Pandemic Stress: How to Learn to Take Things You Cannot Affect
'22.05.2020'
Source: RBC
An effective remedy for anxiety in times of social cataclysms is the training of patience and endurance, writes RBC. Here are solutions that help you cope with bad news and separate the area of personal responsibility in a stream of negative events.
Any global crisis is associated with a heightened sense of anxiety, concern for the future, and the excitement that long-term efforts will not lead to the desired result. The words that each blacksmith of his own happiness and has what he deserves begin to put even more pressure on those who are vulnerable. If in difficult times you find yourself outside the security zone, then supposedly you did not try well enough. We figure out how to get rid of this cargo.
Make yourself a discount
What to do: Analyze your own shortcomings and problems that arise every day.
An effective way to calm down in an acute situation is to treat yourself with compassion and mercy: that is why psychotherapists advise turning to ourselves as to a loved one - pitying him, sympathizing and respecting. No “You yourself are to blame for everything!”, “And what did you want?” and “It could not have happened otherwise!” The fundamental point is to accept situations over which you are not in control. It is important to understand the limitations and conditions in which you exist, especially privileges and ways to achieve goals.
Say, a person with a chronic disease is always more difficult than a healthy one - a medical condition not only complicates life, but also affects costs. A person with family obligations does not live like an independent loner. A person with savings from relatives is not like someone who needs to survive from month to month. To give yourself a discount, evaluate the conditions that have complicated your life. How did you grow up? How did you find the work of your life? Why and when did you choose a job? What is your parent and own family? Do you have your own housing? Are there any accumulations? Health problems? Answering these questions, you will soberly assess the situation around you, you will understand what you cannot influence in the past and present, and the “inevitable” or “predetermined” will finally receive its concrete outlines.
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Find a control zone
What to do: To pay attention to what directly depends on you is a mood, environment, a way to spend free time.
An effective way to embrace the drifting reality around is to find the closest support in the familiar and tangible world that surrounds you. It is no coincidence that many are now more actively than usual engaged in cleaning, repair, and home improvement. To take root in one’s own living space, and not just take it as a place to sleep, is an important step towards a stable internal state. Conduct an audit of your environment, remove what is annoying or seems uncomfortable, adapt the place where you sleep, work and eat.
Another important part of emotional stability is working with your own mood and emotions. Be aware of how your mood changes throughout the day depending on specific events, messages and people, use an emotion map to recognize the shades of your conditions, or keep a special diary if mood swings impede your life.
The same applies to the environment - forced and voluntary. Among the compelled are our parental family, the colleagues we work with, our children. Analyze which people upset you regularly and who you find it difficult to communicate with. Look at your voluntary environment - acquaintances, friends and pals, past and present partners. What unites you, how did you meet, how did you part, and why did you meet? Think about the difference between a forced and voluntary environment, answer the questions about what people are present in your life and what they bring, what you lack from them. And even if there is very little free time, look from the side how you spend it on yourself and whether it brings reassurance, joy, whether it helps to recover.
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Invest in health
What to do: Set up a sleep regimen and a suitable diet, identify health problems and ways to deal with them, choose a pleasant physical activity.
In times of crisis, the body needs to be given special attention: it is our physical condition, endurance and balanced lifestyle that determine our mood, well-being and, ultimately, performance. Investments in health are also good because they practically do not require cash costs, but they can reduce some expenses.
The first thing to think about is bad habits. It is not necessary to quit nervously all the "harmful", but the amount of alcohol, cigarettes, trans fats, useless food can always be reduced without compromising mood. In this, gradualness or complete deliberate failure, which does not cause discomfort, is important.
Another free investment is a long, peaceful sleep. Not a single movie, series, book, or urgent matter is worth a couple of hours of healing sleep: think about what matters are eating up your precious night time.
The third investment is your own physical form. In 2020, in the four walls there are no objective reasons for not doing your body at all, because there are so many ways to care and care, and they are so diverse. Home stretch marks, self-massage, morning warm-up, bath procedures - it’s not necessary to jump with a skipping rope and dumbbells in order to regain the feeling of your own body. The calmer you sleep and the more often you move regularly, the less you will tend to overeat and the more likely your immunity will improve. When planning your near future, indicate the care you need — plan a trip to the therapist and dentist, think about postponed health problems (if you have a chronic illness) and come up with a strategy for resolving them after a pandemic.
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Think about money
What to do: Analyze the budget for the last year, determine the categories of necessary, sufficient and superfluous, build a strategy of savings and earnings, evaluate future acquisitions.
Pragmatically reflecting on your personal budget is another way to regain control, and at the same time win in the long run and draw conclusions from past mistakes. During an economic crisis, one of the most useful skills is to prioritize. Look at income and expenses over the past year. Which of the incomes are permanent and which are sporadic? What do you spend most of your work time on and how much do you get for it? Is it possible to make some kind of savings, and if not, what is the reason? Look at the list of items purchased and the constant cost items. What is necessary, what can you do without, what is bought as an emotional encouragement? Do you have debts and how are you going to pay them?
Pragmatic questions help to divide anxiety from the economic crisis into its component problems, to each of which a solution can be found. Economic dependence on other people, the need to financially support children and partners, the search for additional income, expenses for leisure and additional education - everything becomes transparent when it receives specific questions and a rational justification. Crisis times are not good at all, but even a lesson can be learned about a responsible approach to personal spending and consumption.
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Appreciate Autonomy
What to do: Define your zone of influence - the space that your decisions influence - and the zone of freedom where you are not limited in your choice.
Even leading a modest life, we get involved in a large number of social interactions - in study, career, family and friendly communication. All this is our zone of influence, where our actions, decisions and values spread from us to the people we face. Personal qualities affect the way we work and communicate, our everyday behavior and family life. Moreover, in the most shy introverts, this zone exceeds several dozen people.
Evaluate your own life in connection with the life of acquaintances - this will help assess the number of situations and events that would not have happened without your participation. What impact does your work have on others? Without what duties did you fulfill would a collective result be achieved? What did your actions change or influence other people's lives? Who are you thankful for becoming what you become? For whom around you are important, or maybe necessary? All this is a zone of your direct influence.
Beyond the boundaries of social life are the zone of autonomy and the zone of freedom. They are determined by how you manage your free time and build a daily routine. Your habits, inclinations and tastes, hobbies and addictions, desires and dreams. Both the zone of influence and the zone of autonomy are your fulcrum. A detailed analysis of the former will protect you from the thought that your efforts in relation to the world around you are meaningless, analysis of the latter from the fallacy that you are not the master of your own life.
