Can You Be Helpful if You Don’t Breathe?

The psychology of a safety video

I love to travel. I know it doesn’t sound quite new, but what I mean is that I love the fact of being in motion: planes, cars, trains… I love means of transport, especially planes.

In every travel I have made, the flight has always been one of the most pleasant parts. What I love the most is that I always learn something new: about geography, people’s habits, and even psychology.

It’s what happened on my last trip. I was watching the video with the usual safety directions when the speaker said that an oxygen mask is automatically provided if needed. Then I heard: “Ensure your mask is well fitted, before helping anyone else”. I had listened to this suggestion many times, but at that moment, I realized that the order was mandatory: think for yourself first.

Be helpful

We are not used to thinking for ourselves. At least, we were taught that helping others is what makes us humans. We have been taught since we were babies, that being useful and helpful is a great value.

When you prioritize yourself, you automatically multiply that, which you are able to give others, whether it is spiritual, emotional, or material.

Feeling altruistic is fulfilling; it’s a behavior that makes us feel an important brick of our community. Being the one people can rely on increases our self-esteem, with all the benefits that it brings to our mood.

Alongside the sense of fulfillment that we feel when we behave altruistically, we have developed an equal sense of guilt when we perceive not having done enough. Putting our well-being before others is perceived by many as the height of selfishness, something that goes well beyond not having done enough. And together with guilt, we feel its twin sentiment, shame.

Guilt and shame are like a one-two gut punch. We do something and feel guilty about it. Then we look in the mirror or imagine how people will perceive us, and feel ashamed for who we are. (The Best Way to Help During Coronavirus is to Stay Home | Elemental (medium.com) (by Jud Brewer MD PhD)

But why aren’t we able to take care of ourselves, making self-care a bare necessity? A study found that people crave for a balance between the need for well-being and the need to feel helpful. Why shouldn’t taking care of people include ourselves?

Think for yourself

In general, we can go back to our dualistic mentality: white vs. black, altruism vs. selfishness. We aren’t used to finding middle ways.

We need a long training to accept that sometimes there isn’t just one correct answer. It takes time to stop focusing on the two extremities of a thought. As incredible as it may seem, the Covid pandemic gave us more than a hint, as suggested by Jud Brewer’s story. The Covid pandemic taught us that sometimes, doing nothing is the right behavior, and we are allowed to think for ourselves when we act as a whole organism.

During those horrible months, we all learned that it was altruistic to stay home, to give up our lives full of commitments and interests, and to put the well-being of the community ahead of our desire for a normal life. Despite looking like a paradox, doing nothing was altruistic.

It took facing a global emergency to accept that we were required to think about ourselves, instead of acting on instict. During emergencies, indeed, we obey a superior authority. As it’s not our usual job to deal with emergencies, we trust the authority we recognize as such, and we grant it the power to determine what the correct behavior is. We accept that they tell us not to jam a mechanism that is working, so as not to become an obstacle to the well-being of others.

In our mind, an emergency is a critical situation in which we agree to waive the responsibility of deciding how to act to those we believe have the expertise to establish priorities. For example, we know that emergency room staff can determine who needs immediate assistance and who can wait without danger. Being in an emergency room is the typical situation where we switch from an I need to do something mode to a tell me what I should do mode.

Emergency medical personnel may sometimes use terms, such as” gomer” (Get Out Of My Emergency Room), to disparagingly refer to patients who they feel should not be receiving treatment or other terms that deflect attention away from the individual’s particular needs and circumstances.

It’s the same situation described by the safety video on planes: you aren’t used to dealing with planes that crash (hopefully) so put your mask on, and let the crew do their job for the safety of everyone on board.

Finding the right balance

Maybe the balance between being helpful and self-care is to understand one’s limits.

Being isolated for a lockdown, or praying for our life, shouldn’t be the only reasons why we can think that our well-being is a value, as much as others. We should train ourselves to test which is our limit, before being in such stressful situations.

We might find out that: a working day dealing with rude customers, and an epic traffic jam are enough to consume our energy until it makes us incapable of having anything else to give. We must find the point at which our mood raises the white flag, and learn to recharge our attention tank, so that we can dedicate some to others.

For example, being a mother made me feel that my happiness depended on my son’s. But, despite still being much more interested in his well-being than in mine, I understood that I could be present in his life only when I was in good health. I can be helpful to him, and my loved ones, only when I’m not facing my own troubles. How can you be useful when you need help? How can you listen to others’ problems and needs when you are carrying your own discomfort? Easily said: you can’t save someone who is drowning if you can’t swim.

So, after listening to that video more carefully than usually, I took a long comforting breath, and I made sure I could breathe well, before asking my neighbor in the next seat if they were fine.