Practice this every day, to strengthen your lungs.
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Many of the suggestions that follow are good practices in general, and might also serve to strengthen bonds in your family.
Many of the suggestions below are from this article by a mental health professional in Singapore. |
- Turn off screens for several hours a day to engage in exercise, reading, walking, or other pleasurable hobbies (singing and dancing work well too!).
- Increase your connection with loved ones by spending time together and expressing affection.
- Look for opportunities to engage in “random acts of kindness” that will increase our own positive feelings as well as strengthen the social fabric that binds us together as a community.
- Find support with a mentor, wise friend, medical or mental health practitioner if you find that concerns about the virus are interfering with your ability to engage in the responsibilities of daily life.
- Engage in activities that develop our equanimities (calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation), such as yoga, mindfulness, and meditation.
- Create a daily gratitude practice by journaling, noticing “three good things”, having gratitude conversations at dinner, or doing the daily Action for Happiness. Strengthen your ability to notice what is positive in your life by making a daily practice out of it.
- Recognize when our thinking is leaning towards a natural tendency to catastrophize and find a measured response that acknowledges the facts. For example, “It is possible I could get the virus, but it is not probable.”
- Assert control where it will be useful such as routinizing new social patterns of washing hands, keeping hands from touching our faces and keeping a measured distance from others when possible.
- Identify what can be controlled and implement measures to control them. Identify things that can’t be controlled and let those things go.
Avoiding Stigma
Our words matter, and so it is important to be aware of how COVID-19 is explained to children to avoid any person/group being blamed. Communicate that if someone has a fever or cough, or is from an affected area or region, it does not mean this person definitely has COVID-19.
This document from Unicef and WHO has some useful “Dos and Don’ts” regarding language. Use clear language that builds trust and creates empathy. For most people, this is a disease that can be overcome, so avoiding terms like “plague” and “apocalypse” is useful. Instead, talk about the practical measures we can take to keep ourselves, our loved ones, and vulnerable communities safe. For example, DO talk about people “acquiring” or “contracting” COVID-19. Don’t talk about people “transmitting COVID-19” “infecting others” or “spreading the virus” as it implies intentional transmission and assigns blame.
Finally, we can all aim to seek balance by not letting things we cannot control get in the way of the things we can control: connecting positively with people, keeping an open mind, being kind, and enjoying our caring community and families during the times when we are together.
This document from Unicef and WHO has some useful “Dos and Don’ts” regarding language. Use clear language that builds trust and creates empathy. For most people, this is a disease that can be overcome, so avoiding terms like “plague” and “apocalypse” is useful. Instead, talk about the practical measures we can take to keep ourselves, our loved ones, and vulnerable communities safe. For example, DO talk about people “acquiring” or “contracting” COVID-19. Don’t talk about people “transmitting COVID-19” “infecting others” or “spreading the virus” as it implies intentional transmission and assigns blame.
Finally, we can all aim to seek balance by not letting things we cannot control get in the way of the things we can control: connecting positively with people, keeping an open mind, being kind, and enjoying our caring community and families during the times when we are together.