How Relaxed Awareness Can Help With Post-Pandemic Anxiety

If you’re nervous about the reemergence of a full social calendar, here are some ways you can gradually adjust

The United States is well on it’s way to have a summer filled with social gatherings, especially since the CDC declared that most fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in many settings. Vaccination protects not only individuals themselves, but also those around them. As a result, cities like Washington, DC and New York City have unveiled full reopening plans starting this month. While the announcement leans on sound empirical evidence of the effectiveness of vaccines in people who are not immunocompromised, it still left many with mixed emotions. Which makes sense. Some people may understandably feel cautious or hesitant to throw away their masks. Also, over the course of the last year, many of us have gradually adjusted to living in a way that didn’t come easily. In order to combat a deadly virus and keep our loved ones safe, we were required to physically distance ourselves from most everyone for more than a year, a cruel irony for a species that is wired for human connection and has an inherent need for social bonds. This period of isolation has been extremely difficult for many of us.

Child development research clearly delineates how deprivation of social contact at an early age is linked to alterations in brain development, which can impede a child’s ability to develop positive attachments…