Managing Stress, Distress, and Worry during COVID-19
March 30, 2019
Over the past two weeks or so, all of my clients have discussed the impact of COVID-19 on their emotions, sleep, focus, and the logistics of day to day life. Sometimes, we have talked about the stress of sharing space in unaccustomed ways (e.g. “Everyone is working at home and the dining table is in use all the time!”), or additional tasks that need to be completed (e.g., “Everyone is home so I have to make lunch for the kids every day!” or “We had to furlough our cleaning service so we have to clean the house ourselves.”). Sometimes, we have talked about the distress caused by feeling isolated, worrying about an uncertain future, and worrying about needing to winnow fiction from fact in the deluge of information. As Scott Berinato points out in his excellent article, we are all feelings aspects of grief, which includes anxiety, sadness, and a host of physiological symptoms including sleep and appetite disturbances.
What can you do to cope? Here are some suggestions, in order of importance and impact for self-regulation.
1. Recognize that you are feeling some negative emotions, and acknowledge them. We often want to skirt around our negative feelings and focus instead on things that are going well. Let’s try to do both – acknowledge that we are sad, anxious and /or frightened, AND notice that there are still many positive things in our lives. Let us also notice that we are not alone, and our feelings are not strange or inappropriate. These are challenging times! Anyone in this situation might feel the way I do!
2. Try to maintain a regular routine of sleep/waking, mealtimes, exercise, work, and rest/relaxation. Remember Maslow’s hierarchy!
3. Try to name your emotions. If I can say, “I feel sad because so many doctors don’t have face masks and gloves,” that makes things concrete. I can “put my arms around” this feeling and this problem. Vague statements like, “I feel weird” or “this is so weird” can leave us feeling more unsettled. Naming our worries and making them concrete also helps us to recognize their magnitude and impact. This may lead us to problem solve, thus enhancing our resilience.
4. Practice gratitude – it fosters connections! Something you can do is to start a gratitude journal where you write down one to three new things every day that you are grateful for. Research has shown that focusing on gratitude can alleviate the mood.
Please reach out if you need support. You are not alone, and there are ways to make coping with adversity more manageable.
Be well!
©Wise Mind Learning
©Kalyani Krishnan, Ph.D.