Faced with difficult life situations, adverse circumstances and times of crisis, it is important not to get stuck in a negative thinking loop or stuck in an attitude unfavorable. There are many tools to contribute to psychological well-being, such as the ones we expose below.
In this Psychology-Online article we tell you how to be positive in times of crisis, to better face the difficult situation and emerge stronger from adversity.
Faced with complex situations and challenges that arise throughout our lives, we can feel emotionally affected. If we also have to deal with the situation in solitude (confinement at home or a place designated by the health authority), it is easy for us to be emotionally affected. Moments of crisis surely favor the presence of feelings of weakness, doubts and a certain degree of emotional affectation.
The sources of information (contradictory, catastrophic, critical) tend to intoxicate us and cause feeling of fear or at least making us doubt ourselves and our ability to cope. If there is also a previous situation of some degree of emotional, psychological or behavioral affectation, prior to the state of crisis, the isolation to which we are faced and with an a priori duration of uncertain duration, is easier than risk factors of
Especially if we cannot enjoy leisure outside, boredom along with loneliness make the consumption of information is skyrocketing: internet, mobile, television, among others, a situation that we must control. Among others, we must look at the following important aspects:
- Staying informed, but with caution, because in excess it is counterproductive, in addition to generating great stress.
- Choose a reliable and secure source of information (Unfortunately, the information is enslaved to the sources that generate it: to ensure publicity, income, audience, etc., and they are not even innocuous, in ideological terms).
- We should try to avoid written contact and encourage more physical contact with others: the telephone, the image –if possible- (seeing and being seen by loved ones reassures both interlocutors).
- If we are overcome, despite everything, they exist health resources (business, public health, mutuals) that help to locate problems, objectifying them, in their true dimension.
- We now have a good opportunity to resume those activities that we have been postponing for a long time and, for which we never found a few minutes (readings, although it is difficult to concentrate; write and capture their own impressions; order, as far as possible, the environment: clothing, trousseau, furniture..., some physical activity, as far as possible).
- Be aware that we have faced other problems life and other crisis situations. We must not forget that we have never been outside dangerous and threatening situations for our health, both as a species, or as specific individuals. We have all been through and are doing so frequently with threats that threaten our physical or behavioral health (work problems, situations unfortunate economic situations, emotional breakdown situations, loss of close loved ones and those we still miss and it hurts just thinking about it - or forever-).
- We don't have to add an extra burden to stress that we already live daily.
How to face the crisis situation that we are experiencing? We have to adapt in a healthy way, thinking about our own survival. Since the news channels overwhelm us with negative data, huge untested hypotheses, speculations poorly documented and, for which, it is fair to admit, sometimes we are not trained to assess. In this regard, we need to take some precautions:
1. Become aware of thoughts
We know that the natural tendency of the mind is to be distracted, even at work or in academic activities. (following our flow of thoughts, reverie: with the holidays, with the end of the year, with the summer next. But even in a situation like this, it is easy for us to stay focused on negative thoughts. (illness, death of loved ones, own survival, evolution of the economy and of our neighborhood and group of friends). We know this from the situations of terrorism or the cold war (we thought that we could all be indiscriminate victims). For this, it is very useful to learn exercises of mindfulness.
2. Maintain social contact
At that time, let's avoid "tunnel effect" or narrowing of vision, loneliness. To do this, let us contact others in the way that we can. Social contact has many benefits.
3. Work on our resilience
We must build our resilience through our own thoughts, avoiding that negative bias and looking only at the pernicious in front of us, forgetting everything the rest. For this we must build our resilience, our ability to cope:
- Focus on solutions positive that exist and are there (and if we cannot seek help from truthful sources), thus trying to calm down and see beyond the immediate (eg: not only the number of deceased and affected, but also the number of people who survived the episode).
- Take a break (if one is confined, it is the ideal time) and mentally move away from the problematic situation (we must avoid thoughts of the type: if he / she had / had done or taken such or which decision in a previous moment, we would not find ourselves like this now, among other things because it does not give us an adequate explanation, since we lack perspective temporary).
- Even maintaining the isolation and physical distance proposed by the authorities, we can try to create a minimum degree of social cohesion with the environment, through an attitude of contact with our neighbors (2 meters away, according to the authorities), family, friends (well to support those on the front lines of the fight: health workers, law enforcement, maintenance and cleaning, food providers and services, volunteer services, religious –believers-, providing aid –economic or in goods to support organizations socioeconomic).
- Let's avoid participating with a negative, defeatist, destructive critical attitude (eg: everything is badly done, they are useless... "they" have their backs well protected. It will generate more stress and it will not help us in anything positive, but quite the opposite. In the following article you will find how to de-stress.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
