COVID Vulnerabilities

"[Grocery store anxiety] is common across a lot of different people. Realizing that the anxiety is normal, to some degree, can help lower the intensity of it. You can remind yourself 'This is an unprecedented situation. It is normal to feel anxious in these situations. I'm not losing my mind. I'm going to be able to cope.' Normalizing that anxiety is an important thing."
"It's really hard to do other things while you're at the grocery store, but breathing [deep breathing to counteract intense feelings of fear] is one that can calm you down fairly quickly."
"If you feel more comfortable having a mask on, having gloves on, then do that. Equip yourself with what you need. And if you're in there and you feel dizzy, or you feel that you can't continue on, then just pay for  what you have and get out. And figure out another plan for next time."
"If you go to the grocery store and you're sweating, you can't sleep, you can't eat, and you're freezing upon walking in, then you know that it's impacting you. So look at how else you can do that. Can you do it online? Can you get someone else to do it? It's so important for people to know what their own realities are."
"It's all about knowing yourself, and really knowing what your limits are. And that's hard for people. We're in a different time, so it takes a little bit of different thinking and different creativity. Reach out. People always worry about the impact it's going to have on other people. But just by reaching out you can save yourself a lot of hurt and increased anxiety."
Suze Berkhout, assistant professor, psychiatry, University of Toronto

“If you feel more comfortable having a mask on, having gloves on, then do that. Equip yourself with what you need,” says Mercer. Getty Images

News of supply chain interruptions in the vital, integrated plan of moving food products and produce to market, and news of meat processing facilities having to shut down because of the number of their employees contracting COVID-19, of the agricultural industry facing problems being able to employ enough field workers to ensure they can seed crops and then harvest them, news of shortages of certain products, of export countries shutting their products from export to ensure adequate supplies are available to their own populations, all prey on people's minds during this strange and frightening time of SARS-CoV-2.

It can be difficult for most people to remain relaxed over the prospect of rationing food, of austerity measures undertaken in the face of food shortages. What could conceivably be more primary to human existence than the availability of food? Most people have experienced what it feels like to walk into a supermarket and see rows of empty shelves and it was not a pleasant sight, nor was that sinking feeling felt when viewing those empty shelves in knowing that you wouldn't be bringing home essential food that shopping expedition.

Concerns grow and become focal points for the mind to fasten itself, magnifying a problem that may or may not exist. Even while food producers and governments speaking on their behalf try to assure a worried public that there will be no food shortage, once the supply management and transportation sectors catch up with public hoarding responsible for those empty shelves. For some people the concerns are manageable. For others, even well-balanced people, the concerns only accelerate the more they read in the news media of one issue or another cropping up to complicate the new reality of a world settling in and trying to find balance in the face of a global pandemic.

Then there are those in the general population already suffering various stages of mental illness being exacerbated by worry over their ability to secure enough food to sustain life. A new survey conducted by Dalhousie University and Angus Reid, saw 64 percent of respondents saying they are buying more groceries than usual to avoid shopping as frequently as they have been accustomed to. Changing shopping habits from weekly to bi-weekly. Gauging how much food will be needed to take one over a two week period without running perilously short, in the interests of less exposure to the coronavirus.

For people already suffering the angst of insecurity, loneliness and depression, having to self-isolate leads to deeper feelings of loneliness that morph into depression. Depression raises existential fears. And the food shopping experience looms large as the battle to secure enough food while avoiding the potential of COVID infection, creating a burden of desperate fear. Fear of entering a store only to see empty shelves, crowded aisles where it's difficult to avoid contact, amid the caution required to avoid as much as possible, touching surfaces that may host the virus.

Hearts begin to race, and jaws clench. "If you're a senior or someone with an immune-compromised system, going to the grocery store is kind of like going into a war zone", observed Sue Mercer, a researcher and expert for the Mental Health Commission of Canada. People old enough or originally from other countries who immigrated to Canada with the background experience of food insecurity, or those living with conditions of disordered eating, react instinctively on the sight of empty grocery shelves. Those with limited incomes see stress from yet another perspective.

According to Suze Berkhout, a clinician-investigator at the University Health Network in Toronto, managing anxiety is paramount to managing life itself. To recognize anxiety when it occurs is critical; thoughts of fear, frustration, irritability, anger, overgeneralizing, imagining worst-case scenarios, emotional reasoning along with physical warnings such as increased heart rate, shallow and fast breathing, chest tension and weak muscles while feeling disconnected to your surroundings, are all common symptoms.

“You might be a bit nervous before you go to the grocery store,” Getty Images

That kind of reactivity needs to be dealt with to alleviate anxiety. When feelings of panic, stress or anxiety occur there are grounding techniques that can be used to halt the spiral of concerning thoughts and sensations. "They help you connect back into, 'OK. What is actually going on around me here, and how do I need to respond to it?" Inhaling over a four count, holding for a four count, exhaling and holding at the same pace, and repeating, a simple but effective grounding technique.

Imagine your brow furrowed and relax it, unclench your jaw or shoulders. "Then you can try to work with things like those worried thoughts to say, 'Is this realistic? Does this make sense?' Working with the thoughts comes once you've got more of that physical and emotional side of things a little bit more calm."

Grounding techniques “help you connect back into, ‘OK. What is actually going on around me here, and how do I need to respond to it?’” says Berkhout. Getty Images