library.
“Go easy on yourself,” Donnelly writes. “Don’t stress about de-stressing.”
Donnelly said that the holidays are a time when there is often a lot on people’s plates.
“We try for perfection,” she said. “Get rid of perfection. Maybe get rid of some of the routine. It’s a time to ask for help and perhaps not do everything so perfectly. Get some of the stuff off your plate until January.
“Maybe instead of making dinner every night, order dinner in once a week. Maybe you decide you won’t reach all your work goals for December, and put some of them off until January. Maybe some employers can take some things off the plates of their employees until January when employees can be more productive.
Donnelly laughingly described herself personally as “Ed Donnelly’s wife.” Ed Donnelly is the president of the South Pasadena Tournament of Roses Committee. He is involved in many community activities and election efforts.
She is also a mother who knows the stresses of school on today’s students.
“A big problem is kids are pressured by parents and the school district in a way that is not healthy for their nervous system. Teachers’ nervous systems are overtaxed. Teachers not getting compassion. You can’t expect calm when people are all stressed out.
“You can’t think when you are in that nervous state. We want kids to take a test to get into an Ivy League school. The nervous system is so taxed, that kids’ cognitive abilities are completely off line. Then you wonder why kids are watching three hours of YouTube videos. They are escaping.”
I still stress about COVID. I took a plane trip last week to Phoenix for my dad’s funeral. On the plane, I was the only one wearing a mask. I have a weakened immune system, so I was being cautious. It stressed me out when I imagined getting looks from my fellow passengers.
Maybe they were stressed out too — just being reminded of that time four years ago when we all really had a collective reason to be stressed.
First published in the March 22 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
