Sometimes, I feel like my brain is actively working against me. My tireless ability to find patterns and hidden meaning makes me a good researcher during the day, then keeps me from sleeping soundly at night. I dissect the moments that brought me joy in daylight, recategorizing each one as evidence of my deepest fears: The people you love most? You’ve let them down once again. Oh—and they’re all in mortal danger, and only you can save them, but you’re too busy worrying about yourself to notice.

This is the type of thinking that many of us are engaged in right now as COVID-19 brings our daily lives to a grinding halt. We’re refreshing live news updates and virus trackers as we try to balance our families’ needs with our work responsibilities. Just as soon as we find focus, another push notification demands our attention.

It’s not just you—we’re all feeling equally scattered and helpless in the face of a global crisis that’s unprecedented in our lifetimes. But after nearly 30 years of learning to tame my anxious thoughts, I’ve learned a few tricks that I wanted to share with all of you. My hope is that this might help a few of you to tread water in this unbearable pool of uncertainty we’ve found ourselves in; and please feel free to add what’s been working for you in the comments. As much as it’s been said over the last few weeks (days? months? What year is it?), knowing that we’re all in this together really is comforting.

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5 Steps to Gaining Control Over Anxious Thoughts

1. Take a step back to view each thought from an outsider’s perspective.

It’s like realizing that you’re dreaming from inside of a nightmare: Once you realize that your thoughts are entirely a creation of your own mind, you get to decide whether they become your reality. When a persistent thought is making you miserable, decide that that’s not what you want to feel, and stop the thought in its tracks. Some people literally say “Stop” to themselves or shake their heads, while I prefer the more profane “Fuck off.” No matter how you say it, what you’re doing is refusing to allow the runaway train of your mind to take you somewhere you don’t want to go. Knowing that you have that choice makes all the difference.

2. View each anxious thought as an opportunity to rewire your thought patterns.

When your brain views a stimulus and a response as connected, one begins to lead to the other. In order to disassemble these neural pathways, you have to stop your brain from making these familiar connections so it realizes that reflex is no longer useful.

Think of a behavior that’s been leading to anxious thoughts lately, and figure out how you can make it productive instead. For example: You think about a family member who would be at particular risk if they were exposed to the virus. Normally, you’d check to see how many cases have been discovered in their area, then get lost in an anxious thought spiral for the next hour. Instead, you reach out to see how they’re doing, and remind them of a few precautions they can take to stay safe.

It’s like training a dog: If you always put your shoes on right before you take them for a walk, it won’t be long before the sight of you slipping on your sneakers fills them with excitement. But if you get into the habit of putting on your shoes every morning just to walk around the house, they’ll eventually learn to calm themselves until they see you reaching for their leash.

3. Differentiate between productive worrying and ruminating.

Worrying has a purpose: It can help us to prepare for scenarios that have the potential to endanger us in the future. But once you’ve done all that you can do to influence your outcome, it’s time to shift your focus back to the present. Our minds love to pull us backwards into the past to reconsider what we could have done differently, or to push us into the future to prepare for uncertainty. But when doing so stops being productive, give yourself permission to press ‘pause’ and think about something else for a change.

For me right now, this means telling myself, “You have all of the things you need so that you can stay home for as long as you need to. You’ve reached out to your family to make sure that they’re all safe at home. You’ll donate as much as you can to ensure that other people’s loved ones will survive this, too. But sitting here refreshing the news won’t save a single life, so you might as well find a way to enjoy your health, your home, your pets, and the extra time you get to spend with your husband while it lasts.”

4. Find a task that gives you a sense of progress.

It might be as literal as reorganizing your cabinets or the files on your desktop–what matters is the reminder that you can control your surroundings, even when the world outside your door is in chaos.

My husband goes for a run or splits logs for our fireplace; my coworker follows an intricate skincare routine; a baker that I follow on Instagram leads tutorials for her followers who are eager to bake with the few ingredients they have on hand. I’ve chopped and frozen enough vegetables to ensure that we can eat food we love for as long as we’re stuck inside; and have deleted so many sub-par photos from my laptop that I no longer have to earmark $9.99 for iCloud storage each month. Next time I start feeling stagnant, I’ll start clearing a path through our woods so we can walk to the lake anytime we please, or plan the cross-country road trip I hope to take when the dust finally settles. Find a task or project that you can get lost in so that you can be grateful for the hours you’re spending at home rather than wishing you were somewhere else.

5. Get comfortable with uncertainty.

Trust me: I know how hard this is, and that this advice sounds about as useful as someone telling you, “Just stop worrying!” But here’s the fact of the matter: Even the experts on the front lines of this pandemic don’t know what the outcome will be—they can only say which behaviors will lead to better or worse outcomes over time. Staying on top of each new headline can give you a false semblance of control: For the most part, knowing the latest information won’t make you any more prepared than the next person once you’re already safe at home.

When I start feeling like I won’t be able to handle a crisis that feels inevitable, I do two things: First, I remind myself of all of the things that I’ve already endured—none of which I would have believed I’d have the resilience to not only survive, but thrive afterwards. Second, I come up with a Plan B that helps me visualize a life that’s still filled with happiness, even though things haven’t gone the way I’d hoped.

Devising a Plan B in the face of COVID-19 feels improbable: How do you put a positive spin on a reality that leaves millions of people mourning the loss of their loved ones and reeling from a financial crisis? But I can’t help but think that a tragedy of this magnitude might be the only thing that enables us to transcend our borders and political divides, to resist the magnetic pull of our daily routines, and to inspire us to take action in the battle against climate change and the harsh reality that awaits us if we don’t act now.

As our sense of normalcy and comfort are disrupted for what could be many months, let’s all look for ways to make a mental shift from individual fear and uncertainty to collective motivation to build a more sustainable and equitable future for all of us.

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