Helpful info from the Institute for Disaster Mental Health.
View the full resource here.
Name It and Tame It
It may be helpful to pause for a moment and reflect on what you’re actually
concerned about: Are you worried that you’ll get sick yourself, or that a family member will? Or that you’ll be unable to keep working and earning money? Or that there will never again be an adequate supply of toilet paper in your local market? It’s likely that you’re worried about a combination of potential issues of varying levels of seriousness, and it’s easy for those concerns to get mashed up together into a single swirling cloud of anxiety and dread that feels impossible to handle.
In fact, there’s a lot you can do to take control of your stress. Start by breaking that cloud down into manageable parts by consciously thinking through these questions:
- Exactly what is worrying you right now? Write down a list to get your thoughts out of your head and to give them some structure.
- How likely it is that each of those threats really will impact you? You may realize that some worries are actually so unlikely that you can cross them off your list entirely, freeing up brain space to address the concerns you do need to take seriously.
Then break that list down further into categories of what you can control (at least partially) and what you can’t, and make plans for how you’ll deal with both types of concerns.