The 7 Best Ways to Change Your Stress During the Covid-19 Pandemic

As the lockdown drags on from the Covid-19 coronavirus, even people with the highest levels of resilience are finding themselves challenged with dealing with the current stress.

Are you feeling the cumulative impact of the stress of 2020?

Stress is a demand on your body’s many internal systems. The good news is — your body has lots of stress response capabilities to come to your rescue, and help you manage your challenges.

Some stress may have a positive impact and create new growth and build resilience.

Toxic stress overwhelms the brain and body and impacts the way you think, the way you feel and the way you behave.

The key factor in determining to what degree stress is positive or destructive is the pattern of stress.

Patterns of stress are not exclusively all healthy or unhealthy, but rather fall on a continuum.

At one end is unpredictable, prolonged, extreme stress, which can cause you to feel overly sensitized to emotional swings, causing you to feel increased vulnerability.

On the other end, when your pattern of stress becomes more predictable, moderate and controllable, your emotional tolerance and resilience increases.

The pattern of stress and stress response is different for everyone.

Your response to stress is based on lots of individual factors, including your previous experience with stress, your level of resilience, and the support that you have around you.

There are lots of facets of the current Covid-19 lockdown that will impact the pattern of stress for you. The weight of stress can build up without the predictability of when the lockdown will end and when it will be safe to return to work or school, and with the loss of control and power.

There are things you can do for yourself to help prevent your increased emotional sensitization and vulnerability and become more tolerant and increase your resilience.

Here are seven (7) things you can do to increase the structure and predictability in your daily schedule, which will help your increased tolerance of your stress and your resilience.

1-> Maintain a daily schedule and structure. It may be easy to let your daily schedule and routine become disorganized during the lockdown. The time you get up in the morning, your meal times, exercise times, etc. all matter in terms of managing your stress. The more you can stick to your daily schedule and routine, the better you’ll be able help your stress response.

2-> Purposefully deepen connections with family and friends. For some “social distancing” is counterproductive to managing stress. “Physical distancing” is necessary for good physical health during the pandemic, but socially you need to stay connected! Deepen your connections with your safe and trusting relationships. Within your household, this also includes encouraging family dinners and other meals.

3-> Limit access and exposure to media and social media. Here’s a news flash — the media and social media are in the business of triggering people and exacerbating stress for profit. With ubiquitous technology and information overload on smartphones, it’s best for you to do whatever you can to limit your exposure to these toxic stressors.

4-> Care for your body. Get consistent sleep and exercise. Your stress response system connects your brain and body. Without your brain and body getting its proper sleep and exercise, you may become more sensitized and feel more vulnerable. Also, be mindful of your food intake. There are low-stress foods and meal plans you may want to consider to help build tolerance and resilience.

5-> Reach out to help others. Connecting and helping others, even others outside your own family and friends, can help your stress. When you extend yourself to help others, there are calming neurochemicals (oxytocin, for instance) released in your brain that will help regulate your stress response.

6-> Positive, future focused, thinking. Much of your stress is how you think about your stress. Yes, your thoughts are the biggest nemesis to your stress. Any type of positive “re-frame” of stressful thoughts (expressing gratitude, for example) can help calm the parts of your brain enflamed by your stress.

7-> Journal When stressed, emotional energy can get caught up in your body. Being able to express your thoughts and feelings through journaling — daily writing, drawing, doodling, and coloring — has been proven to be very effective in releasing trapped stressful energy.

Change your stress, change your life!

Increasing your emotional tolerance and resilience will help you bounce back from the current extreme stress and help you grow stronger to face any future challenges.

Need help on your journey to changing your stress? Here’s a FREE Daily Stress Log to help you get started!