How to Manage Your Anxiety About Coronavirus

On Feb. 25, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave Americans some unsettling advice: prepare for coronavirus to disrupt your life. In light of the accelerated global spread of COVID-19, CDC officials called a U.S. domestic outbreak increasingly likely, and urged Americans to ready themselves for possibilities like school closures, remote working and self-quarantine. Those comments were a stark departure from the CDC’s earlier assurances that a worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, while serious, posed relatively little threat to the U.S., due to minimal domestic person-to-person transmission and precautionary measures like travel restrictions. (On Feb. 26, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar reiterated that most Americans are not at high risk of disease.) With many people already on edge about the virus, the CDC’s escalated advice, however prudent, likely heightened nervousness—as did Feb. 26 reports of what could be the first community spread of the virus in the U.S. Health can be a uniquely anxiety-provoking arena, says Catherine Belling, an associate professor of medical education at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who wrote a 2012 book on hypochondria (now medically known as illness anxiety disorder). “Our bodies are so incredibly, intimately close to us, but…we’re dependent on doctors to tell us what’s going on inside ourselves,” she says. “The stake...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 UnitedWeRise20Disaster Source Type: news