Hospitals are flooded with patients as Covid-19 cases surge to unprecedented heights. Over half of all Americans know someone who has been hospitalized with the virus or has died. Small businesses are drowning. Millions are unemployed. Unemployment benefits are trickling away while Congress is in deadlock about what to do. And parents are at their wits’ end while trying to teach and work.
Could it be worse? Yes, because it’s the holidays. In normal times, that alone would be enough to overwhelm our coping skills. But this is 2020 — and on top of everything else, we have a duty to protect our loved ones despite our need for togetherness.
Pressure-cooked brains also don’t work well, sending less blood flow to such frontal-lobe executive functions as creativity, compassion and emotional regulation. Those are the cognitive functions we need in order to manage uncertainty, take productive action and remain hopeful.
But there are ways to short-circuit feelings of panic and helplessness, even in a pandemic. Here are five expert-vetted ways on how to put an end to stress and take back control.
Simply stop and breathe: There are a variety of deep-breathing techniques experts recommend, but “the best research is behind six in, six out,” Ackrill said. Take a deep breath to a slow count of six, making sure that you can feel your stomach rise with your hand as it fills with air.
“When we’re stressed, we tend to be breathing at the top of our lungs, and we’re not using our full lung capacity,” Ackrill said. “One of the important things is you want to use what is called soft belly breathing. To soften your belly, let the diaphragm descend, push out on your belly a little bit and bring the breath down into that part,” she said. Release your breath to the same slow count of six. Pause and begin again. Repeat until you feel your body relax.
Learn your triggers: The best time to practice deep breathing or other relaxation techniques is before you’re in full panic mode. That means learning your body’s telltale cues — the early signs that stress is taking hold. Perhaps your shoulders get tight, your neck tense, your stomach sours or you have the beginnings of a headache.
Make a list: There’s just too much to do — so much that your brain can’t store it all. You can feel the pressure rising as you ping-pong from one task to the other, frightened that something is falling through the cracks. Fight back by making a list of all the items on your to-do list. Separate by work, home, school or whatever makes sense for you — and keep it by your side to add each new chore. The act of getting those items onto paper and out of your head is freeing, and there is the added pleasure of accomplishment when you cross off each chore from your list.
Practice makes perfect: Of course, the best way to make these techniques a part of your stress reduction toolkit is to practice them as often as possible. In other words, make them a habit.
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