Angst in Quarantine: Five Ways For Lawyers To Cope With An Already Stressful Life

Before the pandemic hit, lawyers were suffering extraordinarily with anxiety and depression.  Anxiety can cause depression over time.  What profession has more anxiety than the profession that is defined by the role of handling the biggest problem in so many clients’ lives?  Indeed, 46% of 13,000 lawyers in a 2015 study reported having suffered from depression, and over 60% had serious problems with anxiety. 

Enter the pandemic.  Now that many of our normal tools for processing the anxiety we face are on hold, we are experiencing so much more difficulty with our mental health.  Quarantining has been shown to cause PTSD in 28.9% and depression in 31% of 129 people studied.  Over twenty studies have documented that quarantined people developed symptoms of low mood, anxiety, and depressive disorders. One third of Americans reported that COVID-19 has had a serious impact on their mental wellbeing.