It can all be summed up by these five things.
Need to shift your perspective? David Clayman, Ph.D., a renowned Charleston, West Virginia, psychologist, offers these ideas.
1. Each person has more control than they realize over how to handle COVID-19, but some people feel anxious because they think the current answers are too simple. The bottom line is that we can eliminate 80 percent of our risk of infection by doing simple things like washing our hands, social distancing, avoiding sick people, and staying home.
2. The key to dealing with situations like this is to find small things you can control. Plan for the fact that you might be isolated. Read. Sit on your porch and enjoy the breeze. Organize your closets. Try and focus on the positive side of things.
3. Hold family close to you. They’re the people that you have the capacity to be close to right now. You can hug them and hold their hands. There’s no one else right now that you can have that connection with.
4. One helpful exercise in coping with fear is to write your fears down and redefine them as concerns that create fear. Take this list and really think about it in a rational and non-panicky way. Place those concerns in a hierarchy and decide which ones you can do something about. The others—do your best to let them go.
5. We’re going through some horrible stuff right now, but when it’s over we will have a rebirth. We’re going to face our humanity. In order to honor the lives we will lose, we must continue to celebrate life.
posted on August 5, 2020
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