Dear Reader,

I don’t know about you, but I’m at the point where I’ve just about stopped getting mad about COVID.

Supply chain disruptions mean you can’t get parts to fix your car? It is what it is... Another event cancelled because of the latest variant? Oh well, nothing you can do about it anyway... You wait weeks to get answers to your emails? Guess I’m lucky to hear back at all… A close contact tests positive for the virus? We’re all going to get it sooner or later…

You accept anything and everything life throws at you and carry on as best you can, because you honestly don’t have any other choice. It’s worse than being numb… it’s more like a colossal mental shrug, as if I just don’t care anymore.

Bottom line: I’m tired.

You’ve likely heard of the fight or flight response to acute stress. It kicks in when you encounter a situation that your body interprets as an emergency—that could be a physical, emotional or psychological threat. Physiologically, you react by releasing hormones that, in turn, stimulate the adrenal glands—cue the adrenaline rush. In a matter of nanoseconds, your body evaluates the threat and determines its response. Can you escape or avoid the threat (i.e. the flight option) or do you stand and fight back?

What a lot of people don’t realize is that fight and flight are just the first two stages of how your body reacts to stress. There is a third stage, and it’s the most worrisome: exhaustion.

According to Hans Selye’s findings about the three-stages of stress response (known as General Adaption Syndrome), when a person reaches the point of exhaustion, it means that they are no longer capable of fighting stress. And that makes you vulnerable to anxiety and depression.

Doctors with the American Medical Association were worried about COVID fatigue a full year ago, posting dire warnings about the need to recognize the signs and find effective coping strategies. The Canadian Medical Association was even more pointed in a November 2021 report, noting: “Although it is not surprising that more Canadians died in 2020 than in a typical year, the number of excess deaths was greater than can be explained by COVID-19 alone.”

Two years into the pandemic, we’ve moved far beyond “trying times”. Where will it all end? When will it all end? I honestly have no idea. I’m just hanging on as best I can, hoping I’m still here when the dust settles.

At least I haven’t given up hope. That’s something anyway.

 

Dawn Chafe Executive editor & co-owner dchafe@atlanticbusinessmagazine.ca