Managing COVID stress
Patrick Melville, founder of Melville Mental Solutions, explains the right approach to deal with stress caused by the epidemic.
What does managing COVID stress mean to you? Have you ignored it, or thought about it?
Asking these questions is a good start. For me, it’s a strong way to remind and educate everyone about the need and power of positive mental health.
I am sure you, like others, will ask questions about it – What does it mean? How do I use it? My answer is in the word I have already mentioned: “Start”. Well done for thinking about, the next step is to continue looking into it further. Mental Health needs to be part of our daily life. This can be asking yourself "how am I?", "how am I dealing with the negative news and forecasts around us?"
If you are ‘I am ok’ (or more positive) that is good to know. Make sure you acknowledge the question, but take more time to give examples – you need to be honest with yourself. How do you feel? What are your worries? If you are still ok – then make sure you celebrate it! Then, move on and continue to top up your Mental Health Resilience. You never know what will happen tomorrow. Your Mental Health Resilience will help you cope with whatever happens – positive and negative.
COVID Changes and Re-living Stress
Let me give you an example: I had a tough week last week in a couple of ways. Firstly, I re-lived my cancer experience. It was brief but strong - I was speaking to someone whose family relation now had the same tumour as me in 2017: brain tumour, Stage 4, Glioblastoma. Just in the 1 hour chat I re-lived a lot of the feelings that I experience: loss of control of life, no future, lack of certainty, worry, anger and sadness – all swirling around. A lot of these I had forgotten and left behind me.
Then later in the week I was suddenly told one of my current job roles had been reduced. These added to each other.
But thankfully – I had my Mental Health Resilience ready to manage this. I was able to cope with my mind trying to take over and give all the answers, and focus on the real causes and how to move on.
I took away 2 learnings:
This is life and it’s ok to have stress – I need to manage my stress and use my Resilience.
My mind does not have all the answers and I need to find possible answers through sharing with my contacts.
So, my Mental Health tip for this week, and always: make the time to top up your Mental Health Resilience with or without my workshops.
I have also been interviewed in a podcast - you can listen to it here, thank you Dawn Fiske: Episode 71 - Special Guest - Patrick Melville - Mental Health Expert here
I'll end by giving a tip how to build your resilience now: find a song that makes you smile; and play it after reading this. Here is one that I love in so many ways - : the power of music, the enjoyment of the ‘Now’ when listening, the sharing the experience with you children, the meaning of the lyrics, I can play it and sing it with my daughter: