HMN 2025: Mindfulness and the Post-Covid Brain: Mind, Monkeys and Mud

Source: DALL-e Author

This is the third of four surprising and underappreciated posts about the existence of suffering hidden beneath the cover of a stroller, an umbrella term for “Post-COVID.” For quite a few of us, the sound of the New Year’s bambino is a confusing mix of physical, emotional, cognitive and attentional symptoms that defy easy explanation. In the first two posts, we identified and validated the most common aspects, working through the widespread understanding of how long-term resolved viral infections can boost our immune systems into overdrive.

Let me explain a few more words on this topic (sorry) and look at how these strange and sometimes disabling phenomena can hinder the functioning of a mindfulness practice. Then we’ll turn the kid over (whee!) and look at how to manage meditation while in a sticky state. I will resort to a metaphorical seesaw familiar to meditators: the spectrum of distractions that interfere with the smooth navigation of the mind in the practice of sitting meditation. Let’s think about monkeys and mud.

(My inner self) Planet of the Apes

At one end is the so-called “monkey mind.” The areas we focus our attention on – breathing, gratitude, etc. – go all monkey with typewriters with extra input to get us off track. These distractions may include:

• These are the main physical inputs resulting from the post-Covid-19 symptoms themselves, such as joint pain, heart palpitations, various fatigue due to a recent night’s rough sleep, and mood changes that often include anxiety and depressive effects. Particularly disturbing are the cognitive struggles. They have difficulty sticking to a single goal or a set of intended goals for observation and returning to attentional planning when the inevitable lapse in attention occurs. This is an error in “executive function” that can damage the smooth flow of “monitor-lost-recover and monitor”.
• Then there are secondary effects. It is usually a judgmental response to a struggling mind. Judging harshly a hard day on the cushion is already a meditative challenge. Our reactions to the basics listed above can be even more disconcerting: momentary irritability, anxiety and fear of early-onset dementia, anger over the unmasked drug that made me cough all over my colleagues on a plane three years ago. (But enough about me.) It can be difficult to sit calmly while trying to lure a monkey back into the jungle or cubicle. Hmm, maybe bananas.

landslide!

On the other side of the attention struggle is not a mind seething with an ape, but mud, sludge, and pea soup. Again, meditators know that this “ignorance” is an inevitable experience in many sitting meditations. Rather than the intensity of mental phenomena, attention appears to be slowed down or even blocked.

• Here, the intense fatigue of the post-corona state builds on calm clarity and makes it easy to become sluggish. Cognitive “fog” makes it difficult to raise your attention enough to notice the state and take action to regroup, settle down, and re-engage. It requires a little physical and careful juice, which ordinary emollients for mud cannot use.
• Like the monkey mind, the reactions to struggle on the jungle gym can also work in a mud puddle. In the case of a tune-out, it may seem impossible to even continue. Goodbye to the playground; Meditation turns into nap time. Of course, being practical may be the best approach.

What should we do about post-viral booty sports on mindfulness? We will discuss this in Part IV. Spoiler alert. Consider it a cautionary lesson in radical acceptance of (difficult) moments.

* Please be careful with babies riding on the seesaw. PSA of the day!