We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, with almost the entire world under lockdown. It’s a frightening time for most of us. All we are left with is listening to the headlines and wonder “what is going to happen next?” We are not sure how deeply we all will be impacted by this hard-hit pandemic. There is common feeling of frustration, fear, anxiety, stress, anger, insecurity & even depression with everyone having one question in mind – how to relieve stress and anxiety?
Also Read: It’s Okay to Not to Be Okay! How to deal with Depression & Failures in life?
However, even during these toughest times, there are many things we can do. We can face this unique crisis and choose to manage our fear & relieve stress and anxiety.
How to Relive Stress and Anxiety- 7 Simple Ways for Minding your Minds
These are some simple and effective ways to relieve stress especially during lockdown time:
Accept the Change
We all know that Change is the way of life. And the world is changing. All we need to do is adapt to the existing circumstances. Accept change and behave accordingly. This will definitely help in reducing stress and anxiety.
Build Empathy to relieve Stress and Anxiety
It is important to practice empathy during this time, not only for others but for yourself as well. Empathizing with others has immense benefits:
- It can help us feel less lonely
- It can make us feel more connected
- It increases the likelihood of people reaching out to others and offers help
- Empathizing with others will help us regulate our emotions and manage our own anxiety during lockdown stress and be happier.
This is one of the most effective ways to relieve stress and anxiety.
Stay Connected
Stay connected to others in a time when people are practising Social Distancing, self-isolation, and quarantine. During such a time it is easy to turn inwards and focus solely on yourself and your family. On the contrary caring about others is one of the best ways to fight your negative feeling of isolation.
While you may be maintaining physical distance and practising social isolation to prevent the spread of the virus, it does not mean in any way that you need to be emotionally distant. Show your care and concern by responsibly staying connected to the people in your life by for example writing a supportive note to a friend, and increase your feelings of social connectedness.
Extend Help to Others
In the middle of corona scare and uncertain lockdown, everything seems overwhelming. In such hard and uncertain times showing empathy and engaging in helpful actions, whether it’s donating to a charity or helping the needy can be very comforting and satisfying. It will give a sense of control and empowerment in a world, which feels unpredictable and chaotic. Find tangible ways of being good and make things better for someone else.
Be Aware of your surroundings to relieve Stress and Anxiety
Pose a question to yourself as if the pandemic has somewhat affected your life. You may find yourself working from home or you are on paid leaves. You may find it difficult to manage essential items and groceries with scarce supply and long delivery times by online aggregators.
Now think about how others might answer the same questions. Many people must have lost their jobs or might be on unpaid leaves. Some maybe even continuing to go to the office risking themselves and their families to the deadly virus. Some people may be even at worse as they might be struggling to make their ends meet.
Being aware makes you more thankful to the almighty and gives you more reasons to be content and satisfied.
Be Kind to others
Take it easy on yourself and others. It is perfectly fine if you are binge-watching Netflix till late at night and end up having breakfast at 12 noon. It is also fine if your kids are playing their favourite video game for an extra hour or so. It is okay to not follow your monotonous routine for a while. It is important to understand that we can easily relieve stress and anxiety by choosing things that give us pleasure and happiness.
Also Read: Happiness is a choice, choose to be Happy – 11 ways to choose happiness today!
Working parents are struggling to manage kids who are homebound now due to the closure of schools. Those working in healthcare and finance are busier than ever. Not only are they dealing with the stress of being on the front line of a public health crisis, but they may also be struggling to find someone to watch their kids back home. We all definitely have our own anxieties, but that doesn’t mean we should lose our kindness in the face of a crisis. Everyone has his or her own coping mechanism of stress, anxiety, and fear. So accept it and be more kind to yourself and others.
Be Considerate
Sometimes it’s very easy to criticize others without making efforts to understand their situations impacting their choices. We often don’t mind freely passing our criticism of others in these times of crisis, especially those who are not taking the current situation seriously and flouting the norms. But we often overlook the facts that they may also be overwhelmed by conflicting information, and fear inflicted by the current pandemic.
One thing is sure that we cannot control how others behave, but we can control our own actions and thoughts. We can do our bit by sharing legit information related to health and motivate others to practice social distancing by being a role model to your family and friends first.
- Practice social distancing and share posts and videos of yourself reinforcing social distancing and lockdown on your social media accounts to encourage this behavior
- If you are financially stable, find means to offer financial aid to others in need
- Offer help to your neighbors especially elders who are physically constraint to move out due to their vulnerability to the current pandemic
- Don’t panic buy. Buy only in limited quantities so that others can have it too
- Do not hesitate to say thank you to healthcare workers, the police and all the stakeholders who are risking their lives out in the field
- Engage in household chores and utilize this time to bond with family and friends
- Try to complete all the unfinished business which was otherwise sidelined during pre-lockdown days
- Try to re-ignite your passion for music, gardening, dancing, reading or anything under the sun which you enjoy.
- Diligently follow the WHO guidelines and protocol as a responsible citizen
- Focus on facts and reject rumours and conspiracy theories
- You can also experiment with cooking with family & kids and be a quarantine cook.
- Get out in your balcony and enjoy simple pleasures of life.
- Focus on your health and nutrition. This is the best you can do to your body.
- Stay home. One of the best things you can do to support others is to simply stay home.
Also Read: COVID-19: Life Lessons for this Millennial Generation (Be the golden gems for the millennial generation to imbibe simple life lessons from generations before ours in time of a pandemic like this, and set an example for the coming generations after millennial)
