Transitioning back to a maskless society brings some people anxiety

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people don’t have to wear a mask in most settings if they're vaccinated and many businesses no longer require them indoors. But as we transition back to a maskless society, people are feeling anxiety with the changes. 

“This is a real thing. The lack of mask in public, it causes anxiety," said Dr. Max Wachtel, a forensic psychologist based out of Aurora.

We’ve become accustomed to a lot of strange things throughout the pandemic, like working from home and talking to people over Zoom. We've grown so used to wearing masks that it will take time to mentally transition back to normal. The Governor, State Health Department and CDC all say you don’t have to wear a mask anymore in most places, but changing the mindset could take a bit of time.

Dr. Wachtel says that some of those small habits are going to be hard to break, just because we’ve been doing it for so long. So at first, it might be really uncomfortable.

"Mentally it’s going to be tough to turn that switch off. We’ve been very careful, very socially responsible for a very long time,” Dr. Wachtel said.

He also said that it’s going to be really tempting to shame people, either because they are wearing a mask or because they aren’t and that’s something that we’ve got to stop.