Experts advise imagining a better tomorrow to deal with pandemic

The virus and the economic storms it has unleashed on people’s lives have made it difficult to stay in a positive frame of mind.

When 2020 ended, many of us were cautiously optimistic that the new year would be a messiah that would start bringing back normal life. The current surge in Covid infections in parts of India, however, has drowned some of that hope.

The virus and the economic storms it has unleashed on people’s lives have made it difficult to stay in a positive frame of mind. The vaccine is our chemical weapon against the virus, but physical and mental drills have become important ancillary measures. They are our side hustles in the battle for our health.

Now, some cognitive experts and psychologists have recommended the technique of temporal distancing to find some relief in the ongoing crisis. It means imagining ourselves a few years down the road, when the ordeal would likely be behind us. Many of us do it any way, but now it is also supported by experts.

“Temporal distancing is a way to step outside of the unpleasant, immersed moment,” Anne Wilson, a psychology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, told The Washington Post. “Thinking about ways things can get better — and that things will change, you will grow, you will learn from something that’s even unpleasant — can often give you a sense of optimism and hope.”

Ozlem Ayduk, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told The Post, “A lot of people intuitively do this. It’s not this strange, weird strategy that we’re trying to teach people.”

Temporal distancing is not advised, though, for the elderly, terminally ill or hopelessly poor

Temporal distancing is not advised, though, for the elderly, terminally ill or hopelessly poor.

But it could be helpful for teenagers, according to Saz Ahmed, a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. It would require them to remind their children about something that had troubled them in the past, but which no longer did now. “Are you still upset, or do you feel fine about it? This exercise could help teens realise that what you’re going through now will also pass,” Ahmed told The Post.