Transitioning from Lockdown

Expect the Unexpected

That sunny morning in early summer, I felt on top of the world, at ease, and better than I’d felt in years. Walking through Lincoln’s Inn Fields towards the end of my usual commute, I was awake and alive and the world appeared in technicolour. I had a spring in my step and a sense of being invincible. I was more than ready to reintegrate into the “real world”. I turned right at the corner after the Seven Stars pub and consciously strode down Chancery Lane towards my office with a smile on my face. So how on earth did I find myself lying in an ambulance, struggling to breathe, with a heart rate going through the roof less than twelve hours later?

In the two-week period before, I’d attended my second Vipassana; a ten-day silent meditation retreat. These retreats are held in peaceful surroundings but under strict conditions. You are served simple, healthy food cooked at regular times and there are short periods of exercise which are limited to gentle walks within the territory of the retreat centre. The rest of the time is spent either in meditation or sleeping. Communication with others is not permitted; even eye contact and gesturing is prohibited. There is no access to reading and writing materials nor to any electronic devices. This leads to a withdrawal of the senses as you move into stillness.

A friend came and picked me up from the ambulance parked outside Kings Cross and took me back to their home to rest. I was completely wiped out for the next 24 hours after which time I made my way to the surgery for an ECG to check the rhythm of my heart. The paramedics had not made a diagnosis, my symptoms ticked the boxes for a panic attack but I had no history of panic attacks or anxiety and that day I’d felt anything but anxious. The ECG came back normal. Nothing made sense.

Ultimately, it was my GP who pieced together what had happened. Luckily, he’d enquired about my recent activities in the run up to the incident. And I was fortunate that he was a Hindu meditator which meant that he had an understanding of the environment I’d transitioned from. He concluded that the impact of a normal, uneventful day of commuting and working in London after a period of meditative stillness had caused a high level of the stress hormone, cortisol, to be released from the adrenal glands into the body. The amygdala, part of the brain which is involved in evaluating the environment and initiates the flight or fight mechanism, had perceived a threat. Scientists believe that this can be a reflexive response which can occur before we are even consciously aware of the threat. So even though my conscious mind didn’t sense any sort of danger that day and I didn’t feel stressed, by six in the evening, my sympathetic nervous system had kicked in and I was unexpectedly in flight and fight mode. The problem was, that although my body was now ready for some serious action to deal with a perceived life threatening situation, I happened to be sitting on the tube. The only move I could make, as my heart pounded and I struggled to catch my breath, was to cut my journey short at Kings Cross and get medical assistance from the station staff. Looking back, there were warning signs. Around lunchtime I’d felt an odd tightening sensation in my chest and a general sense of discombobulation which increased as the afternoon wore on. I’d chosen to ignore it. After all, I was back from retreat and feeling great, ready to get stuck back in. And frankly, not only did it not make sense to me, acknowledging these sensations was simply inconvenient.

This may seem like an extreme example of a reaction to a transition. However, the point I want to emphasise is that we would be complacent to think that an emergence back into the world from a period of lockdown will necessarily be bump free. Just because we’ve lived life and gone about our business in a certain way for years or even decades, does not mean that we can expect to slip straight back in. I was on retreat for 10 days. At the time of writing, the UK has been under lockdown for 52 days and some of us have self-isolated for a period prior to this. In the same way that we’ve had the opportunity to witness in exquisite detail the daily changes to our environment as we’ve moved from the tail end of winter through to the blossoming of spring, we must understand and tune in to the fact that we’ve changed both physiologically and psychologically during that same period. During the lockdown, the entirety of our skin cells have been replaced at least once if not twice, our taste buds have changed around five times over, and about fifty percent of our blood cells will have regenerated. Neuroplasticity means that our brain will have rewired to adopt our new lockdown related behaviours and lifestyles. You are not the same person coming out as you went in.

There is an energy and intensity to city life which can be social, exciting and intoxicating but which is also inherently stressful and demanding. Time away may have resensitized us and it is possible that pre-lockdown day to day activities and human interactions may initially constitute an overwhelming assault on the senses.

For example, you may start to notice that the first conversations you have face to face with people after lockdown have a more profound impact on you. You may feel their words reverberating with you for days afterwards. You may be far more aware of the amount of energy you expend on activities and interactions that you were not aware of before. You may normally have a gung-ho attitude and be relishing the prospect of the new freedoms on offer but there may be a niggle of trepidation about leaving the safe space you have created. You may not have been in any form of vehicle for the past few months and a short car journey to a garden centre may feel like an epic journey to an exotic location and elicit a nervousness.

We have all had different versions and degrees of lockdown depending on our circumstances. Hopefully, we won’t end up in an ambulance. But I’d like us to be gentle with ourselves. Take things slowly and gradually. Listen to and respond to what our bodies are telling us no matter how subtle, unusual or inconvenient it may seem; they are a source of infinite wisdom. If you need to cut short your meeting with a friend, an excursion or a commute and are in a position to do so, then do it. If you need to come back to your safe space and can, then do it. The invaluable checking in and support from family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and work places during the period of lockdown needs to continue or even increase during the transitional period. We must try and carry on with those activities that stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (also known as the “rest and digest” response), from tai chi to yoga, from walking the dog to spending time in nature, which all serve to put the brakes on stress and promote calm and a sense of wellbeing.

So, if weird things start to happen to you, pause to consider whether your reactions could be normal physiological responses. Seek out support. The chances are that you will not be alone. We’ve had a collective period of self-reflection and a glimpse of our own mortality. And when all is said and done, perhaps many aspects of the old normal were never really serving us as well as we’d led ourselves to believe. There is an opportunity to channel the subtle and not so subtle shifts in our sensitivity and awareness to create something better.

Expect the Unexpected

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