For today’s Mental Health session, we have Ms. Shivani Sharma who is going to talk about the various sources of stress and anxiety and how to overcome them.
Ms. Shivani is a Certified Practitioner, CBT, and DBT Practitioner, Life and NLP Coach. Her hobbies include tarot card readings. She has been a spokesperson in various health-related events.
Earlier she used to work in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, but now she has her own website called Rear View Wellness wherein she counsels people, conduct various workshops, and also train students.
During the pandemic, she has been a great help for counseling patients on coronavirus and its effects.
Let’s have a look at various aspects of life that we can change or modify from negative to positive.
COVID Crisis -
There are 3 key factors that help to determine the level of stress in the uncertain situation ahead of us -
First, predictability, we have to analyze how predictable the current situation is in front of us, second, controlling, after you have predicted the certain situation, comes the part of taking control over it, and lastly, we should check how important the situation is for us.
A perfect example of this is the COVID. Why?
Well, first, no one knows when or how the COVID situation is going to completely wither off from our lives, secondly, there is no permanent control over it, even the vaccines are not 100% effective, and lastly, it is important for all of us to take the necessary precautions in order to be safe and healthy.
Coping techniques -
What are some of the ways one can cope up with stress and anxiety?
Taking it Slow — One of the things that can help to cope up with stress is to take up anything you wish to watch, listen to, write, as a means of distraction.
Nothing will give you an instant effect, so be patient and take your time with it.
Understand the cause of your negative emotions, once you find out the source, you can automatically stop it from ruining your mind.
Even meditating helps a lot to overcome stress and anxiety, listening to music or dancing, do anything which makes you happy.
Negative thoughts — One can indulge in negative thoughts at any point in time. Here are some ways that can help you overcome them.
The first thing you should do is to check how realistic your negative thoughts are, sometimes we get negative thoughts that are not at all realistic but a projection of your mind.
One of the ways you can trigger your negative thoughts is by putting blame on yourself, instead of doing that, console yourself and others around you with positive words and vibrations.
You can also focus on different things, like exploring different fields of interest, for which you thought you didn’t have time earlier and now you do, this will distract your mind from the negative thoughts.
Career — Since everyone is home nowadays for more than one year, the career growth of both school-going children and college-going has been adversely affected.
However, there are ways you can help them to not be frustrated at home. For, school-going children, you can set up their routines, for studies and various activities, but try to be lenient about it.
You can also practice some activities with them at home, like, sharing food, maintaining discipline, and for fun, making cards for their friends, or grandparents.
For college-going students, try to be patient with the guidelines maintained by the government as much as you can.
It is also important to be safe and healthy, all the schools and colleges nowadays are planning to create as many online classes as possible so that you don’t miss out on anything, even the exams are happening online.
Being practical, be patient with whatever guidelines your college directors have laid on, for it is important that you don’t go out until the situation has been completely waived off.
Support — When it comes to emotional support for your loved ones, how is it that you can be there for them even during quarantined?
Through virtual reality!
As we know how advanced technology has been these days, so apart from texting your friends or family members in quarantine, you can play games with them online, video calls them, watch a movie together and chat about it on the side, provide food at their house, anything which you can do virtually and you feel might uplift their mood is best.
However, one should never forget about themselves too, so it is important that you monitor your physical and mental health as well.
It is important that you take care of your mental health and those around you as well.
These pandemic times have been quite hard on all of us, and nearly everyone has developed severe depression issues.
It is quite essential that we try to be as calm as we can, once you are calm down, you can try and create a positive vibe or atmosphere for those around you.
Since we can’t be of any physical help these days, we can try and console our friends and family virtually.
One of the best things one can do without taking a lot of stress or pressure on yourself is reading, that is why these two books are highly recommended for you to read, in order to relieve your stress — The Silent Patient and the Subconscious Mind.
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