The Russia Anxiety: And How History Can Resolve It

Product Information

It would be great if you could just say, I don’t want to engage with this Ukraine situation, because it caused my anxiety to spike,” he said. “But because of the way the world works now, you’re cutting yourself off. It’s a lose-lose scenario.” It’s natural and normal to feel anxious when we’re being faced with so much uncertainty — don’t force yourself to feel something different, Bullis said. Watch your internal dialogue and don’t judge yourself. Significant increase in anxiety from T1 ( M = 2.07, SD = 1.64) to T2 ( M = 2.64, SD = 1.82); For each unit increase in stress at T1, there was a 0.86 unit decrease in the change in anxiety

Ranging from the earliest times to the present, Mark B. Smith's remarkable new book is a history of this 'Russia Anxiety'. Whether ally or enemy, superpower or failing state, Russia grips our imagination and fuels our fears unlike any other country. This book shows how history itself offers a clearer view and a better future. Holding a mirror up to uncomfortable home truths about the fairy tale of liberal democratic progress in the West, while illuminating the multilayered nature of Russia’s past to expose the oversimplification that has dominated the popular imagination, Smith implores us to remove the lenses that frame Russia as alien, malign and, worst of all, a poor learner: the errant, incorrigible pupil in the Western classroom of historical progress who could/should have followed the “correct” course but “failed” because tyranny was in its DNA.Moderate perceived stress (18.8, SD = 4.9); Stress and anxiety increased in 71% during the pandemic; 5% of those with increased stress and anxiety received counseling; 54% of participants had a negative impact of COVID-19 on academics, health, and lifestyle

Fizzing with energy, Mark B. Smith's book explodes many myths about the Russians and compels us to reflect critically on ourselves.Khoshaim et al. ( 43) and Huang et al. ( 20) found that while problem-focused coping is common among people experiencing anxiety, it does not always guarantee the expected results. The uncertainty presented by COVID-19 and the RUW implies that problem-focused coping is insufficient as one is increasingly frustrated by new developments. The findings have practical value that can be applied in higher learning institutions. The majority of the respondents reported poor or limited coping strategies and limited psychological support as predictive factors for stress and anxiety ( 33). Of the 71% of students who reported that they had stress and anxiety, Son et al. ( 14) reported that only 5% received counseling. This emphasizes the need for building coping mechanisms for students in the post-pandemic period. Higher learning institutions have an opportunity to provide psychological services during pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic and crises such as the RUW to mitigate their emotional impact. He offers two central propositions. The first is that the Western world (not Asia, Africa, or Latin America, where perceptions are quite different) has, for perhaps 500 years, been gripped by what he calls ‘The Russia Anxiety’ – a cycle of fear, disregard and contempt. Haikalis et al. ( 19) study was the only longitudinal study in our review that compared patients’ anxiety in an ongoing pre-pandemic study with the outcomes during the pandemic. The PSS and PHQ instruments showed that students’ stress and anxiety increased with the campus being closed compared to how they were in the pre-pandemic period. The increased anxiety and stress levels in the pandemic and the war reported by the studies are attributed to multiple factors. First, the uncertainties and instabilities created by the pandemic and the war explain the rise in the stress and anxiety of the surveyed students. Cohen’s kappa statistic ( κ): 0.01–0.20 as none–light; 0.21–0.40 as fair; 0.41–0.60 as moderate; 0.61–0.80 as substantial; and 0.81–1.00 as perfect agreement [ 23].