Stress Management During COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction (5 minutes)

• Ask everybody to wash their hands with soap, or disinfect them using hand sanitizer.
• Introduce yourself, explain what you do and give the name of the organization you are working for
• Ask the participants to introduce themselves
• Explain the objective of the activity and what you will be doing today

Main activity (70 minutes)

Part 1 – Brief explanation of what is COVID-19 (5 minutes)

• Ask: Can someone explain what is the COVID-19?
• If someone answers, make sure that his/her answer is correct. If not, give the correct definition (see the definition below).
• If nobody can answer, explain that it is an infectious disease, caused by a newly discovered virus named coronavirus and the disease it causes is known as COVID-19. It was unknown since the outbreak in China in December 2019. Now, the virus has spread all over the world and infected most of the countries on the planet. The virus is not systematically deadly. Most of the people that get infected with Coronavirus recover. Old people and people with previous medical records are the most vulnerable to the virus.

  Coronavirus is a type of virus. A virus is very small, too small to be seen by the human eye. It needs a living host to survive (human, animal). This means that the COVID-19 disease cannot be contracted by eating food, being in contact with dirt, or drinking unsafe water – these are not living elements. Domestic animals can get infected with the virus but it is very unlikely that they transmit the virus to human beings. The disease causes respiratory illness (like the flu) with symptoms such as dry cough, fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty breathing.

Part 2 – What is stress? (10 minutes)

• All the participants are seated maintaining minimum social distance where they can all see each other.
• Describe them the following situation: A woman/man (according to the participants’ gender) is facing a lot of pressure recently. He/she has just moved in a new location, and needs to make new friends, discover his/her new environment, meet his/her new neighbors and learn to be comfortable with his/her new house. He/she also has a lot to do for his/her family, like house tasks, taking care of the children, or pressure from his/her job.
• Ask the participants: How do you think this person is feeling? What is it called? If the participants do not find the correct answer, tell them it is called ‘stress’.

• Give the following definition of stress to the participants: When we are stressed, we can feel tension or pressure, usually because of challenges and uncertainties we face. When we face situations where we feel pressure, our body and mind sometimes behave differently. People may feel, think, or behave differently from how they normally feel.
• Ask the participants to discuss which parts of the body can be affected by stress. After hearing their answers, explain- stress can affect us both physically and mentally.
• Difficulty to concentrate, forgetfulness, difficulty in making decisions, irritation, moodiness, yelling, crying, pounding heart, heartache, stomach ache, etc. are the symptoms of stress.

Part-3: How is stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic? (10 minutes)

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic may be stressful for people. Fear and anxiety about a new disease and what could happen can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions in adults and children. Public health preventive actions, such as social distancing, lockdown, quarantine, can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety. However, these actions are necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19. As such, it is natural for us to worry about our present and future which can cause mental stress. Also, many rumor and misperceptions are circulating at the camp level which impacts on our both physical and mental health.

Some research evidence even suggests that these symptoms of stress could persist for long-term and harm an individual’s overall health if not it is managed well from the beginning. Therefore, if any of us feel anxious or very stressed, it is important to address our feelings and find healthy ways of managing stress and anxiety during the coronavirus outbreak.

 

Part 3 –Managing stress (20 minutes)

• Discuss all together: what can we do when we experiment stress? How can we deal with it? What tips can we give to each other?
• Explain: There are many different ways to manage stress, and everyone needs to find ways that work best for them. We will learn today several techniques but you may discover other techniques that will work better for you in the future.
• Here is a list of stress management techniques. As a facilitator, you should also refer to what the participants said in the discussion before, acknowledging when one of the techniques from the list had already been mentioned by someone before.

After presenting each technique, ask the participants to try by themselves.

• Take a deep breath. Stress can make us breathe lightly, and this can cause more stress! Try taking a minute to slow down and breathe deeply.
• Talk about it: Keeping feelings inside can make you even more stressed. Sharing your feelings with someone you trust can help you see your problem in a new way.
• Take a “minute” break. Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine a place where you feel relaxed and comfortable. Notice all the details of your chosen place, including nice sounds and smells. Let’s do that now! Close your eyes and imagine a place that you love and makes you happy!
• Do physical exercises. Remove the pressure through exercise or physical activity. This can be anything from playing a game with friends to doing some regular physical sport that you like. Let’s try now! Let’s jump up and down and release some pressure!
• Laugh: It is important to be able to laugh. Share jokes and funny stories with your friends. Laughter is good for you! Let’s try that now! After I count to three, let’s all have a big laugh!
• Look for the good things around you. It is easy to only see bad things when you are stressed. So, try to think about the enjoyable things around you or the people that make you happy. Let’s try that now! Look around the room – is there anything or anyone in this room that makes you happy?

• Discuss with the participants: Which techniques do you like the most? Which techniques do you think that you can use in the future? Which techniques do you want to share with your friends and family after this activity?

Part 4 – Stress releasing techniques

• Show the “Stress Release (Fast)- Anxiety Reduction Technique” video from the media center of the Ideas Cube
• Ask everyone to do it following the instructions. Translate the video by taking pauses.
• After watching the video, explain how they can do the exercise at home without the video. As no other material/tool was used for doing simple exercise like this, they can easily do it at home.
• Now Show the “RELAX AND BREATHE: Do Nothing for 10 Minutes” video from the media center of the Ideas Cube
• Ask the participants to follow the steps the instructor is doing: inhale and exhale at the rhythm suggested by the visual of the video.
• After completing, ask them how they feel (encourage them to speak up)

Conclusion (5 minutes)

• Thank the participants for their involvement and concentration during the session.
• Conclude the activity with a summary of what we learned today: Stress can be caused by many different situations in our everyday life including the coronavirus outbreak. There are many signs, physical and mental, we can look for to know if we are stressed or not. Today we learned many different techniques to manage our stress and to slowly remove it (ask each participant to say one technique learned today, they cannot say twice the same).
• Explain to the participants: If everybody applies the basic protection measures, it will contribute to slow down the infection spread and help to eradicate the Coronavirus. I strongly encourage all of you to adopt the protection measures daily and share them with your family and close relatives.
• Ask everybody to wash or disinfect their hands before leaving the session