I know, you’re as tired of Covid as I am. For months, we’ve all had to deal with the constant threat of illness, layoffs, and deaths while being denied our typical coping strategies like social gatherings, eating out, and family holidays. It’s led to widespread emotional exhaustion that has a name: COVID fatigue.

Covid fatigue hurts more than our mental health. It puts our physical health at risk, too. Covid fatigue causes us to get sloppy about the precautions we know we should take like washing hands, wearing masks, and maintaining physical distance. As we enter the second year of this the exhaustion is paramount.

So What is Covid Fatigue?

Like any stressor, Covid causes our bodies to respond with what is known as the fight-or-flight response (which despite the name is four possible responses):

1. Fight (resist the threat)
2. Flight (evade the threat)
3. Freeze (become paralyzed in the face of the threat)
4. Faun (give in to the threat)

Stresses are not supposed to be...