Helpful info from the Institute for Disaster Mental Health.
View the full resource here.
Change What You Can
Once you’ve identified your primary sources of stress, tackle the things you actually can alter. You may realize that you can reduce the impact of concerns in this category by implementing problem-focused coping strategies. That may involve a kind of second-level approach: You can’t control whether your kids are sent home from school for an extended period, for example, but you can control whether you have a plan to deal with childcare if that occurs.
So make that plan, and then make a backup plan for your original plan – and let it be okay if those plans are not perfect, because they won’t be. But in times of stress or rapid change it’s a lot easier to activate a pre-existing strategy than to develop one on the fly, so it’s worth some mental preparation to really think through potential demands in advance so you’re not caught unprepared when they suddenly arise.
You’ll probably find that simply having those plans in place gives you sense of control that reduces some anxiety about these particular concerns.