"It's not the outbreak that creates fear, it's the heart" 9 behavioral indicators that test whether your physical and mental state is affected by the outbreak?

For a week, the media continued to report on the outbreak, the road is sparsely populated, people and children at home from home office and teaching, followed by "do not know whether two weeks later can return to normal life", "the epidemic will continue to expand" of the hidden worry.

"This persistent, repetitive, and uncontrollable chain of thinking comes primarily from negative, threatening and uncertain outcomes related to the future," says Dr. David A. Clark, a clinical psychologist, and Aaron T. Beck, a psychiatrist, in the book Anxiety Lessons For Everyone. 」

In the face of the epidemic, and the attendant "unstable" and "unsafe" anxiety, it is easy to affect people's psychological state. A report by the University of Melbourne in Australia points out that with the new corona pneumonia pandemic, it is normal for people to have a variety of negative thoughts, feelings, reactions, and if you feel that you are in poor shape or prone to ups and downs, you are invited to test your physical and mental state for the impact of the outbreak through the following 9 behavioral indicators:

• In the face of your present life, you feel stressed or overwhelmed
• You feel anxious, worried, or afraid
• Your thoughts are always fast and confusing, and you often think very eventfully at the same time
• You'll be depressed, irritable, or angry
• You feel helpless in the face of the present situation
• It's hard for you to concentrate or sleep
• You feel disconnected from others
• You are worried or worried about going to any public place
• It's hard for you to relax

If you tick 1 above to indicate that your mood is not actually subject to too much volatility in the outbreak, and if you check 3-5 items, you can try reading the following methods to help you clarify the sources of your anxiety and depression, and provide you with some solutions that can be improved.

Of course, all of the above behavior indicators, not necessarily caused by a single cause (epidemic), may be the recent changes in the living environment, or long-term cumulative results. Therefore, if you check 6-9 and have physical psychological symptoms such as combined insomnia, tiredness, loss of appetite, loss of interest or fun in life, it is recommended to seek the assistance of a counsellor or other specialist.

There is no denying that these feelings and experiences are understandable when society faces major challenges and lifestyles change rapidly (e.g., distance learning, office, and social gatherings).

However, reactions to panics often do not help (e.g., snapping up food, going to a quick sieve for peace of mind, etc.), and the more important it is to be stable and look after one's own well-being, the more important it is to understand how to relieve stress and still take calm and effective action in a crisis situation.

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4 actions you can take to create "stability" for yourself

What can be done to maintain your emotional stability and stay away from anxiety or anxiety?

In fact, when what's happening around you tends to be unknown and out of our control, the best way to deal with anxiety is to focus on what you can control, and during this challenging home-level epidemic, you can take care of your physical and mental health in five ways:

1. Learn how to protect yourself and others during an outbreak

Understanding disease helps us reduce our fear of viruses, and proper knowledge of the health care can reduce our unnecessary nervousness. You can try watching the central epidemic command center live on a regular basis every day, replacing the major media coverage, and a single source of information can reduce the irritability of chaos.

Chen Shizhong made a special statement at a recent press conference that the definition of contact is "face-to-face with the person diagnosed at the same time and in the same space without protective measures for more than 15 minutes", so there is no need for us to go to the screening nervously because of overlapping footprints. I hope you do not in order to "get peace of mind" and screening, the timing of the inspection is very important, the amount of examination can need to be released to the real needs of people, do not let our anxiety, reduce the speed of finding the real spreader.

2. Acknowledge your feelings

We can be very much the same about where you are at the moment, because no matter how you feel now, you "definitely can feel it."

Spending a little time each day paying attention and expressing your feelings, choosing to keep a diary, talk to others, or turn emotions into other "creative or stable" things, such as trying painting, music, writing, or meditation, can help us find a fulcrum in an emotional storm, allowing negative emotions to come and go in the time and space of meditation, so that you can know yourself better than to be overwhelmed by unknown emotions.

There is a very important premise for admitting your feelings, so you have to know clearly why you feel this way and where do you feel them?

If we just vaguely know, "Oh, I seem to feel a little unhappy because of home epidemic prevention", basically you have no way to really understand the reasons for your "unhappiness", because the message is too big and one-sided, making it difficult for you to overcome and solve.

Therefore, sometimes find that facing up to your feelings depends on tools, and you can try to find an outlet for the "sting" in your heart in a "5W" way.

Photo | Women's Fan Energy Management Workshop

After the wire peeling, you will find that sometimes the root cause of "worrying and anxious about the outbreak" is not caused by the "external environment", but rather by the "internal". For example, if you are dissatisfied with "home-level epidemic prevention" and "epidemic status", you feel lonely because you can't socialize, or you feel helpless because you've planned to be disrupted, or you're worried about being infected.

With the 5W approach, you can reliably find the core of the problem you need to solve and then provide your own workable solutions to the core of the problem.

Photo|Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

3. Maintain daily activities and life as far as possible

Maintaining regular daily activities can go a long way toward stabilizing emotions and creating a new life normal, returning to the very foundations of life: a healthy and regular diet, regular small-scale exercise and exercise, a steady and adequate sleep, and doing what you love to do. You know, there are many ways to help us develop new habits and maintain healthy activities, even if we are isolated at home, work far away, or study.

Now that all the work and activity space is limited because of the situation, our brains are prone to being stuck in a "no regular activity at the time". If you realize you have this type of problem, try consciously diverting attention and focusing on "what we can still do", and if you still can't think about what you can do, try the following four indoor activities that are easy to get up to:

• Buying online courses and continuing your learning habits will make you feel enough and still improving.
• Set in a period of time, read a book, read a few movies, don't let home epidemic prevention block your leisure activities.
• If you live alone and try to find your favorite Podcast, with a background tone at work and during breaks, you won't feel so alone.
• Try the interests or skills you wanted to do in the past, but have no reason to do, such as start learning to cook, play, learn a language, grow flowers, etc.

4. Keep in touch with close people

Getting the support and care of important others can be very important in improving our resilience and can try to spend time with supportive family and friends to get a sense of comfort and stability. Discussing our concerns, thoughts, and feelings with others can help us find the right ideas and ways to try them when we're stressed.

Of course, there may not be much physical contact during home isolation, especially if you live alone or separate from your partner.

But remember that physical alienation does not mean social disjointedness, and we can use other methods or technology aids to maintain contact with intimate people, and you can try:

• Talk to friends and family, messages, or video chats.
• Share quick, simple recipe exchanges (even cooking contests) with each other.
• Set up online book clubs and movie clubs so that everyone can enjoy the same kind of entertainment together.
• Retrain at home together by reminding each other and video (using fitness rings is fine).
• If you want to feel the temperature, try to spread long-lost correspondence, write down your thoughts and your worries, and take on each other's troubles.

Samuel Johnson, one of the most famous writers in British history, famously said: "The brightest flame of joy is probably ignited by unexpected sparks; 」

In the face of accidents, we can be depressed, but don't be depressed for too long; we can be upset, but don't be upset for too long, the most important thing for us at this moment is how to find the right rhythm for ourselves in the new normal life that is bound to unfold, through the dialogue with ourselves again and again, the adjustment of the state, we can maintain humor, embrace imperbidity, we can stabilize ourselves, become the power to stabilize others.

May you be hello, may we be good, and may everything be all right in Taiwan.