Taking care of yourself, your friends, and your family can help you cope with stress. Helping others cope with their stress can also make your community stronger.
Things you can do to support yourself
- Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.
- Take care of your body. Take deep breaths, stretch, or meditate. Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, and avoid alcohol and drugs.
- Make time to unwind. Try to do some other activities you enjoy. Many city parks have trails that are greening up nicely.
- Connect with others. Talk with people you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling.
- You may want to simplify cell phone messaging via mass text use. This can reduce the information overload while in emergency mode. Families and groups of friends can select a “point person” for contact . This contact number could be a designated land line in case of cell phone service disruptions.
- Have a hard copy of phone numbers (both cell and land-line) of loved ones, as well as emergency numbers.
- Make sure your ICE (In Case of Emergency) contact is updated on your cell phone.